2012年4月27日星期五

The comptroller said Amazon representatives contacted her office a few weeks ago

Amazon.com will start collecting sales taxes on all online purchases made in Texas beginning July 1 under an agreement that settles a dispute with the state. Comptroller Susan Combs said the terms address Louis Vuitton shoes, cheap louis vuitton sunglasses sale, 60% off a long-standing complaint by businesses that the online leviathan gets an unfair advantage by not having to assess the tax. She said Texas loses perhaps $600 million a year in potential revenue to Internet sales from all sources. The deal announced Friday, Combs said, will "level the playing field" with the Web's biggest retailer. Seattle-based Amazon agreed not only to start collecting sales taxes but also to create at least 2,500 new jobs in Texas over the next four years and make at least $200 million in capital investments in the state. It was seventh voluntary tax-collection agreement Amazon has reached with a state. The others go into effect between this year and 2016. In addition, Combs said her office has been working with the Texas congressional delegation about a possible national solution. She predicted federal legislation to address the sales-tax issue for online retailers is forthcoming. "I think there is a momentum growing for this," she said. Amazon said it hopes to work with Combs "to advance federal legislation." "We strongly support the creation of a simplified and equitable federal framework, because Congressional action will protect states' rights, level the playing field for all sellers, and give states like Texas the ability to obtain all the sales tax revenue that is already due," Amazon louis vuitton scarves Vice President of Global Public Policy Paul Misener said in a joint statement. More than a year ago, Combs demanded Amazon pay $269 million in back sales taxes because a subsidiary operated a warehouse near Dallas. Companies with a physical presence in the state are legally required to collect and remit the taxes. Amazon responded by closing the warehouse. In a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it still does not believe it is liable for uncollected Texas sales taxes between 2005 and 2009. Regardless, this agreement settles the dispute. The agreement was welcomed by the Alliance For Main Street Fairness. "For too long, Amazon has exploited a loophole that has hurt brick-and-mortar employers in the Lone Star State," the business group said in a statement, "but with this agreement, a level playing field has finally been established." Combs said other retailers, such as Barnes & Noble and Cabela's, that have both a Web and physical presence in Texas already collect sales taxes. She said she is not aware of any other companies currently being targeted for uncollected taxes. Desirable state The comptroller said Amazon representatives contacted her office a few weeks ago and asked for a meeting, which took place about 10 days ago. Final details were completed Thursday night, she said, adding that Amazon's willingness to seek a deal shows the company finds Texas a good place to do business. An Amazon representative did not say where the new jobs would be added. But Combs said the Port of Houston should put this area among those under consideration for, say, a distribution center. Combs also said consumers who will start paying more for Amazon products come July 1 should keep in mind that this change was designed to help their "friends and neighbors" who own businesses and "show up at the football games on Friday night." Besides, Combs noted, customers already are Louis vuitton for women shoes 2012 new arrival on sale black technically required to report and pay the sales tax on Internet purchases - a widely disregarded and difficult-to-enforce law.

2012年4月26日星期四

Garrison in 2007 pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter

Former "Prison Break" star Lane Garrison was charged on Thursday with misdemeanor battery against his ex-girlfriend, which could violate his parole over a conviction louis vuitton shoes for vehicular manslaughter. Since his arrest on Sunday, Garrison, 31, has been held in jail without bail. His probation for the 2007 manslaughter conviction was set to expire in one week, his attorney said. Security cameras at his ex-girlfriend's Beverly Hills apartment show a dispute on Saturday between Garrison and Ashley Mattingly in the lobby of the building. Garrison struck Mattingly as the two were leaving an elevator, said Los Angeles deputy district attorney Elizabeth Marks. Witnesses approached the pair, and he fled the building, prosecutors said. Video of the dispute was posted on celebrity website louis vuitton set TMZ.com. Garrison's Los Angeles attorney, Harland Braun, said the two were "in the process of breaking up" and were arguing over messages on their cell phones and over the devices. "It's pretty clear he's trying to grab his phone, or she's got both phones basically," Braun said. "It's unfortunate that it happened just before he was going to terminate his parole." In 2006, Garrison was driving a Land Rover carrying a 17-year-old Beverly Hills high school student and two teen girls when the vehicle struck a tree, resulting in one death. Garrison in 2007 pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence causing injury, and a misdemeanor count of providing alcohol to a minor. A hearing will be held within two weeks to determine if Garrison violated his parole in the fight with Mattingly, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Luis Patino. If Garrison is found to have violated his Louis vuitton shoes discount for women sale outlet parole, Garrison could face up to 90 days in jail, Patino said. Garrison played the character Tweener in the Fox series "Prison Break," and he also appeared in 2007 film "Shooter."

2012年4月25日星期三

I also believe that there is a very good market for the MacBook Air

We still don't know when Apple is releasing a new iPhone, or if it'll be 4G LTE-capable, but we can rest assured of one thing: Sprint will still be offering an louis vuitton outlet unlimited data plan for the device. Sprint and the Apple iPhone are “a marriage made in heaven,” according to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, and the honeymoon period looks like it’s about to get extended: Hesse has said that the company’s unlimited data plan for the iPhone will continue to be available for the next generation of the device, even if it comes with 4G LTE. Sprint is currently the only US carrier to offer an unlimited data plan for the iPhone, with both AT&T and Verizon only offering capped and tiered data plans since 2010 and 2011 respectively. Talking to CNet, Hesse said that he wasn’t “anticipating the unlimited plan would change” with the (as-yet-unannounced) release of the next gen iPhone, calling the unlimited data plan the company’s “distinctive differentiator” in the conflict between carriers. “We’re clearly attracting customers from our competitors,” he added, an idea reflected in the fact that, since October 2011 when Apple products first launched with the carrier, four in every ten new iPhones activated were users new to Sprint. Officially, Sprint’s 4G LTE sites aren’t live yet. Although the Sprint 4G Rollout blog reports that the carrier is broadcasting LTE in approximately 200 sites across the US currently, the signals are in “testing” mode and blocked to customer use. But LTE phones (which can get speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G) have been available to buy from the company since earlier this month. According to Sprint, LTE will initially be available in six markets by mid-2012, but a more concrete date hasn’t been released. The subject may be moot, considering that Apple hasn’t announced the release of a new iPhone yet. It’s similarly unknown whether the potential new iPhone would have 4G LTE capabilities, although that seems likely considering the most recent iPads are LTE-compatible. Hesse made a point of telling CNet that, despite his comments, he has no insider knowledge of a new iPhone nor its features. Still he pointed out that, should the phone offer 4G LTE, all carriers would have the ability. “Our expectation is that we will all get the same device at the same time,” he said. Of course, only one carrier will let users play without louis vuitton bagup worrying about hitting their data limits too quickly. As usual, Apple reported record breaking earnings yesterday. Nothing new there. However, CEO Tim Cook did make the news with a few interesting comments he made during the first-quarter earnings call. For starters, he said that he hates litigation, hinting that Apple is more willing to settle its patent infringement cases in a Post-Steve Jobs era. But his comments on devices and operating systems that attempt to merge tablets and PCs may become quite controversial. He basically said that Apple has no plans to merge the Mac with the iPad. Below is a full transcript of Cook’s statement, transcribed by PC Mag. “Anything can be forced to converge,” Cook said. “But the problem is that the products are about tradeoffs, you begin to make tradeoffs to the point that what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone. “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but you know those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user. So our view is that the tablet market is huge; we’ve said that since day one, we didn’t wait until we had a lot of results. We were using them here, and it was already clear to us that there was so much you could do, and the reasons that people would use those would be so broad, and that’s precisely what we’ve seen. The iPad has taken off in not only consumer in a meaningful way, but in consumer, in education, enterprise, and its sort of everywhere you look now. And the applications are so easy to make very meaningful for someone, and there’s such an abundance of those, that as the ecosystem gets better and better, and as we continue to double down on making great product, I think that the limit here is nowhere in sight.” “Now – through last quarter, I should say, which is just two years after we shipped the initial iPad – we shipped 67 million. And to put that in some context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs. And five years for that many iPods. And over three years for that many iPhones. And we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all of those products. So I think iPad – it’s a profound product, the breadth of it is incredible, and the appeal of it is universal. So I could not be happier with being in the Classic lv sunglasses outlet 2012 new sale online discount market, and the level of which we’re innovating with the ecosystem and the marker here is incredible.” “Now in terms of the market itself, IDC and Gartner and Forrester had some numbers out there, and Gartner is saying there’s 3.25 out there by 2015, Forrester is three seventy-five, basically they’re in the mid-three hundreds, about where the PC market is today. And 2015 is only three years from now. So I think that even the you know more formal predicters outside of us are beginning to see these lines cross. So I strongly believe that they will.” “Now having said that, I also believe that there is a very good market for the MacBook Air,” Cook concluded. “And we continue to innovate in that product. But I do think that it appeals to someone who has a little bit different requirements. And you wouldn’t want to put these things together because you wind up compromising both and not pleasing the user. Some people will prefer to own both, and that’s great there. But I think to make the compromises of convergence, we’re not going to that party. Others might. Others might from a defensive point of view, particularly. We’re going to play in both.” This is an interesting rant, obviously aimed at both Windows 8 (which is built both for tablets and PCs) and Android keyboard tablets like the Asus Transformer Prime. It’s also very Jobs-like in that it’s already kind of a lie. Steve Jobs famously contradicted himself quite often, even saying that Apple would never build a netbook or tablet, not long before it actually did both of those things with the MacBook Air and iPad. Cook is saying that the Mac and iPad will never merge, but every update to OS X (which runs on Macs) lately has been aimed squarely at making it look and act more like iOS, which runs the iPad and iPhone. It seems only a matter of time before both products meet each other in the middle. The iPad keeps getting more functional as a PC and Macs keep getting easier to use, like an iPad. Perhaps what Cook is really saying is that Apple isn’t going to release an iPad with a keyboard attached to it. Why? Well it’s probably less about refrigerators and burberry ties toasters than it is simple economics. You don’t want to eat into your own market. Right now, Macs are selling very well as are iPads. Why destroy one of them?

No interview with Rolling Stone is complete without cultural touchstones

Mitt Romney can't disavow the conservative views louis vuitton outlet he embraced as candidate during the Republican presidential primaries, President Obama says in a new interview. However, Mr. Obama acknowledges that he too is struggling against public skepticism because of the slow economic recovery. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Obama covered a range of topics, from his relations with the Pentagon to his reflections on race to his two acclaimed though abbreviated moments of public singing. "I can sing," he said matter-of-factly. "I wasn't worried about being able to hit those notes." The interview, conducted earlier this month by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, will appear in the issue of the magazine that hits newsstands Friday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the interview ahead of publication. For Mr. Obama, the magazine interview and its cover portrait will complete a week of outreach to young voters, including a two-day tour of three college campuses in key election swing states and an appearance on NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." Analyzing the election campaign ahead of him, Mr. Obama avoided characterizing Romney as a flip-flopper, a common criticism Romney faced during the Republican primary contests, and instead tagged him as a candidate who willfully embraces the Republican Party's most conservative views. "I don't think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, 'Everything I've said for the last six months, I didn't mean,'" Mr. Obama said. "I'm assuming that he meant it. When you're running for president, people are paying attention to what you're saying." Mr. Obama's answer underscores an approach his advisers have been emphasizing lately, casting the race as one of sharp contrasts between two distinct candidates, parties and ideologies. He said his own political burden is describing to Americans the progress that has occurred during his administration and how, if sustained, it could lead to economic louis vuitton shoes security. "There's understandable skepticism," he said, "because things are still tough out there." Discussing his relationship with the military, Mr. Obama said, in the clearest terms yet, that he had to rein in the Pentagon as he sought to close down the war in Iraq on schedule and re-focus the military effort in Afghanistan. He said that with the help of then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he made it clear to the military brass that "I very much believe in civilian control of our military, and that military decisions are in service of strategies and broader conceptions of diplomacy that are made here in this White House." "They know I care about them and I respect them, and I think they respect me and listen to what I say," he said. "They understand that I'm the commander in chief." He said the operation to kill Osama bin Laden illustrated the "constructive relationship" he has developed with the Pentagon. On Iraq, he said he had fulfilled his promise to end the war responsibly. "It wasn't as fast as some people would have liked," he said. "It was probably faster than some folks in the Pentagon would have liked." Reflecting on whether there had been a change in racial politics since he became president, Mr. Obama said he has never accepted the idea that his election represented a "post-racial period." Still, he said, he often hears people remark about the importance to black children of having an African-American president and African-American first lady. "That's hugely important," he added, "but you shouldn't also underestimate the fact that there are a whole bunch of little white girls and white boys all across the country who just take it for granted that there's an African-American president. That's the president they're growing up with, and that's changing attitudes." No interview with Rolling Stone is complete without cultural touchstones. Mr. Obama recalled watching singer Mick Jagger rehearse for his appearance during a February White House tribute to the blues and was impressed by the respect the Rolling Stones frontman displayed toward lesser-known and younger musicians. He said Jagger recalled the generosity he had experienced upon meeting blues greats like Howlin' Wolf and B.B. King, and displayed "the sense of him wanting to do louis vuitton sunglasses that same thing, that it all comes full circle." As he often does, Mr. Obama said he is not a fan of television news, though he admitted to liking Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, whom he called "brilliant." "It's amazing to me the degree to which he's able to cut through a bunch of the nonsense," the president said.

2012年4月24日星期二

Windows 8 will be a big test for Microsoft

Approximately one in five Macs are infected with some sort of malware, though much of it is intended for Windows-based machines. Monster beats by dr dre headphones 2012 new arrivals sale, including beats by dre studio, monster beats pro, beats by dre solo and so on. All 50% off promotion now, free shipping for orders exceeding $500. A newer, sneakier variation of the Flashback Trojan that hit more than half a million Macs recently, meanwhile, is now making the rounds, according to separate research. Security firm Sophos analyzed about 100,000 Macs with the firm's Mac anti-virus software installed, and found that 20 percent were carrying one or more instances of Windows malware. About 2.7 percent were infected with Mac OS X malware. "Although Windows malware on Macs won't cause symptoms (unless users also run Windows on their computer), it can still be spread to others," Sophos analyst Graham Monster Beats Studio NFL Green Bay Packers Cluley wrote in a blog post. Cluley likened the spread of Windows-based malware on Macs to the sexually transmitted disease Chlamydia. "Just like malware on your computer, Chlamydia commonly shows no obvious symptoms. But left undetected Chlamydia can caused serious problems, such as infertility," he wrote. Some of the malware found on Macs dated back to 2007 and would have been eliminated sooner had the owners run anti-virus software, he said. "Malware can spread onto Macs via USB drives, email attachments, website download, or even a silent drive-by installation where the user doesn't realise their Mac's security has been subverted," Cluley wrote. Cybercriminals target Macs mostly because users don't believe anti-virus software is necessary. "Bad guys may also believe that Mac users are likely to have a higher level of disposable income than the typical Windows user. So, they might believe the potential for return is louis vuitton sunglasses much higher," Cluley wrote. The most-common OS X virus, found on 75.1 percent of infected devices, was the Flashback virus that hit more than 500,000 Macs in recent months. Fake anti-virus attacks dominated the list of OS X viruses. There have been conflicting reports about whether the Flashback Trojan has been eliminated from Macs or not. A new report from Intego, however, claims that a new Ray ban sunglasses Flashback variant is making the rounds. Flashback.S "continues to use a Java vulnerability that Apple has patched," Intego's Peter James wrote in a blog post. "No password is required for this variant to install, and it places its files in the user's home folder." "It then deletes all files and folders in ~/Library/Caches/Java/cache in order to delete the applet from the infected Mac, and avoid detection or sample recovery," James said. James encouraged users to download anti-virus software, like Intego's VirusBarrier X6. Microsoft will unleash a "release preview" version burberry handbags of Windows 8 in the first week of June, the company announced this evening. Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky made the announcement during an on-stage appearance at Japan's Windows 8 Dev Days and more broadly on the Build Windows 8 Twitter feed. The release preview follows a beta and is the last stage before a product's final version. The beta, or consumer preview, of Windows 8, came out on February 29. A burberry ties recent report suggests that the final version of Windows 8 will launch this October. Windows 8 will be a big test for Microsoft. It is intended to unify Microsoft's flagship OS on the desktop and tablet, is "the most integrated and most louis vuitton handbags capable operating system Microsoft has ever put out," according to CNET Reviews Editor Seth Rosenblatt. Windows 8 is tooled to run on on ARM chips as well as so-called x86 chips that power traditional PCs. Microsoft officials announced the Windows 8 SKU lineup last week and oakley sunglasses shared details about some of the features in the coming version. Oh, snap. By all appearances, the T-Mobile folks haven't lost sight of the popularity of the Galaxy Note, as a collection of snapshots obtained by TmoNews have revealed Samsung's phablet in none other than Magenta colors. At the very least, this suggests the Bellevue crew is considering bringing the 5.3-inch handset to its stores, and while the carrier's subscribers are currently able to use AT&T's Galaxy Note LTE on the Magenta network, it's a rather roundabout process and the results are less than ideal. We Cheapest louis vuitton men t shirts sale white 2012 can only hope this one pans out, because really, who wouldn't love to take this monster for a proper ride on the little network that could?

2012年4月23日星期一

The charges will mean a negative impact of 6 cents a share

Disney (DIS), the world's largest theme park company, cheap beats by dr dre on Monday announced a deal with Starbucks (SBUX), the world's largest coffee chain, to open stores in its theme parks at Disneyland Park and Walt Disney World Resort. The first of six Starbucks cafes will open in June at Disney California Adventure. For Disney, which has often been criticized for the limited food and beverage choices at its parks, this is a huge move forward. For Starbucks, which is running out of ways to expand in the U.S., this is a slam-dunk move in a captive market ripe for growth. "I don't expect to see Mickey drinking coffee any time Monster Beats Studio MLB Philadelphia Phillies soon," says Ron Paul, president of the research firm Technomic. "But from a marketing perspective, you have two iconic brands coming together, which has to be a positive." While the full size and scope of the deal was not revealed, the logical extension is for Starbucks to ultimately open in all Disney Parks inside and outside the U.S. For now, however, it plans to open at the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom. "We know food and beverage offerings are an louis vuitton sunglasses important part of the memories our guests make at Disney Parks," says Maribeth Bisienere, vice president, food and beverage line of business for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. "Many of our guests have shared their passion for Starbucks with us." At Disney California Adventure, Starbucks will be located in the Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Café on Buena Vista Street, a place that transports guests to 1920s Los Angeles, when Walt Disney arrived in California and a cup of coffee was the perfect way to jump-start a busy day. The store's location plays off the Spanish/Mexican architecture of the period, and baristas will wear 1920s-inspired attire. The café will serve Starbucks items including coffee and Ray ban sunglasses espresso beverages, Frappuccino blended beverages, and breakfast sandwiches and pastries. The move could nudge some folks to come to Disney parks a bit earlier — for that Starbucks cup o' joe — or even stay later, says Paul. That is precisely what Disney wants, of course. Starbucks is not completely new to Disney. In June 2009, the company opened a store in Disney Village at Disneyland Paris, which has been a hit. "Starbucks and Disney have many things in common," says Arthur Rubinfeld, president, global development, for Starbucks. "We share a passion that every experience burberry ties with our brand exceeds our customers' expectations." He says Starbucks customers have asked for a Disney park tie-in through MyStarbucksIdea.com since the consumer site launched more than four years ago. TI TXN -1.79% was up nearly 4% in after-hours trading as analysts also noted the company’s upbeat portrait of the chip market. The Dallas-based company reported a first-quarter profit of $265 million, or 22 cents a share, compared with a profit of $666 million, or 55 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Revenue was $3.12 billion, down from $3.39 billion. The chipmaker’s results include a 10 cents a share charge related to the company’s acquisition’s of burberry handbags National Semiconductor. Analysts were expecting the Dallas-based chipmaker to report a profit of 29 cents a share, on revenue of $3.06 billion, according to a consensus survey by Thomson Reuters. For the current quarter, the company said it expects earnings in the range of 30 cents to 38 cents a share and revenue in the range of $3.22 billion to $3.48 billion. That suggest a higher sales projection than the current consensus revenue of $3.29 billion, according to data from louis vuitton handbags Thomson Reuters. TI said its second-quarter results will also include $100 million in acquisition charges and about $10 million in restructuring charges. The charges will mean a negative impact of 6 cents a share. ”As we expected, our business cycle bottomed in the first quarter, and early signs of growth began to emerge,” Chief Executive Rich Templeton said in a statement. “Orders were up 13%, and backlog is growing again,” he added. “Particularly encouraging is the breadth of increased orders across geographical regions oakley sunglasses and markets, including the industrial sector. Wedbush analyst Betsy Van Hees said the company’s results “supports our view that the semiconductor industry’s recovery has begun.” Evercore Partners analyst Patrick Wang echoed this view saying in an e-mail that TI “delivered a better than expected beat and raise, impressively guiding second-quarter revenues above an already high bar that the Street had set.” Wang added: “This has all of the positive elements that Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery investors are looking for,” including he said, the “conviction that we’re past the bottom.”

2012年4月22日星期日

European Union officials say the market economy talks with China

Mitt Romney is known as a man with millions of louis vuitton sunglasses dollars, but he wants Americans to know that his grandfather wasn't one. "My dad's dad went broke more than once," the former Massachusetts governor told 200 or so people who had gathered Sunday for the local Lincoln Day dinner in this southern Pennsylvania community. "And my dad learned lessons about the importance of family and of faith and had a great and abiding affection for this country — lessons he taught me." The brief biography was a not-so-subtle rejoinder to a claim Democratic President Barack Obama made last week. "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth," Obama said — a line his spokesman later said wasn't aimed at his presumptive Republican opponent. In his Sunday speech, Romney first mentioned his wife, Ann Romney, as "the source of my experience and qualification." Then he added: "And also my parents. I had the extraordinary privilege of being born in America . and I had a mom and a dad and they taught me lasting values." Romney's father was George Romney, the former Michigan governor and president of American Motors. As his youngest son, Mitt Romney grew up in the tony Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, attended prep school and eventually graduated from the business and law schools at Ray ban sunglasses Harvard. Romney has often brought up his father's upbringing on the campaign trail, discussing his birth in Mexico and explaining that he sold paint out of his car to pay for a honeymoon. But on Sunday, just a few days after Obama's "silver spoon" comment, the Republican candidate cast those difficulties as life lessons that shaped the son as well as the father. "My dad, as you might know, was born in Mexico and, ah, of American parents who'd been living there for some time," Romney explained. "There was revolution in Mexico, around the early part of the 20th century, 1910 or so, and so his family came back to the United States and his dad went from place to place. His dad was a contractor, and as you may know contractors have financial difficulty from time to time." Romney often says his dad grew up poor. But while George Romney's parents did face a series of difficult circumstances, they knew wealth as well as financial hardship. Romney's grandfather, Gaskell Romney, was a carpenter who led a prosperous life in a Mormon colony in Mexico, according to the book "The Real Romney," written by two Boston Globe reporters. When Romney's father was born there, the family was wealthy — until the Mexican revolution forced many of the colony's residents to flee back to the United States, when George was about five years old. The Romney family lost most of its money and moved from state to state. Gaskell eventually found success again as a builder in Utah, but lost much of his money again in the Great Depression. "He never took out bankruptcy, which he could burberry handbags have done several times," George Romney wrote of his father, according to "The Real Romney." As Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China tours Europe this week, it is no accident that Germany occupies a special place on his itinerary. After all, Germany is the one European Union country that has a trade surplus with China. And it has also been a focus of Chinese investment in Europe — so much so that analysts say some Germans are growing wary as Chinese businesses have been snapping up German engineering companies. Mr. Wen, making his sixth visit in eight years, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Sunday opened the annual trade fair in Hanover, billed as the world’s leading showcase for industrial technology. They plan to witness the signing of an economic agreement at the Volkswagen headquarters, in Wolfsburg, on Monday. According to German media reports, the deal burberry ties will include the opening of a new car plant in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang. Mr. Wen’s agenda, as with a follow-up trip planned by his likely successor, Vice Prime Minister Li Keqiang, seems aimed at presenting an aura of business as usual, even as trade tensions flare with the West and the Communist Party at home is embroiled in its biggest scandal in years, involving the deposed Politburo member Bo Xilai. “We shouldn’t be complacent about the stability of China’s leadership,” said Kerry Brown, head of the Asia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. To do business and expand access to markets, “you need more predictability in the system,” he said in an interview. “There’s too much uncertainty at the moment.” One thing that does seem certain is that neither Mr. Wen nor Mr. Li will be bringing open checkbooks to help shore up Europe’s shakiest economies. While China has offered moral support and promised to help in global efforts to back the euro zone, Mr. Wen has not made specific promises to invest in a European bailout fund or in bonds from the hardest-hit countries. Instead, the Chinese seem to be going for German louis vuitton handbags bonds, or bunds, helping to drive Berlin’s borrowing costs to record lows, despite the mounting cost of rescuing its euro zone partners. “It can be summarized as helping Germany to help the euro zone,” Jonathan Holslag, a researcher at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, said in a telephone interview from Washington, where he testified Thursday before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China’s leaders, Mr. Brown said, “don’t understand the logic of putting hard-earned Chinese money into supporting the social welfare system of Europe.” But Chinese investment in European business is growing. And while much of the effort remains focused on setting up trading companies, Chinese companies have started to shop for industrial technology and brands that can help them become more competitive, at home and globally. In 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, Chinese direct investment in the 27 European Union countries totaled 900 million euros, or about $1.2 billion at the current exchange rate. That was only a fraction of the 28.5 billion euros ($38 billion) of American direct investment in Europe. But it was three times China’s level of only a year earlier — while the United States figure was shrinking. “China is catching up quickly, especially during the current financial crisis,” Zhang Haiyan, director of the Euro-China Center at the Antwerp Management School, wrote in the “Euro-China Investment Report 2011-2012.” The Chinese investment has been concentrated in a oakley sunglasses handful of countries: Luxembourg, mainly because of its reputation as an international financial hub, followed by Russia, Germany, Sweden and Britain. Sweden, where the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group bought Volvo from the Ford Motor Company in 2010 for $1.8 billion, is on Mr. Wen’s itinerary this week. Mr. Li will be stopping in Russia. There, as in other parts of Eastern Europe, “Chinese companies know how to fill the empty place in the market that used to be filled by the government,” especially in consumer goods, Mr. Zhang said in an interview. But China seems particularly intent on Germany. Chinese companies were the No. 1 investor in Germany last year, with 158 projects, or almost 20 percent of the total, according to Germany Trade and Invest, the government’s economic development agency. It was the first time China had surpassed the United States by that measure. Just last week, the Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group announced it would buy a majority stake in the German machinery maker Schwing, whose concrete pumps are being used to Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery build the new European Central Bank tower in Frankfurt, as well as 1 World Trade Center in New York. The price was not disclosed. But a rival of Schwing’s, Putzmeister, was sold to the Chinese company Sany Heavy Industry in January for 360 million euros, now worth about $480 million. The same month, the Chinese energy company LDK Solar bought the German group Sunways for about 24 million euros ($32 million). In March, another German company, Kiekert, the world’s biggest supplier of car door latches, was bought by a Chinese competitor, Hebei Lingyun, for an undisclosed price. “It’s certainly true that German companies have most of the goodies and know-how that the Chinese are looking for,” Mr. Holslag said. Such companies are hardly household names. But they are part of the country’s Mittelstand, the roughly 3.7 million small- and medium-size companies, many family-owned, that are the backbone of the German economy and export engine. Some have had cash flow troubles made worse by the global financial crisis. And their privately held structure makes them attractive to Chinese buyers, who can deal cheap monster beats headphones outlet directly with family owners rather than corporate boards and shareholders. Mr. Holslag said he expected to see German policy tilt more in favor of protecting the Mittelstand’s interests, rather than promoting industrial giants like Siemens and Volkswagen, out of concern that the rapid expansion in China by the big conglomerates might lead to overcapacity and job cuts at home. “This is certainly an evolution to watch,” Mr. Holslag said. The bulk of China’s outward investment is still aimed at securing natural resources, largely in the Southern Hemisphere. And Mr. Brown noted that the total level of investment was still relatively small, despite China’s having the world’s second-largest economy. “The idea that the Chinese are coming to ‘buy Europe,’ it’s really overblown,” he said. “That such a massive economy has so little prominence, it’s really a mystery.” Mr. Wen began his tour Friday in Iceland, which Chinese officials last week pointed out is the first Western European country to grant China market economy status. The European Union and the United States have yet to do so, largely because of concerns about subsidies that China gives its exporters. Such a designation would make it much harder for Western companies to win trade disputes in which they accuse China of dumping goods below cost. European Union officials say the market economy talks with China have been moving at a glacial pace, and the political transition in Beijing may slow it further. Mr. Li will meet in Brussels on May 3 with the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, with talks mainly focusing on energy and urbanization instead. European Union officials said that also reflected a widening of the agenda from traditional foreign policy and trade issues. The issues being discussed may end up being Monster beats studio superman with diamond headphones blue overshadowed, however, by the scandal in China surrounding Mr. Bo and his wife, Gu Kailai, who is under investigation in the killing of a British businessman. A prolonged split in the party leadership would be problematic not only for China, Mr. Brown warned, but also for the global economy, and could stymie progress in efforts to gain greater access to China’s vast domestic market as well.

2012年4月20日星期五

Horton has very little say in this

Reuters reported on Wednesday that McClendon has cheap beats by dr dre borrowed as much as $1.1 billion against his 2.5 percent interest in wells received as part of his compensation. The loans, taken out over the past three years, were previously undisclosed to shareholders, analysts and academics said, raising concerns that McClendon's personal financial deals could compromise his fiduciary duty to Chesapeake. The company did not detail the amounts and terms of the loans, nor specific lenders, according to a preliminary proxy filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Wall Street analysts who follow the company characterized the disclosure as a step in the right direction, but said more was needed. "The increased disclosure in the proxy is a start, but it's still disappointing that Chesapeake remains tone deaf to analyst and investors and only seems to take action once they're called on the carpet ... through a journalistic expose such as the one that came to light this week," Mark Hanson, analyst at Morningstar said in an email sent to Reuters. Joseph Allman, analyst at JP Morgan, said the company's shareholders would benefit most if the company eliminated the Founders Well Participation Program (FWPP) that Monster beats studio superman blue red over ear grants McClendon personal interest in all wells the company drills. McClendon spent $457 million to participate in the FWPP in 2011, according to the filing. Shortly after in January 2012, he borrowed up to $500 million from a unit of EIG Global Energy Partners, part of the overall $1.1 billion. The Reuters report drew swift reaction from investors, who pushed the stock down 5 percent the day it was published. The stock has since recovered and closed down 3.1 percent at $17.44 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, pressure on the company has intensified. Phil Weiss, an oil analyst at Argus Research who has had a "sell" rating on Chesapeake, said in a note to clients on Friday that it was in the best interest for McClendon, the board of directors, or both to step down. "When we consider the full financial picture at Chesapeake, including its high debt levels, its use of financial engineering, the relatively low quality of its financial data, the questionable nature of some of the CEO's transactions with the company ... we believe the best thing for investors would be to replace the board and/or the CEO," Weiss wrote in his note to clients. On Wednesday, shareholder David Dreman, chairman louis vuitton shoes of Dreman Value Management LLP, said the company's management "has to be cleaned up." LEGAL CHALLENGES McClendon and several Chesapeake directors are the target of a lawsuit by a shareholder over potential conflicts of interest over his loans. McClendon's biggest personal lender, EIG Global Energy Partners, has also been a big financier to Chesapeake, and the lawsuit says that some analysts believe EIG's investors have been given favorable terms from the company on financing deals. In the proxy filing on Friday, Chesapeake disclosed more information regarding the loans. "Additionally, over the life of the FWPP, Mr. McClendon has typically mortgaged his interests acquired under the FWPP with one or more lenders, some of which also have lending, investment or advisory relationships with the company," the filing said, without mentioning EIG or other firms by name. Court documents showed that the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Western District of Oklahoma, was brought by Deborah Mallow IRA SEP Investment Plan. "This action is brought to address material gucci sunglasses disclosure violations permitted by the board of directors and to ensure that any damages suffered by Chesapeake by reason of these violations are borne by the individual defendants, and not by Chesapeake and its innocent shareholders," the lawsuit says. A spokesman for Chesapeake declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Noting that the company's market value fell by more than $500 million on the day Reuters published its report, the lawsuit says it is possible that the defendants have exposed the company to class-action securities fraud liability. The plaintiff is seeking to require that the CEO and other board members disclose all material facts relating to the McClendon loans, arrange independent oversight for the borrowings to identify any threats to the company, and to rescind the plan under which McClendon was able to invest in the wells. The case is In re: Deborah G Mallow IRA SEP Investment Plan vs Aubrey McClendon, et al., U.S. District Court, Western District of Oklahoma. US Airways took a big step toward a merger with bankrupt American Airlines on Friday, as the carrier and American's three largest unions announced they have signed agreements for contract terms. The unions representing American's pilots, flight attendants and mechanics and other aircraft-service personnel threw their support behind a merger. The move cuts off burberry outlet a large segment of support for an independent American Airlines, as the three unions have seats on American's nine-member creditors committee. "This significant step represents our shared recognition that a merger between American Airlines and US Airways is the best strategy and fastest option to complete the restructuring of American Airlines," said a joint statement from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the Allied Pilots Association and the Transport Workers Union. Together, they represent 55,000 employees of American. The combined US Airways-American company would be known as American Airlines, union officials said, and would be based in Fort Worth, Texas — American's current headquarters. Hanging in the balance of any deal are thousands of jobs, the potential to end seven years of union strife within US Airways, and the future of Charlotte Douglas International as a major hub airport. US Airways operates the vast majority, nearly 90 percent, of daily flights burberry bags at Charlotte Douglas. Interest since November US Airways has been circling AMR, the parent of the nation's third-largest carrier, since it declared bankruptcy in November. US Airways confirmed in January that it has hired advisers to explore a deal. The company is the nation's fifth-largest carrier, and executives say putting the two together would help them compete with larger rivals United Continental and Delta Air Lines. "Our intention would be to put our two complementary networks together, maintaining both airlines' existing hubs and aircraft, and create an airline that could compete successfully with United, Delta and other carriers within our industry," CEO Doug Parker said in a letter to employees Friday. Capt. Dave Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, or APA, said in a letter to pilots on Friday that the union has been in direct talks with US Airways management since early March. US Airways has also been making presentations to the other louis vuitton handbags American unions and Wall Street analysts and investors, drumming up support for a merger. Bates said bluntly that the pilots have lost confidence American can pull out of its tailspin. "The APA leadership does not believe that AMR's business plan will produce an airline that is viable long term," he wrote. The pilots' union represents 10,000 pilots Parker cautioned that any formal merger agreement is still a ways off. "Today is one step in what will be a much longer process. For now, it remains business as usual," he said in Friday's letter. US Airways still needs to get the support of American's oakley sunglasses board of directors, other members of the creditors committee, the bankruptcy court and regulators. And American executives, especially CEO Tom Horton, have publicly fended off merger overtures from US Airways, saying the best path for American is to emerge as a stand-alone company. Aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt said Horton's position ultimately might not matter, especially since his three main unions have now publicly said they support a merger. Unless Horton can win them back, quickly, his strategy of emerging as an independent company could be dead on arrival. "Horton has very little say in this, if the creditors, investors and lenders, and the unions feel this deal with US Airways is better," he said. "American's management needs to view this as a wake-up call. I think American has a very short time frame to get to the negotiating table with its unions." Labor hearings Monday American is scheduled to begin contentious Cheapest louis vuitton men t shirts sale white 2012 labor hearings on Monday, in which it will seek to have a bankruptcy-court judge throw out existing contracts. American's bankruptcy plan would cut at least 13,000 jobs, freeze pensions and reduce benefits in a bid to save at least $1.25 billion a year. Parker says if American merges with it, the combined airline could save 6,200 of those positions. He also said the combined carrier would provide "competitive, industry-standard compensation and benefits" for all employees. Parker's letter didn't detail how the airline would be able to offer such benefits while making American competitive again.

2012年4月19日星期四

With the passing of music icon Dick Clark

On a night the Chicago Bulls could have locked up the No. 1 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference with a victory, the Miami Heat instead kept that door open for themselves louis vuitton sunglasses with a gritty, emotion-filled, tension-packed 83-72 victory Thursday at AmericanAirlines Arena. With LeBron James fueling the Heat with 27 points as part of his ongoing late-season MVP push, the Heat, already assured of no worse than a No. 2 East seed, could still rise to No. 1 if they win the four remaining games and Chicago loses one its final three games. The 72 points were a season-low for the Bulls, who closed at 35.7 percent from the field, shooting 15 of 56 after opening 10 of 14 from the field. The No. 1 seed in the East would have homecourt advantage over No. 2 in the Eastern Conference finals, should both teams advance. And these teams very much have the look of unfinished business after closing the season series 2-2. With Dwyane Wade back for the Heat and Luol Deng back for the Bulls after each sat out Wednesday with minor ailments, there was enough in place to still give this true Heat-Bulls passion. That passion included a double-forearm shove and Ray ban sunglasses second-quarter ejection for Heat forward James Jones for his above-the-shoulders hit on Bulls center Joakim Noah, and later a flagrant foul on Wade for a forearm blow against former Detroit Pistons nemesis Richard Hamilton. Shortly after that third-quarter Wade-Hamilton incident, James decked Bulls guard John Lucas with a questionable backcourt screen, with the two each called for technical fouls. "A physical Eastern Conference game," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra termed it during his televised interview at the end of the third quarter. "It's an emotional game, a passionate game." Wade, who has been dealing with a sore ankle, got off burberry handbags to an uneven start and appeared to lack full lift, but still was able to contribute 18 points. With Bosh out and Wade somewhat off, Heat point guard Mario Chalmers, able to avoid the defensive workload against Rose, stepped up with 16 points. Noah offered a foul-plagued double-double for the Bulls, with 15 points and 10 rebounds, with Lucas pacing Chicago off the bench with 16 points. The Heat pushed their lead to 11 in burberry ties the third quarter on a Mike Miller 3-pointer and took a 66-61 edge into the fourth. They held on from there, even with James cramping, requiring stretching on the bench at the start of the fourth quarter. With Bosh out, it left the Heat with their 15th starting lineup of the season, one more than during last season's 82-game schedule. In fact, Thursday's starting louis vuitton handbags lineup of Dexter Pittman, Udonis Haslem, James, Wade and Chalmers had not played a single second together prior to Thursday night. The Heat's rotation took another jolt with 6:05 to play in the second quarter, when Jones was ejected. Jones was called for a Flagrant 2 foul, with the ejection standing after video confirmation. It was the second such ejection of Jones' career and the third ejection for the Heat this season. Spoelstra was ejected Jan. 11 against the Los Angeles Clippers for arguing officiating and Juwan Howard was ejected for two technical fouls Feb. 14 against the Indiana Pacers. The Heat's lack of quality depth drew requisite scorn oakley sunglasses from TNT analyst Charles Barkley at halftime. "Their bench is so bad," he said. "Unless LeBron James goes crazy, this Heat team is not going to win the championship." He wasn't far off, particularly with rookie point guard Norris Cole again overmatched. But Shane Battier did come on to provide quality defense. The Heat took a 27-23 lead into the second period, with James scoring 15 first-quarter points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 shooting from the line. The Bulls then pushed to the lead Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery in the second quarter before the Heat went into the intermission up 42-40. It was so back-and-forth early that neither team led by more than three points over the final 10:54 of the second quarter. With the passing of music icon Dick Clark, America's premiere singing competition, American Idol, honored the man who gave a start to so many of the talented artists that the show's contestants grew up listening to. RELATED: Idol to Have Dick Clark Tribute "Everybody needs a mentor and mine, without doubt, was Dick Clark," said host Ryan Seacrest over footage from Clark's groundbreaking TV show American Bandstand. On yesterday's episode, which aired just hours after Clark's death was announced, Ryan opened the show, saying, "We can't begin tonight's show without acknowledging the passing of a television pioneer and my dear friend, Dick Clark. Without Dick, a show like this would not exist. He will be missed greatly. Our thoughts and our prayers go out to his family." Pics: Legend Dick Clark & Music's Biggest Names Adding to the emotional swings of the night, Colton Dixon was sent home on Thursday, leaving the tight-knit group of friends he's made while on the show. "I need to apologize. I wasn't myself last night monster beats and I get it," he said to the judges. "And I appreciate what you told me last night. I'll take that when I'm making a record. And I'll choose songs [that are right for me]." "You'll make many records," Jennifer Lopez told Dixon.

2012年4月18日星期三

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also made a high-profile appearance

Facebook shocked the tech community with its $1 billion louis vuitton sunglasses acquisition of Instagram, but perhaps more shocking is the price the photo-sharing app's CEO originally wanted for his company: US$2 billion. During three days of quiet negotiations, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg halved Kevin Systrom's asking price--all without involving bankers or his own board of directors, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). In fact, Zuckerberg, who controls roughly 57 percent of the company's voting rights, had pretty much closed the deal with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom before even informing the board of the acquisition. The board "was told, not consulted" about the deal Ray ban sunglasses on April 8, the day before the rest of the world learned of the deal, one person familiar with the matter told the Journal. Zuckerberg began the negotiations on April 5 by calling Systrom and inviting him to drive down from San Francisco to meet with him at his Palo Alto home, the Journal reported. Zuckerberg reportedly informed Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg of the decision, but she did not participate in the negotiations. While the 18-month-old startup had yet to record any revenue, Zuckerberg was attracted by the mobile photo app's explosive growth in user base. Two burberry handbags days before the two 20-something chief executives started talking, Instagram released an Android version of its app and immediately saw its membership base growing at the rate of 2,000 people a minute. In the following 10 days, the free app that had previously been available only for iOS devices would add 10 million members. In a moment of odd timing, Marc Andreessen--a Facebook board member and an early Instagram investor--was surprised to run into Systrom at Zuckerberg's house the day the deal closed. Andreessen was reportedly waiting in Zuckerberg's living room for his weekly meeting with Facebook's CEO while Systrom was in another room getting his company board's approval for the deal. Nugent, who told the gun rights group last week that he would burberry ties be "dead or in jail" next year if Obama is re-elected in November, appeared on conservative radio host Glenn Beck's show on Wednesday. He was asked if he had heard from the Secret Service. "We actually have heard from the Secret Service, and they have a duty, and I salute them. I support them and I'm looking forward to our meeting tomorrow," Nugent said on Beck's show. "I'm sure it will be a fine gathering louis vuitton handbags backstage in Oklahoma," Nugent said. The 63-year-old Nugent is set to perform in Ardmore, Oklahoma, on Thursday. Nugent, the singer of such 1970s hit songs as "Cat Scratch Fever" and "Motor City Madhouse," is a longtime advocate for gun rights and in recent years he has campaigned for conservative politicians and causes. A Secret Service spokesman declined to directly address whether the federal agency tasked with protecting the president would be meeting with Nugent. "We are aware of the incident with Ted Nugent, and we are oakley sunglasses conducting appropriate follow-up," said spokesman Brian Leary in a statement. "We recognize an individual's right to freedom of speech but we also have a responsibility to determine and investigate intent." Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also made a high-profile appearance and speech at the NRA convention attended by Nugent, who has endorsed Romney. Nugent's comments last week at the NRA convention were seized on by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in a fundraising email on Monday. U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Cheapest louis vuitton men t shirts sale white 2012 Schultz, chairwoman of the DNC, said at the time, "threatening violence -- or whatever it is that Nugent's threatening -- is clearly beyond the pale." In other comments at the convention in St. Louis last week, Nugent aimed his barbs at other officials in Obama's administration. "We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November," Nugent said at the convention. A spokesman for Nugent could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. But in his appearance on Beck's radio show, Nugent said he was not calling for violence. "Every reference I made, whether it's a shot across beats by dre tour the bow or targeting the enemy, it always ended the sentence with 'in November at the voter booth,'" Nugent told Beck. Following Nugent's comments last week, a Romney spokeswoman said the candidate believes "everyone needs to be civil," but stopped short of condemning Nugent.

2012年4月17日星期二

Congress should do all of this right away

Facing heat for high gasoline prices, President louis vuitton sunglasses Obama tried to shift the focus to Congress, Republicans and energy traders, calling for legislation that he said would "put more cops on the beat" to crack down on potential manipulation of the oil market. Obama called on Congress to provide more money for regulators and increase penalties for market manipulators. The president, flanked by Treasury SecretaryTimothy F. Geithnerand Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., suggested that traders and speculators are affecting the price of oil and digging burberry handbags into Americans' pocketbooks. "We can't afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions while millions of American families get the short end of the stick," Obama said in brief remarks in the Rose Garden on Tuesday. "That's not the way the market should work." Obama's proposal would add $52 million to the budget for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees oil futures markets, to pay for improved technology and additional employees. The president also proposed increasing the maximum civil and criminal penalties for manipulative activity in oil futures markets and beefing up data collection. Republicans have pushed to trim the CFTC as part of their budget-cutting push. Independent analysts and Republicans Ray ban sunglasses quickly questioned whether Obama was exaggerating the effect of speculation on the market. The White House did not point to any evidence that illegal conduct was on the rise. Independent analysts have said speculators are a factor in the recent surge in oil prices but are not the main reason. A study last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said global demand has been the main driver of higher oil prices over the last decade. Speculation was the second-largest factor, accounting for about 15% of the rise, the study said. Republicans on Capitol Hill labeled the proposed legislation burberry ties a political ploy. But the president argued that the measures were necessary to prevent illegal trading as the volume of trading increases. "Imagine if the NFL quadrupled the number of teams, but didn't increase the number of refs," Obama said. "You'd end up having havoc on the field, and it would diminish the game. It wouldn't be fair. That's part of what's going on in a lot of these markets." Obama's expected Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, accused the president of over-regulating industries and slowing production. "He's made it harder through trying louis vuitton handbags to push the [Environmental Protection Agency] into regulating fracking for natural gas and oil, made it harder to get a reliable supply of gas, made it harder for those that mine coal and for those that use coal, made it harder to drill for oil," Romney said as he campaigned near western Pennsylvania's coal country. Domestic oil and gas production actually has increased, and fracking — a technique primarily for producing natural gas — is not a direct factor in the price of gasoline. Still, the issues of energy and regulation are likely to resonate further as long as commuters are paying more oakley sunglasses at the pump. It's possible that gasoline prices already have peaked. Prices have fallen nationally for the last two weeks after reaching a high of $3.941 on April 2. Crude oil futures prices, which have risen steadily since October, also have gradually been edging lower, according to Energy Department data. But prices remain markedly higher than they were a few months ago, which has helped make energy a weak spot for Obama. A Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday found that two-thirds of voters called energy a very important issue in the election. Romney had a slight edge with voters who saw energy as a top priority. The White House's strategy for changing that dynamic looks much like its strategy on other pressing issues — use the unpopular and deadlocked Congress as a political foil, putting the onus on lawmakers to act and chiding them for disagreeing with the president. "Congress should do all of this right away," Obama said. He also blasted congressional Republicans for blocking legislation that would have eliminated subsidies for oil companies. "Here's a chance to make amends, a chance to actually do something that will protect consumers by increasing oversight of energy markets," he said. Some analysts said Obama's proposal would at least make oil prices less volatile. "It's gotten way too out of control," said Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery Ben Brockwell, director of data pricing for the Oil Price Information Service, an energy information company. "The speculators are a prime mover in this market." But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed Obama's proposal as an election-year gimmick. "If I were to guess, I'd say today's proposal by the president probably polls pretty well. But I guarantee you it won't do a thing to lower the price of gas at the pump," McConnell said.

2012年4月16日星期一

Judge Alsup warned both legal teams

Oracle attorney Michael Jacobs came out louis vuitton sunglasses swinging hard at Google on April 16 in his opening argument as the company began its $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against the Web services giant in federal district court in San Francisco. Jacobs, a partner in the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Morrison & Foerster law firm, attempted to convince a 12-person jury and presiding Judge William Alsup that Google IT managers were quite aware that they used proprietary Java application programming interfaces owned by Oracle to create the Android mobile-device operating system -- one that now runs Ray ban sunglasses more than 300 million smartphones and tablet PCs. In an opening statement that went for about 60 minutes, Jacobs said that Oracle "will prove to you from beginning to end ... that Google knew it was doing the wrong thing. "This case is about Google's use, in Google's business, of somebody else's property without permission," Jacobs said. "You can't just step on someone's IP because you think you have a good business reason for it." Oracle first filed suit in August 2010, claiming burberry handbags that Google illegally used seven Java application programming interfaces that Oracle owns to help build the Android operating system. Google contends that the APIs it uses cannot be copyrighted because doing so would be similar to copyrighting a technique used to perform a task. Legally, techniques are not considered intellectual property. Internal Google Emails Shown to Jury Jacobs showed the jury a group of Google emails from 2005 to help state his case. In that year, several months before Sun released Java to the open source community in November 2006, Google Android team manager Andy Rubin sent an email to Google co-founder Larry Page proposing to buy a license for Java and its APIs. "We'll have to pay Sun for the license," Rubin said in the email. But an email two years later from Rubin to then-CEO Eric Schmidt shows that Mountain View, Calif.-based Google "consciously decided against burberry ties taking a license," Jacobs said. "I'm done with Sun (tail between my legs, you were right)," Rubin wrote to Schmidt. "They (Sun) won't be happy when we release our stuff." Judge Cautions Both Teams About Evidence At one point, Judge Alsup warned both legal teams louis vuitton handbags that they will need "to show good cause for any evidence submitted at trial to be kept from the public," and that unsavory details about either company might go into the public record. "Unless it's the recipe for Coca-Cola, it's going to be public," Alsup said. "If it reveals something embarrassing about the oakley sunglasses way one of these companies works, too bad. That's going to be out there for the public to see." Google's lawyers from the San Francisco firm of Keker & Van Nest will present their opening statements April 17. Selection of the 12-person jury began early April Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery 16 at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown San Francisco. The court clerk said the trial could go as long as 10 weeks. Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle is asking the U.S. District Court in Northern California for $1 billion in damages and an injunction against Google from louis vuitton mens shoes using its IP in Android.

2012年4月15日星期日

The Hamburg prosecutor’s office is still pursuing a criminal investigation

On the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking on louis vuitton sunglasses April 15, 1912, the 3-D version of James Cameron's "Titanic" held the No. 4 spot with $11.6 million. The rerelease has earned $44.4 million domestically to lift the lifetime total for "Titanic" to $645.2 million. If you were hoping to get some online gaming in before you have to start a new work week tomorrow, you better get your fix in early. That is, if you’re a PS3 gamer. Sony will be shutting down the PlayStation Network for more than half of the day. The company said this is for necessary maintenance on the network, so nothing is terribly broken. It’s just going in to optimize things and clean up processes. The network will go offline at 9:00 AM Eastern Time. “This maintenance will last roughly 13 hours,” said PlayStation Digital Platforms senior manager Matthew Harper in a PlayStation Blog post. “During much of this time, users won’t be able to access the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, Account Management or play online. PSN enabled websites will not be able to service users, including [the PlayStation Blog].” Surprisingly, Harper also addressed users who are disappointed with these usually terse messages about network downtime. “Part of my job is to make sure that the lines of communication are open between our users and PlayStation. While I don’t have more details to share at this time regarding the downtime, I will certainly work to include more info in future posts,” he said. One of the most audacious projects ever to come out of Google was the plan to photograph and map the inhabited world, one block at a time. But a report over the weekend from federal regulators has rekindled questions over exactly what the company Ray ban sunglasses was doing — questions the search giant has spent years trying not to answer. The Federal Communications Commission censured Google for obstructing an inquiry into the Street View project, which collected Internet communications from potentially millions of unknowing households as specially equipped cars drove slowly by. But the investigation, described in an interim report, was left unresolved because a critical participant, the Google engineer in charge of the project, cited the Fifth Amendment and declined to talk. Google was fined $25,000 for obstruction, a penalty it can challenge. It and the F.C.C. are wrangling over how much information can be revealed in the final report. In the interim report, many passages were heavily redacted. Privacy advocates said the F.C.C. report was only a start. “I appreciate that the F.C.C. sanctioned Google for not cooperating in the investigation, but the much bigger problem is the pervasive and covert surveillance of Internet users that Google undertook over a three-year period,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He said that on Monday he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Google over wiretapping. Google said Sunday that it disagreed with the F.C.C.’s characterization of its lack of cooperation, but that its collection of what is called payload data — Internet communications, including texts and e-mails — was legal, if regrettable. “It was a mistake for us to include code in our burberry handbags software that collected payload data,” a spokeswoman said. As part of the Street View project, as Google was collecting photographs on every street, it was also gathering information about local wireless networks to improve location-based searches. But the Google engineer wrote a program for the project that went beyond what was originally envisioned. Using this program, Google collected the data computers were sending out. The data proved be a snapshot of what people were doing at the moment the cars rolled by — e-mailing a lover, texting jokes to a buddy, balancing a checkbook, looking up an ailment. Google spent more than two years scooping up that information, from January 2008 to April 2010. The photographs were used to refine Google’s maps, the wireless information to improve searches. Google had not figured out what, if anything, to do with the personal data, nor had it even looked at it, when rumors about the secret project began in 2010. People, mostly in Europe, were furious. Google first said it did not collect personal data. Then it said such data was in fragments. Then it conceded there were things like entire e-mails. Even in the United States, where regulators take a more restrained approach to privacy issues than in Europe, there was widespread concern. A multistate inquiry was begun by state attorneys general. The Federal Trade Commission looked into it. Google, by simultaneously apologizing, burberry ties promising to do better and saying as little as possible, made the issue go away. It is unclear whether the engineer acted on his own initiative or under the direction of supervisors. Coincidentally, the F.C.C. opened its investigation of the Street View project on the same day in 2010 that the F.T.C. ended its inquiry. While staff members from the two entities spoke about their efforts, they were looking at potential violations of different statutes and their investigations took place separately. Some F.C.C. staff members argued strongly that Google should be charged with a violation of the Communications Act, and the agency and Google spent weeks debating whether Google’s capture of unencrypted Wi-Fi communications violated the Wiretap Act or the Communications Act. The F.C.C.’s enforcement division finally declined to charge Google with violating the Communications Act after determining that there was no precedent for applying the statute to Wi-Fi communications. But by publicly reprimanding Google for its conduct, louis vuitton handbags the F.C.C. is hoping that Congress will see that the law has not kept up with advances in digital communications and will rewrite the statutes. Encryption technology did not exist when the Communications Act was written. Google argued that the few precedents that do apply favor a broad interpretation of what is permissible under the two laws. People close to the discussion said that determination was affected by inconsistent language between the two statutes. The Communications Act prohibits intercepting radio communications “except as authorized by” the Wiretap Act. The Wiretap Act says it is “not unlawful to” intercept unencrypted communication, but it does not give specific permission for the oakley sunglasses interception of unencrypted communications. Federal courts have generally given a broad interpretation, however. But the F.C.C. was not able to determine if there had been actions that clearly would violate the statutes — say, if Google intercepted and made use of encrypted information — because the Google engineer who would know invoked his Fifth Amendment right. The determination not to charge Google with a Communications Act violation was made by the enforcement division staff. Google can decide whether to oppose the obstruction charge and fight the fine, eventually taking the fight to the five-member commission and perhaps to federal court. In Europe, where the outcry against Google was greatest, most government data protection regulators have settled their disputes with the company. Some countries, like Ireland, asked Google in 2010 to simply destroy the data it had gathered illegally in their jurisdictions. Google informed Ireland and other countries that it had done so and no penalties were levied. On April 5, the Dutch Data Protection Authority closed its investigation after Google gave residents in the Netherlands the option of removing their Wi-Fi routers from Google’s global tracking database. But in Germany, where Google’s collection of personal data was first uncovered by a regulator in Hamburg, two proceedings are officially up and running. The Hamburg prosecutor’s office is still pursuing a criminal investigation, which it opened in May 2010, into whether Google broke German law by illegally intercepting private data through electronic means. Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg regulator, said in a recent interview that he was delaying his own administrative review of the situation until Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery the Hamburg prosecutor decides whether or not to press criminal charges. J. Trevor Hughes, president of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, said the Google case represented what happened when technical employees of technology companies made “innocent” decisions about collecting data that could infuriate consumers and in turn invite regulatory inquiry.

2012年4月13日星期五

The smoke in the backroom was so thick

There was a moment when Cory Booker "thought burberry handbags we were not going to make it." "No air," the Newark, N.J., mayor said Friday. "I just could not breathe. That's when I thought, 'If I don't find this woman in a few minutes, we're both going to die.' " Less than 12 hours earlier, Booker had dashed into a neighbor's burning home and carried a woman to safety, but only after arguing with a police detective assigned to protect him. "It was just one of these moments in life when you just decide to jump in," said the 6-foot-3 former Stanford University tight end. The woman was reported to be in stable condition Friday, with second-degree burns on her neck and back. Booker suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation and was hospitalized briefly late Thursday. Already lionized in some corners for his good deeds, Booker, 42, is a rising star in the Democratic Party and considered a potential candidate gucci sunglasses for governor or the U.S. Senate. Instead of living in posh, mayorly quarters, he resides in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city to better stay connected with the people. During a 2010 blizzard that paralyzed the city, Booker grabbed a shovel and got to work. He has been known to ride along with police on late-night patrols, once even chasing down a robbery suspect. The Peabody award-winning Sundance Channel series "Brick City" documented his efforts to decrease Newark's crime rate and tackle financial problems. Profiles have appeared in Time magazine and Esquire. And when Conan O'Brien began taking potshots at Newark, Booker turned the joke back on the late-night talk-show host, banning him from using Newark Liberty International Airport and demanding a public apology. The running "feud" ended when Booker appeared on O'Brien's show. A Rhodes scholar with degrees from Yale, Stanford and Oxford, the social-media-savvy Booker also has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and attracted a $100 million donation for schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Booker's latest actions shouldn't hurt his political oakley sunglasses aspirations (unless someone accuses him of taking a job away from a firefighter). The rescue story, of course, exploded nationally overnight. At one point Friday morning, "Cory Booker" was the most searched term on Google. NPR crowned him "today's hero." The story also took on a humorous life of its own on Twitter, with social-media types trying to outdo themselves with made-up #corybookerstories. (Example: "When Chuck Norris has nightmares, Cory Booker turns on the light & sits with him until he falls back asleep.") At a news conference, Booker framed his experience with the fire in religious terms. "I feel a sense of gratitude today to God that I'm here," said the mayor, in office since 2006. "I had my proverbial come-to-Jesus moment in my life." He said one of the detectives riding with him saw the flames first and called a dispatcher about 10 p.m. and then knocked on a Classic burberry bracelet cheap discount 2012 brown beige window. The detective, Santos Duran, compared the situation to "a scene from the movie 'Backdraft.' " "It was really intense," Duran said. Some occupants did not realize the two-story house was on fire. Coley Whitaker, a retired truck driver who was asleep, said a voice shouting that there was a fire — the mayor's voice — awakened him. Whitaker said the blaze was in the kitchen upstairs and that he and the building's owner tried to extinguish it. But water seemed to make it worse, Whitaker said. Lamar Hodge, who was downstairs, said he heard his sister, Zina, screaming for help from upstairs, beyond the kitchen. Detective Alex Rodriguez, on the mayor's security detail since June, said he went to the second floor with Booker right behind. They also heard Zina Hodge's screams. By then, 2012 chanel fashion sunglasses discount for sale CREWR248 Rodriguez said, flames had scaled the wall and were fanning across the ceiling, and they could hear what he described as small explosions. Booker moved toward the kitchen. Rodriguez said he held him back and that the two "exchanged words." "I said: 'I can't let you in, that's my job. I have to keep you from danger,' " Rodriguez recalled. Booker tried to charge into the flames a second time, the detective said, and he again restrained the mayor, this time by grabbing his belt. The two again had words, Rodriguez said, and Booker this time laid out the situation in no uncertain terms. "He gave me an order, and I complied," Rodriguez said. "The order was, 'Let me go.' " The smoke in the backroom was so thick that he "couldn't see anything," the mayor said. He said he was "frightened" because he could not find Hodge, 47, at first. Once he located her, he said, he lifted her over one shoulder "and ran as quickly as I could through the kitchen, which was on fire, and to Rodriguez, who assisted me in taking her out of the house." The mayor played down the idea that he had been a hero. "I'm a neighbor who did what most neighbors burberry ties would do, which is jump into action," he said, adding, with a nod to Rodriguez: "I think most people would have done the exact same thing. The only difference is I had to convince somebody to let me go who was doing his job to protect me."

2012年4月12日星期四

The station listens for radio transmissions from mariners and aircraft

“For most workers, it is best to exit burberry ties quietly and not burn any bridges," outplacement expert John Challenger said in a statement in March. "New employers may need to contact your former boss for references, and loose talk may be the difference between a new job and continued unemployment. Even a rant about a former employer on Facebook can become an obstacle to new employment.” Muto, in his first article as the Fox Mole, said he had never intended his job at Fox to be a long one. "The plan was simple: get hired, keep my head down and my views to myself, work for a few months, build my résumé, then eventually hop to a new job burberry outlet that didn't make me cringe every morning when I looked in the mirror," he wrote. He joined Fox in 2004. He said he settled into life at Fox after numerous efforts to find other jobs failed. In his first blog as Fox Mole, Muto labeled his employer's website as the "seedy underbelly of the Fox News online empire." He singled out one post on the site, illustrated with pictures of black celebrities who visited with the president on his 50th birthday last August, under the headline "Obama's Hip Hop BBQ Didn't Create Jobs." "The post neatly summed up everything that had been troubling me about my employer: Non sequitur, ad hominem attacks on the president; gleeful race baiting; a willful disregard for facts; and so on," Muto wrote. The partygoers also included many Washington politicians and White House staffers, he said. Muto's posts included a two-minute video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's off-air banter in an interview with Mr. Hannity. "I think Mitt loses points with the GOP base burberry shoes for men for his correct pronunciation of dressage," Muto posted. On Wednesday afternoon, Fox and Muto engaged in an unusual game of cat and mouse. A representative told website Mediaite.com that the TV network had identified the person and was exploring its legal options, but Muto taunted Fox with another post saying, "I Am the Fox Mole, And I'm Still Here." That changed late on Wednesday, Muto wrote, when he was ushered into a Fox attorney's office and "suspended indefinitely ... with pay, oddly enough." That posting was made before Fox confirmed that Muto would be fired. Two Coast Guard members were fatally shot Thursday at a communications station on an island off Alaska in what officials said appeared to be a double homicide. They have yet to identify a suspect. The victims were found at their work Ray ban sunglasses areas inside the Kodiak Island station early Thursday by another Coast Guard member, spokeswoman Sara Francis said. Officials believe a third person was involved in the shooting, she said, adding the rest of the roughly 60 enlisted personnel and civilians working at the station have been accounted for. Capt. Jesse Moore, commanding officer of the Coast Guard base on Kodiak, said the shootings likely occurred sometime between 7 and 8 a.m., soon after the two victims arrived for work inside one of the communication station buildings. The captain said he was not aware of any threats Oakley sunglasses or anything else that might have indicated problems at the station. The station is equipped with security cameras, but it was not yet known if they captured any evidence, he said. Moore said the base was “deeply saddened” by the loss of two shipmates. “This is a tragic event and we are going to do everything we can to look after the families of victims, to take care of them and to protect the residents and citizens and other Coast Guard employees in Kodiak,” Moore said. After the shooting, security was increased at the base, about 8 miles from the island’s largest city of Kodiak. Officials called on the city’s 6,300 or so residents to remain calm and vigilant. Francis said added security was in place at burberry outlet the base and an adjacent school. The station listens for radio transmissions from mariners and aircraft, Petty Officer Charly Hengen said. The staff is responsible for relaying distress calls to other Coast Guard stations and offices. The station has “secure front doors,” Hengen said, and requires staff and visitors to show identification. Francis said visitors and those not actually working at the station are usually provided escorts. The Coast Guard said the victims’ identities would be released after family members were notified. The FBI said agents flew to Kodiak from Anchorage, about 250 miles away. Chole sunglasses, designer chloé eyewear, cheap chloe glasses 2012 sale. Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo, the commander of Coast Guard operations in Alaska, was in New London, Conn., for a conference at the Coast Guard Academy but left ahead of schedule. Ostebo could not be reached for comment, according to academy spokesman David Santos. The shooting occurred almost 11 years after another fatal shooting involving the Coast Guard on another Alaska island, St. Paul Island, which is about 660 miles west of the city of Kodiak. A man killed a Coast Guard officer whom he louis vuitton hairpin believed was having an affair with his estranged wife. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

2012年4月11日星期三

Zuckerberg noted that users can maintain their Instagram photos off Facebook

Facebook's $1 billion gobbling up of Instagram burberry handbags has sent disgruntled fans of the quirky photo-sharing app to the delete button. Twitter and other online platforms buzzed Wednesday with depictions of Facebook as a corporate monster trampling over a defenseless community of creative, free-spirited types. "Guess it's time to delete my instagram app before Facebook ruins it," Twitter user Charlie Robinson griped. In another tweet, Ray ban sunglasses Jay El Nino Garcia moaned: "Nice facebook just bought instagram. Another thing to delete." According to analysts at Crimson Hexagon, which studies social media content, just 12 percent of 201,000 relevant Twitter mentions of the takeover were positive. Ten percent registered "disgust" with Facebook and another 10 percent promised to quit Instagram. Why the outcry? Facebook is wildly popular and has the same basic mission as Instagram -- encouraging people to build virtual networks on which to share their lives. But for Instagram's 30 million users, the Oakley sunglasses cult-status app has a very different identity to the mass market Facebook. Unlike Facebook, there is no advertising, and certainly no selling of users' personal details to advertisers. It's single-minded, pure. Sure, the main burberry watches point is to share snaps, which can be made to look cool with filters, but Instagram's mobile-to-mobile traffic is seen as safe from the privacy problems said to plague Facebook's advertiser-friendly pages. "Its ability to let its users delicately toe the line between public and private gave us a little breathing room from the all-pervasiveness of Facebook, and to see it whisked away feels like a tangible loss," wrote Jenna Wortham on The New York Times tech blog. "The sale of Instagram brings a harsh reality into focus, burberry ties the realization that the secret rooms or private spaces online where we can share, chit-chat and hang out with our friends are fading. The few safe havens that do exist are quickly being encroached upon or are next on the shopping list for a company like Google, Apple or Facebook." New York magazine compared Facebook to an alien spaceship and said that for "some users, this looks like a sellout. And that's because it is." Facebook founder burberry watches for men outlet Mark Zuckerberg went out of his way to reassure Instagram purists that they needn't get their hands dirty. On his own Facebook page, Zuckerberg noted that users can maintain their Instagram photos off Facebook and also keep their Instagram followers separate. "We need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg may not be popular in all quarters of the global online world, but his announcement notched up over 140,600 "likes." Juicy Couture sunglasses, cheap Juicy Couture glasses sale. Among the many positive comments were "great decision" and "congrats!" But even on Zuckerberg's virtual doorstep there were dissenters mourning the arrival of mega money into a cozy hipster world. "A picture's worth a thousand words," louis vuitton lady outwear wrote Peter RonPaul Kallman, crossing out "thousand words" and replacing them with: "billion dollars."

2012年4月10日星期二

Cuban insisted that he failed in trying to make the situation work

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had burberry handbags noticed Lamar Odom's uninspired play numerous times before, and kept hoping things would change. It took one reply by Odom during a heated halftime exchange in his last game, when Cuban questioned the player's commitment to the team and Odom told him to quit playing games, to realize it was time for the two sides to part ways. "Just his response to it. Everybody goes through ups and downs. Every player does. We tried to put him in a position to succeed. ... It didn't work," Cuban Ray ban sunglasses said Tuesday night, his first public comments since the team confirmed a day earlier that Odom was done in Dallas. Their halftime exchange came after Odom played an uninspired four minutes Saturday night at Memphis. "I just asked him, does he want to go for it or not. Is he in or is he out? I think he thought we were playing poker. I just didn't get a commitment. And that was the end," Cuban said. "This was a big game for us, and he wasn't connecting to that. And if you're not positive energy, you're negative energy." When asked if that was the first time he noticed Odom having such a demeanor, Cuban responded, "No, but the first 17 times, I Oakley sunglasses decided to try to help him and turn it into a positive." That never happened. Odom's averages of 6.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 20.5 minutes in his underwhelming 50-game stint in Dallas were career lows. He was also often late for team activities such as practices and meetings. The Mavericks didn't release him and instead said Odom would be listed inactive for their remaining nine games. That started with Tuesday night's game against Sacramento. "He didn't want to play. He decided to go elsewhere or do something else. Now we regroup and go forward," Cuban said. "We kept on hoping things would turn out right. It just burberry watches got to the point where there weren't enough games in the season to try to find out." The defending NBA champion Mavericks were only one game ahead of ninth place in the Western Conference standings going into the game against the Kings. Dallas acquired the NBA's reigning Sixth Man of the Year from the Los Angeles Lakers just before the lockout-shortened burberry ties season. It was a low-risk deal for the Mavericks, who gave up a first-round pick and the trade exception from a deal that sent Tyson Chandler to the New York Knicks. The Lakers seemed compelled to move the 6-foot-10 forward, who made $8.9 million this season, after trying to send him to New Orleans in a Chris Paul deal that was nixed by the league. There were also the personal issues for Odom, whose 24-year-old cousin was murdered last summer only days before the player was involved in a fatal car accident that killed a teen pedestrian after the car he was riding in as a passenger collided with a motorcycle. Cuban said the Mavericks knew about Odom's discounted burberry watches for men fragile emotional state when they got him. "Yeah, but we thought we could fight through it," Cuban said. "We knew that's why he was available." Cuban insisted that he failed in trying to make the situation work, and that he didn't have to talk to anyone else to know the end had arrived. "If I'm going to be the guy who smiles with my hand on the trophy, I've got to be the guy who takes the responsibility," Cuban said. "It was just my initiative, just paying attention. ... I was working with him, tried to get him back on the horse. Puma sunglasses, cheap puma glasses wholesale 2012. When I failed, it was my job to recognize it, and deal with it." Odom, the husband and reality TV co-star of Khloe Kardashian, still has a year left on his four-year contract. Any team that has the 13-year veteran on its roster on June 29 must give him a $2.4 million buyout or be responsible for the full $8.2 million he would be due in 2012-13. "The way his contract is structured, it cheap louis vuitton mens shoes will hopefully create some opportunities for us," Cuban said, acknowledging he thinks Odom is tradeable. "Absolutely. It's in his best interests to get his act together, and I'm sure he will. Lamar is still a talented basketball player. He just went through some issues this year. We thought we could work through them with him this year and we weren't able to. Next."