aime danita: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Exclusive: PE firm eyes buyout for Yahoo's U.S. business (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Thomas H. Lee Partners is interested in buying the U.S. operations of Yahoo Inc, breaking away from other bidders that are for now eyeing either a minority stake or teaming up with the Internet giant's partners in Asia, sources familiar with the matter said.

THL is hoping to do a leveraged buyout of Yahoo's U.S. business - which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion - and draw on its experience running other media assets such as Nielsen Co, Clear Channel and Univision to turn around the ailing company, the sources said.

In taking this approach, THL is charting a different path than other private equity firms such as Silver Lake, KKR and TPG, which are expected to put in bids for a stake of up to 20 percent in the company on Monday, sources said.

Microsoft Corp is helping to finance a possible Silver Lake investment in Yahoo, which has a market value of about $19 billion, the sources said.

Yahoo's board is expected to meet on Tuesday to assess the possibility of a minority investment, the sources said.

Another group of firms, including Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman, is in talks to team up with China's Alibaba Group and Japan's Softbank Corp, the sources said.

Any deal for Yahoo is still some time away. But THL's interest adds yet another twist in the behind-the-scenes maneuvering as bidders jockey for the best position to eventually forge a deal for Yahoo, betting they can turn around the company's fortunes with better management.

The Internet pioneer has seen growth stagnate in recent years due to competition from the likes of Google Inc and Facebook, and is currently without a permanent CEO as it tries to regain relevance in the new dot-com era.

Yahoo's board fired CEO Carol Bartz in September and started the strategic review, which has been complicated by the different agendas of players with a say in the situation, including its Asian partners, co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, the board and shareholders.

Yahoo, THL, Microsoft, Blackstone, KKR and Silver Lake declined to comment. The other private equity firms were not immediately available for comment.

PIPE DEAL

Several other parties including THL are expected to sign confidentiality agreements later this week which would give them access to Yahoo's financial information, the sources said.

TPG, KKR, Silver Lake and Microsoft have already signed confidentiality agreements with Yahoo over the last few weeks allowing them to prepare offers for a minority investment in Yahoo.

Their investment could come in the form of a private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction. PIPE investors typically get stock at a discount to the public market valuation, so price could prove to be a sticking point in a deal, especially when the board might have other options before it, the sources said.

The board "is going to make decisions on how to pursue a PIPE deal," one of the sources said, adding that the company and the suitors had different value expectations.

Keeping the initial investment below 20 percent would allow Yahoo to avoid putting the proposal up for a shareholder vote. "Yahoo has to decide whether they need to cram it down shareholders' throats," the source said.

Several private equity firms are taking the minority investment route with the idea that they could then team up with Yang and Filo, who together own another 9.5 percent of the Internet company, Reuters has previously reported.

That combined stake could further be raised by a large share buyback financed with debt, giving the owners a blocking position in the company and giving them a prime spot for a leveraged buyout sometime in the future.

However, Yahoo's board would have to pursue all possible options as part of the strategic review, the source said.

That means the company will need to see offers by firms in the others' camps as well.

(Reporting by Nadia Damouni; Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Gary Hill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111129/wr_nm/us_yahoo

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Senators challenge White House on terror suspects (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The top lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday defended their approach to handling suspected terrorists in a sweeping defense bill, rejecting White House criticism and the threat of a presidential veto.

In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Democrat Carl Levin and Republican John McCain complained about a basic misunderstanding about the provision of the bill requiring military custody rather than civilian for a captured terror suspect. They argued that the bill includes a waiver that allows the administration to decide a suspect's fate as well as who should be covered by the requirement.

"Its provisions on detainees represent a careful, bipartisan effort to provide the executive branch the clear authority, tools and flexibility of action it needs to defend us against the threat posed by al-Qaida," the two senators wrote.

Not so, counters the White House and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who argue that the bill would limit the administration as it tries to act quickly in the war on terror.

"This unnecessary, untested and legally controversial restriction of the president's authority to defend the nation from terrorist threats would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

The provision would require military custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. Not only has it drawn a veto threat, but it has divided senior Senate Democrats, pitting Levin against leaders of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

The Senate planned to resume work on the massive defense bill on Monday with disputes looming over the military custody provision and others limiting the administration's authority to transfer detainees.

Levin, D-Mich., and Arizona's McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, wrote that it would be tragic if the misunderstandings over the bill on detainee policy scuttled the legislation.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_defense_bill

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In the heart of Cygnus, NASA's Fermi reveals a cosmic-ray cocoon

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2011) ? The constellation Cygnus, now visible in the western sky as twilight deepens after sunset, hosts one of our galaxy's richest-known stellar construction zones. Astronomers viewing the region at visible wavelengths see only hints of this spectacular activity thanks to a veil of nearby dust clouds forming the Great Rift, a dark lane that splits the Milky Way, a faint band of light marking our galaxy's central plane.

Located in the vicinity of the second-magnitude star Gamma Cygni, the star-forming region was named Cygnus X when it was discovered as a diffuse radio source by surveys in the 1950s. Now, a study using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope finds that the tumult of star birth and death in Cygnus X has managed to corral fast-moving particles called cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are subatomic particles -- mainly protons -- that move through space at nearly the speed of light. In their journey across the galaxy, the particles are deflected by magnetic fields, which scramble their paths and make it impossible to backtrack the particles to their sources.

Yet when cosmic rays collide with interstellar gas, they produce gamma rays -- the most energetic and penetrating form of light -- that travel to us straight from the source. By tracing gamma-ray signals throughout the galaxy, Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) is helping astronomers understand the sources of cosmic rays and how they're accelerated to such high speeds. In fact, this is one of the mission's key goals.

The galaxy's best candidate sites for cosmic-ray acceleration are the rapidly expanding shells of ionized gas and magnetic field associated with supernova explosions. For stars, mass is destiny, and the most massive ones -- known as types O and B -- live fast and die young.

They're also relatively rare because such extreme stars, with masses more than 40 times that of our sun and surface temperatures eight times hotter, exert tremendous influence on their surroundings. With intense ultraviolet radiation and powerful outflows known as stellar winds, the most massive stars rapidly disperse their natal gas clouds, naturally limiting the number of massive stars in any given region.

Which brings us back to Cygnus X. Located about 4,500 light-years away, this star factory is believed to contain enough raw material to make two million stars like our sun. Within it are many young star clusters and several sprawling groups of related O- and B-type stars, called OB associations. One, called Cygnus OB2, contains 65 O stars -- the most massive, luminous and hottest type -- and nearly 500 B stars.

Astronomers estimate that the association's total stellar mass is 30,000 times that of our sun, making Cygnus OB2 the largest object of its type within 6,500 light-years. And with ages of less than 5 million years, few of its most massive stars have lived long enough to exhaust their fuel and explode as supernovae.

Intense light and outflows from the monster stars in Cygnus OB2 and from several other nearby associations and star clusters have excavated vast amounts of gas from their vicinities. The stars reside within cavities filled with hot, thin gas surrounded by ridges of cool, dense gas where stars are now forming. It's within the hollowed-out zones that Fermi's LAT detects intense gamma-ray emission, according to a paper describing the findings that was published in the Nov. 25 edition of the journal Science.

"We are seeing young cosmic rays, with energies comparable to those produced by the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth. They have just started their galactic voyage, zig-zagging away from their accelerator and producing gamma rays when striking gas or starlight in the cavities," said co-author Luigi Tibaldo, a physicist at Padova University and the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics.

The energy of the gamma-ray emission, which is measured up to 100 billion electron volts by the LAT and even higher by ground-based gamma-ray detectors, indicates the extreme nature of the accelerated particles. (For comparison, the energy of visible light is between 2 and 3 electron volts.) The environment holds onto its cosmic rays despite their high energies by entangling them in turbulent magnetic fields created by the combined outflows of the region's numerous high-mass stars.

"These shockwaves stir the gas and twist and tangle the magnetic field in a cosmic-scale jacuzzi so the young cosmic rays, freshly ejected from their accelerators, remain trapped in this turmoil until they can leak into quieter interstellar regions, where they can stream more freely," said co-author Isabelle Grenier, an astrophysicist at Paris Diderot University and the Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay, France.

The well known Gamma Cygni supernova remnant -- so named for its proximity to the star -- also lies within this region; astronomers estimate its age at about 7,000 years. The Fermi team considers it possible that the supernova remnant spawned the cosmic rays trapped in the Cygnus X "cocoon," but they also suggest an alternative scenario where the particles became accelerated through repeated interaction with shockwaves produced inside the cocoon by powerful stellar winds.

"Whether the particles further gain or lose energy inside this cocoon needs to be investigated, but its existence shows that cosmic-ray history is much more eventful than a random walk away from their sources," Tibaldo added.

Fermi is providing a never-before-seen glimpse of the early life of cosmic rays, long before they diffuse into the galaxy at large. Astronomers know of a dozen stellar clusters at least as young and rich as Cygnus OB2, including the Arches and Quintuplet clusters near the galaxy's center. Energetic gamma rays are detected in the vicinity of several of them, so perhaps they also corral cosmic rays in their own high-energy cocoons.

NASA's Fermi is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

The Fermi LAT Collaboration et al. Fermi Detection of a Luminous ?-Ray Pulsar in a Globular Cluster. Science, 2011; 334 (6059): 1107 DOI: 10.1126/science.1207141

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111128174526.htm

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Physicist Uses Laser Light As Fast, True-Random Number Generator

claims to be exploiting quantum effects in the P-N junctions to be a true RNG

Thats a wee bit of the wordy mumbo jumbo, like talking about the "maxwellian equation emitter controlled by polarization rotation human interface unit" I'm using to read this, instead of calling it a freaking monitor. Just call it a zener diode and be done with it. The Zener story is bizarre and this doesn't help. Clarence M. Zener came up with the theory for his diodes in the 30s, although they couldn't be built until the 50s when they thought it would be cool to name the diode after him, or maybe his physics equation, or both. Strange but true fact is that a "zener" diode operating below 5 volts uses the actual physics Zener effect and a "zener" diode operating above 5 volts uses the physics avalanche effect, which the Entropy Key claims to use.

Note that USB does not provide more than 5 volts and a reasonable current limiter means its gonna be operating well into zener-land.

So, A dude named Zener, invented Zener physics, leading to the theory of zener diodes, then someone else built one 20 years later and named it after him, and the key markets itself as using the closely related avalanche effect, but because only 5 volts is available without some sort of voltage multiplier or boost switching regulator, its probably actually using the low voltage Zener effect, regardless of the effect, devices using avalanche or zener effect are always marketed as zener diodes commercially, so I'm sure there is a Zener on the board. Which doesn't matter in the end, because zener noise is just as good as avalanche noise for crypto, as far as I know. In fact zener is probably better, less temperature dependence. Talk about abuse of proper nouns and trademarks... kinda like my Xerox machine at home was manufactured by Brother.

This stuff is all from memory, I hope I didn't swap Zener and Avalanche effects, although either way its still a heck of a story.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/cmonDuKIx-k/physicist-uses-laser-light-as-fast-true-random-number-generator

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Video: Allison Asks Suze

Allison's husband's business failed and she feels that she is carrying the weight. She wants to know how long she should let this go on before he should quit his dream of running his own business.

Newton, Panthers keep Colts winless, 27-19

NASCAR series champion Tony Stewart waves to fans during the second quarter of an NFL football game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Carolina Panthers in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Stewart is a native of Columbus, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Curtis Painter (7) is hit by Carolina Panthers strong safety Charles Godfrey during the first quarter of an NFL football game in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Painter fumbled on the play but the Colts recovered. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Indianapolis Colts middle linebacker Pat Angerer (51) looks to recover a fumble by Carolina Panthers tight end Jeremy Shockey, left, during the third quarter of an NFL football game in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. The Colts recovered the fumble. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams (34) scores a touchdown in front of Indianapolis Colts strong safety David Caldwell, left, and free safety Antoine Bethea during the third quarter of an NFL football game in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Indianapolis Colts free safety Antoine Bethea, left, and cornerback Kevin Thomas, center, try to tackle Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart during the third quarter of an NFL football game in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? The Carolina Panthers finally found somewhere they could pull out a victory on the road: Indianapolis, home of the winless Colts.

DeAngelo Williams ran for two touchdowns and Cam Newton added another, leading the Panthers to a 27-19 win Sunday, their first outside of Charlotte, N.C., in nearly two years.

"This is something we can build off of, use as a springboard as we go forward," coach Ron Rivera said. "It's not where you are now ? it's where you're headed."

The Panthers (3-8) last won on the road Dec. 27, 2009, beating the New York Giants 41-9.

Williams rushed 15 times for 69 yards. Jonathan Stewart ran 10 times for 70 yards, and Newton finished with nine carries for 53 yards. The Panthers piled up a season-high 201 yards rushing, averaging 5.7 yards per carry and controlling the ball for more than 36 minutes.

It was just what the Panthers needed after blowing a double-digit lead at Detroit last weekend.

"Looking at records, we didn't want to put our guard down," Newton said. "I'm proud of this team, how we kept battling."

Indy is 0-11 for the first time since 1986. The Colts produced just 1 yard in the first quarter, drawing boos from a near-capacity crowd, and had only 142 total yards entering the third quarter.

But it was a far better performance than what the fans had seen.

After losing their last four games by a combined 137-27, the Colts finally scored an offensive touchdown early in the second period, ending a nine-quarter drought. Dwight Freeney recorded his first sack since Oct. 9, and, in the final minutes, Indy had two chances to force overtime. Both ended with interceptions in the end zone.

"At least we put ourselves in position to win it in the second half," said Curtis Painter, who was 15 of 29 for 226 yards with one TD and the two interceptions. "But we were in it. We had a shot at the end, just came up a little short."

Newton was 20 of 27 for 208 yards, and Steve Smith caught three passes for 68 to top the 1,000-yard mark. But the Panthers wore down Indy's defense with run after run.

In the final quarter, the Panthers kept giving themselves what seemed like a comfortable cushion against the NFL's lone winless team only for the Colts to rally.

Williams scored his second touchdown early in the fourth to make it 24-13. Painter then hooked up with Reggie Wayne, who slipped a tackle in the middle of the field, turned left and sprinted into the end zone for a 56-yard TD. The 2-point conversion pass failed, making it 24-19.

Carolina answered with Kealoha Pilares' 81-yard kickoff return, which led to a 41-yard field goal.

Painter, however, got the Colts back into scoring position before Chris Gamble picked off an underthrown ball in the end zone, right in front of Pierre Garcon.

It still wasn't over.

The Colts forced a punt, and Painter got Indy back inside the Carolina 5 with about a minute to go. But when Austin Collie couldn't hang onto Painter's pass, Sherrod Martin snagged it out of the air and toe-tapped the end line for an interception to finally give Carolina the rare road victory.

"In light of what happened the first half of the season, how close we had come and not gotten it done, we came in at the half, we talked about what we had to do when we came out," Rivera said. "And we did it."

The Panthers jumped to a 10-0 lead thanks to Olindo Mare's 40-yard field goal and Newton's dancing 14-yard run into the end zone.

Donald Brown answered with a 17-yard scoring burst for the Colts, and Adam Vinatieri tied the score at 10 with a 31-yard field goal late in the first half.

Carolina broke the tie with a nifty 25-yard run from Williams, who sidestepped one defender in the middle of the field, cut right and outran the Colts defense for the score.

Notes: Peyton Manning joined former receiver Marvin Harrison during the induction ceremony into the Colts' Ring of Honor. ... Indy also honored three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart during the break for the two-minute warning at the end of the first half. ... Colts defensive back Stevie Brown injured his quadriceps in the first half and fullback Ryan Mahaffey left in the third quarter with a concussion. ...Pilares had a long punt return called back in the first half because of an illegal block. ... Newton has now rushed for 10 TDs this season. Only two quarterbacks have ever had more ? Kordell Stewart (11) with Pittsburgh in 1997 and Steve Grogan (12) with New England in 1976.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-27-Panthers-Colts/id-016feb8679ab45229482438606a7a2d7

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Black Friday online sales jump 26 percent: comScore (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Online retail sales in the United States on the post-Thanksgiving shopping day known as "Black Friday" jumped 26 percent this year, led by Amazon.com Inc, comScore said on Sunday.

Black Friday online sales reached $816 million, making it the heaviest spending day on the Internet so far in 2011, according to comScore, a closely watched tracker of Internet activity.

Year-over-year growth on Black Friday in 2010 was 9 percent, so this year's 26 percent sales increase online was much stronger, the firm also noted.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers offered big Black Friday discounts much earlier this year and some companies opened stores late on Thanksgiving for the first time, hoping to grab more of the action on what is a crucial shopping day for the industry.

That sparked some speculation that online retailers may lose some sales, but comScore said that did not happen.

"With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.

Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, representing an increase of 35 percent versus a year ago, comScore data showed.

Each of the top five retail websites saw double-digit gains in visitors versus last year, led by Amazon.com. Wal-Mart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple, comScore said.

"Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year," Fulgoni said.

Fulgoni forecast another record for online sales on Cyber Monday, which is traditionally the first day after Thanksgiving when employees return to offices and purchase items with their work computers.

Last year, Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion, making it the heaviest day of online spending ever, according to comScore.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Dale Hudson)

(This story was refiled to fix the spelling of comScore throughout)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wr_nm/us_blackfriday_comscore

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Syria sanctioned and condemned for "brutality" (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Syria faced growing economic sanctions and condemnation over "gross human rights violations" on Monday, but President Bashar al-Assad showed no sign of buckling under international pressure to end his military crackdown on popular unrest.

State television broadcast pro-Assad rallies "supporting national unity and rejecting foreign interference," after the Arab League imposed sanctions on Sunday.

The European Union weighed in one day later, further tightening the financial screws on Damascus for its "brutality and unwillingness to change course."

Assad's foreign minister Walid al-Moualem hit back, lambasting the Arab League for "a declaration of economic war" that he said had closed the door to resolving the crisis.

"Sanctions are a two-way street," Moualem told a televised news conference. "I am not warning here, but we will defend the interests of our people ...."

In Geneva, a United Nations commission of inquiry said Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape, for which Assad and his government bore direct responsibility.

It demanded an end to "gross human rights violations" and the release of those rounded up in mass arrests since March by Syrian forces quashing pro-democracy demonstrations.

Over 3,500 people were killed in 8 months, the UN says.

Syria's close trading partners Lebanon and Iraq rejected the Arab League measures, whose economic impact could be less severe than intended, analysts said.

"We do not agree with these sanctions and we will not go along with them," said Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

The Arab League meanwhile appealed once more to Damascus, offering "a review of all of the measures" if Syria dropped its opposition to an Arab plan to end the crackdown.

Anti-Assad activists in Syria said on Sunday that security forces had killed at least 24 civilians, many in a town north of Damascus that has become a focus for the protests. Others were killed in raids on towns in the province of Homs, they said.

In an apparent political concession, which protesters have been demanding for months, Moualem said Syria planned to drop a constitutional clause which designates Assad's Baath Party as the leading party.

The revised constitution foresees "multi-party" politics with "no place for discrimination between parties," he said.

FIGHTING BACK

The Arab League sanctions hit banking, finance, investment and official travel but stop short of a full trade embargo.

"The sanctions are still economic but if there is no movement on the part of Syria then we have a responsibility as human beings to stop the killings," said Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar, the League's point man on Syria.

"Power is not worth anything when a ruler kills his people."

The president of the Union of Arab Banks, a division of the Arab League, said the sanctions would hit Syria's central bank, which has "big deposits" in the region, especially the Gulf.

Moualem said 95 percent of the targeted money had already been withdrawn beyond the reach of sanctions.

Along with peaceful protests, some of Assad's opponents are fighting back. Army defectors are grouped loosely under the banner of a Syrian Free Army and more insurgent attacks on loyalist troops have been reported in the last few weeks.

Arab nations wanted to avert a repeat of what happened in Libya, where a U.N. Security Council resolution led to NATO air strikes. Sheikh Hamad warned fellow Arabs that the West could intervene in Syria if it felt the League was not serious.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Arab League sanctions demonstrate that "the regime's repeated failure to deliver on its promises will not be ignored."

France said it wanted Syria's powerful and critical neighbor Turkey to join an EU foreign ministers' conference to discuss further measures. Paris has proposed a secure humanitarian corridor linking Syria to Turkey.

One Western diplomat said Assad could, for now, count on support from China and Russia at the United Nations. But they may change position if he intensifies the crackdown and if the Arab League campaigns for international intervention.

China and Russia have oil concessions in Syria. Moscow also has a naval repair base on Syria's Mediterranean coast and announced on Monday that it was sending warships there, in an apparent display of determination to defend its interests.

"The sanctions are likely to lose Assad support among those in Syria who have been waiting to see whether he will be able to turn things around, such as merchants who could now see their businesses take more hits," the diplomat said.

Syrian officials blame the violence on armed groups targeting civilians. Government security forces say 1,100 of their members have been killed.

Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, said in an interview this month that he would continue the crackdown and blamed the unrest on outside pressure to "subjugate Syria."

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Khaled Oweis in Amman, David Brunnstrom and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_syria

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The Next President of the United States

I think the real tragedy in our nation is that we're forever doomed to choose between the lesser of the two evils. We're essentially deciding on a party, not a candidate.

It's the most polarizing thing in our country; the parties play us against each other, using the media as their tools, and leave us blinded to the truth. These wealthy organizations are shameless and incapable of real compromise. The parties and the media discovered long ago that we, as a society, are far more interested in information than we are in truth. We'll follow an opinion or an asserted conclusion like lemmings off a cliff if it brings with it the promise of prosperity, or if it threatens our way of life (especially when it comes to our money). That's why they focus only on tearing down candidates of their rival party instead of campaigning on any idea that has substance or merit.

As a colleague of mine likes to say, "The days of 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' are well behind us". I offer Ross Perot as evidence. That's tragic, and I fear it will be our demise.

Source: http://www.militarytimes.com/forum/showthread.php?1591476-The-Next-President-of-the-United-States&goto=newpost

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Sales of new homes up in October, but prices fall

This Oct. 18, 2011 photo, shows new home construction in a development in Canonsburg, Pa. Americans bought slightly more new homes in October, but the median sales price fell to its lowest level this year. The mixed report suggests the nation's housing market is a long way from recovering. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

In this Nov. 22, 2011 photo, construction worker Will Capper heads to work on a new house in Palo Alto, Calif. Americans bought slightly more new homes in October, but the median sales price fell to its lowest level this year. The mixed report suggests the nation's housing market is a long way from recovering. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Americans bought slightly more new homes in October, a hopeful sign for the troubled housing market. But the median sales price fell to its lowest level of the year, and the overall sales pace is trailing last year's ? the worst in half a century.

The report suggests housing continues to drag on the U.S. economy and is a long way from recovering.

New-home sales increased 1.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 307,000, the Commerce Department said Monday. That's less than half the 700,000 that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

September's figures were also revised down significantly to show a weaker pace than first estimated.

Last year's 323,000 new homes sold were the fewest since the government began keeping records in 1963. This year isn't faring much better.

While new homes sales represent a fraction of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Many builders have stopped working on new projects because they can't obtain financing. The number of new homes for sale in the United States fell in October to a record low of 162,000.

They are also struggling to compete against cheaper re-sales, even as they lower their own prices. The median sales price of a new home fell 0.4 percent in October from September, to $212,300.

Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics, said the small number of new homes for sale should help the housing market recover quicker when prices begin to rise. But he said: "A sustained rebound in new home sales appears unlikely."

For many Americans, buying a home is too big a risk more than four years after the housing bubble burst.

Home prices have tumbled, the job market remains weak and unemployment has been stuck near 9 percent for more two years. Some people who want to buy can't qualify for a loan or make the higher down payments that banks are demanding.

Sales are slumping even though mortgage rates are hovering above historic lows.

Yet sales of previously owned homes are also dismal. They rose slightly last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million units, the National Association of Realtors said last week. That's below the 6 million that economists say is consistent with sales in a healthy market and barely ahead of last year's totals, which were the fewest since 1997.

In October, sales were uneven across the country. They increased 22.2 percent in the Midwest and 14.9 percent in the West. But they were unchanged in the Northeast and fell 9.5 percent in the South.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-28-New%20Home%20Sales/id-41857bd46b4f4cbca5af6d6ca38e483a

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Temporarily Paying More for Insurance Policies in ILITs

? ALI on the Rule Against Perpetuitites | Main

November 26, 2011

Temporarily Paying More for Insurance Policies in ILITs

Unknown-2 Many wealthy families have created irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) where the trust owns the insurance policy as opposed to the retiree. The premiums are funded by regular gifts to the trust and this method shields heirs from the federal estate tax. Now that Congress has lifted the gift tax exemption to $5 million from $1 million, many people are carrying up to $4 million more than what they may need in life insurance and paying more in premiums than they need to be.?

Insurance advisors do not recommend winding down the ILIT because the gift tax could easily go back up in 2012. Advisors do recommend to regularly review the insurance in ILITs and sell it for something more appropriate if necessary.

See Scott Martin, Trust Advisors Flocking to Life Settlements for ILITs, Other Trusts, The Trust Advisor Blog, May 22, 2011.?

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this article to my attention.

November 26, 2011 in Estate Tax, Gift Tax, Trusts | Permalink

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Monday, November 28, 2011

Best Buy comes to its senses, remembers that the Nexus Prime is the Galaxy Nexus

Seriously, folks, you didn't actually think there was some other version of the Galaxy Nexus that was to be released as the Nexus Prime, did you? Best Buy's issued a correction about the December Buyer's Guide and, sure enough, the world has returned to normal and the Galaxy Nexus is the Galaxy Nexus, not the Samsung Nexus Prime 4G LTE.

Thanks, J!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/3IbIhhKx1Ic/story01.htm

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After centuries, Bethlehem church to get new roof (AP)

BETHLEHEM, West Bank ? Preparations for a long-needed renovation of the 1,500-year-old Church of the Nativity are moving ahead in Bethlehem, the town of Jesus' birth, in the face of political and religious conflicts that have kept one of Christendom's holiest sites in a state of decay for centuries.

The first and most urgent part of the renovation, initiated by the Palestinian government in the West Bank, is meant to replace the building's roof. Ancient wooden beams pose a danger to visitors, officials say, and leaks have already ruined many of the church's priceless mosaics and paintings.

If the repairs go ahead as planned next year, it will be the first time the crumbling basilica has seen major renovation work in more than a century and a half.

Altering a building like the Church of the Nativity, built 1,500 years ago on the site of a church 200 years older than that, is never a simple affair. The building is shared by three Christian sects ? Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Armenians ? who have traditionally viewed each other with suspicion and are wary of upsetting the brittle status quo that governs the site.

To repair a part of the church is to own it, according to accepted practice, meaning that letting other sects undertake renovations or pay for them could allow one to gain ground at another's expense.

The resulting paralysis and disrepair has been a recurring theme at the church.

"In the roof the timbers which were constructed in ancient times are rotting, and this structure is falling daily into ruin," wrote one visitor. That was in 1461.

Some measure of the complications involved in a renovation of this type can be found in the Nativity's similarly ancient and fractious sister church, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. When a 1927 earthquake badly damaged that building, it took the rival sects more than three decades to agree to major repairs and another three to complete them.

Today, the increasingly dire state of the Nativity's roof and the intervention of an external player in the form of the Palestinian Authority ? which has circumvented the old rivalries and allowed all to save face ? has led the three churches to agree to a renovation to be arranged and funded by the Palestinian government and international donors.

The Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government that wields limited control in the West Bank under Israel's overall control, sees the church as its premier tourist attraction, with 2 million foreign visitors last year.

The PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are eager to win recognition for the basilica from UNESCO as a world heritage site, but an earlier application was not accepted because UNESCO did not consider the Palestinian government a state. That changed last month, when, in a controversial decision that triggered a funding cutoff by the United States, the U.N.'s cultural arm decided to grant recognition.

The Palestinians are now hoping their application will be approved. The renovation is motivated, in part, by a desire on their part to prove they are responsible stewards of sites of global importance.

"Our president has issued a decree to restore the roof and to prepare for the restoration of the church on behalf of the three churches and in coordination with the three churches, which obviously cannot do it on their own," said Khouloud Daibes, the Palestinian tourism minister.

A high-tech survey by experts from Canada, Italy and elsewhere ended earlier this year. Palestinian officials hope the three churches will sign off on the plans and that the renovation itself will begin in 2012. It is expected to cost between $10 and $15 million.

The roof is in such poor condition that there is a "risk of collapsing beams within the wooden structure which could hurt people inside the church," said Issam Juha of the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, one of the official Palestinian bodies in charge of the UNESCO application.

"We recognize that this is a necessity that goes beyond our different claims, and that this has to be done," said Father Athanasius, the Roman Catholic clergyman in charge of relations with other sects at shared sites in the Holy Land.

Archbishop Aris Shirvanian of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem said his church supported the plan, along with the other churches. A Greek Orthodox representative did not respond to requests for comment.

To someone standing on the worn marble floors of the basilica amid cassocked monks and busloads of tourists and looking upward, the roof appears as an aging latticework of wooden beams, some of them visibly warped.

The roof was first built, along with the rest of the basilica, by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 6th century A.D. following the destruction of the original church built on the site of the grotto where Jesus was believed to have been born. Some of Justinian's massive wooden beams are still in use.

In 1480, with Bethlehem under Muslim rule and the roof disintegrating, permission was granted to replace it. Philip, Duke of Burgundy, sent craftsmen, wood and iron. King Edward IV of England sent lead, and the Doge of Venice provided ships. Major work was carried out again two centuries later.

When the British controlled the Holy Land between 1917 and 1948, they recognized the urgency of replacing the roof but simply could not navigate the explosive rivalries between the sects in the church, traditionally backed by powers like France and Russia.

In the mid-1800s the tensions had become so fierce that Russian Czar Nicholas I actually deployed troops along the Danube to threaten a Turkish sultan who had been favoring the Catholics over the Orthodox.

The British managed only small repairs. The same went for the Jordanians, who ruled Bethlehem from 1948 to 1967, and for the Israelis, who captured the West Bank from the Jordanians and turned the city over to the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s.

A UNESCO report in 1997 found that because of water leaking from the roof, most of the mosaics and paintings, some dating from Byzantine times, had been "damaged beyond repair."

In the similar case of the renovation of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the sects put aside their differences only when they realized that their holy building was in danger of collapse, said Raymond Cohen of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an international relations professor who wrote a book about that renovation project. There was also a measure of judicious outside intervention by a Jordanian official at the right time, he said.

Something similar appears to have happened here.

"The paradox is that everyone needs to repair it, but they can't agree," Cohen said. "When the place is about to fall down, it focusses the mind."

___

Follow Matti Friedman at http://www.twitter.com/MattiFriedman

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_ancient_church

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

November 26, 2011

Temporarily Paying More for Insurance Policies in ILITs

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Monday, November 28, 2011