While many beautiful women choose Halloween costumes that are revealing, supermodel Heidi Klum has taken the idea to a whole new level. The Project Runway host managed to surprise everyone at the Halloween party she hosted in Las Vegas with a second-skin costume of what's under her skin.
september 11 2001 pomegranate pomegranate 9 11 lightning dominica fiji
Regal rap titans bounced through Watch the Throne cuts and solo smashes in a set marked by a gaudy display of hits.
By Rob Markman
Jay-Z and Kanye West kick off Watch the Throne tour in Atlanta
Photo: Rob Markman/MTV News
ATLANTA, Georgia — Not even a stormy night could stop the regal reign of the Throne. On Friday, Jay-Z and Kanye West opened up their Watch the Throne Tour in Atlanta. While the WTT album has been noted for its opulent displays of wealth, Hov and Yeezy's show will be marked by the duo's overabundance of hit records.
The doors to the Philips Arena opened at 7:30 p.m. ET and, with no scheduled show opener, the house DJ played old slow jams like the Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets," Little Beaver's "Get Into the Party Life" and Hank Crawford's "Wildflower" — all songs that have been sampled by Kanye and Jay at one time or another. Still, the subtle measure wasn't nearly enough to keep fans satisfied. By 9 p.m. ET, the crunked-up crowd was restless and salivating for the night's stars.
With the house lights low and fans pumped, the multilayered instrumental from "H.A.M." came blaring through the sound system. The initial WTT track has been criticized by some as too over-the-top and too much unlike anything in Jay and 'Ye's respective catalogs, but the helter-skelter mix of crashing symbals, bleeps, beeps and bombastic bass was clearly built specifically for sports stadiums and grand auditoriums.
The build was perfect, even if the execution wasn't. Kanye commandeered a rising platform at the front of the stage, while Jay simultaneously occupied a similar lift that was situated on the floor in the middle of the crowd. Within moments, the duo were elevated in unison towering above the audience, volleying verses from one side of the arena to the other. Jay stumbled vocally, though: His ear piece short-circuited and failed to properly feed him the music and his timing was clearly affected. For a time, Hov's raps were badly off beat.
But there were no fits and no cursing at the sound man. Instead, Jay fought through the malfunction, which lasted through the next song. While mid-verse on the dubstep-laced "Who Gon Stop Me," Jigga cued to have the music cut, then finished his bars a capella, buying time until the technical mistake was corrected. From there, perfection ensued.
"Otis" came early in the set. With a Givenchy-designed American flag flashing on the stage's main screens, the Throne bounced through their fan-fave with a youthful glee. Surprisingly, the Roc Boys performed a number of hyped-up Watch the Throne cuts in the first quarter of the show.
With the Throne tone set, Kanye disappeared from the stage while Jay got his rocks off spitting his 1997 street banger "Where I'm From." Throughout the night, Hov and Yeezy would trade off, rocking a few solo songs a piece, before coming together for something collaborative. 'Ye tore through "Can't Tell Me Nothing" and "Jesus Walks" all by himself, before Jigga reappeared for Yeezy's "Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)."
Jay's "Public Service Announcement" and "You Don't Know" were played against Kanye's "Good Life" and "Power" in a sound clash of sorts. By the time the Louis Vuitton Don launched into the gut-wrenching "Runaway," he had hit his stride. He even remixed "Runaway," pleading with the crowd to hold on to their loved ones as he sang, "If you love somebody tonight, hold on real tight." It was effective as couples in the crowd, hugged, danced and two lovebirds even made out.
In a comical section of the set, Jay-Z and the College Dropout weaved a funny story line where their hits "Big Pimpin'," "Gold Digger" and "99 Problems" became a narrative for Jay to school his "little brother" on the opposite sex.
Kanye owned the outfit of the night. After one particular wardrobe change, he marched out to "Touch the Sky" sporting a tribal-type jacket, leather kilt, leather pants underneath and his glow-in-the-dark Air Yeezys. Hov's black Yankee snapback and matching hoodie were no match.
Every time the crowd thought the two-hour-plus show was over, it wasn't. First there was "N---as in Paris." The track's Will Farrell intro ("We're gonna skate to one song and one song only") brought on the moment that everyone was waiting for. As the Atlanta crowd bounced feverishly to the Hit Boy-produced single, Jay halted the proceedings midway: "Start that sh-- over," he barked as the Throne's most-energetic selection of the night brought the crowd to an apex.
Next was Jay's "Encore," followed by an inspirational rendition of "Made in America," complete with images of Martin Luther King Jr. and "sweet brother" Malcolm X flashing on the big screen. Finally, the Throne closed with the rocked-out "Why I Love You," saluting the crowd as they moseyed offstage. "Peace ATL, thanks for all the love. Goodnight," Jay-Z said.
On a night where the two kings put their wealth on full display, lucky for Atlanta, Jay and Kanye West were willing to share.
Share your thoughts on the Throne's Atlanta tour kickoff in the comments below!
Related Videos Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1673399/kanye-west-jay-z-watch-the-throne-tour.jhtml
bill gates michael lewis palin occupy wall street second time around bill gates steve jobs bill gates steve jobs
Game 7 of the World Series. The most exciting night in baseball.
Except for last night, that is. What could possibly top that?
Following one of the most thrilling finishes in postseason history, the Rangers and Cardinals are back at it tonight, less than 20 hours after David Freese's 11th-inning homer for St. Louis pushed the Series to the limit.
Truly, a Fall Classic.
Winner takes all tonight. First pitch is 8:05 p.m. EDT at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals seem to have everything on their side ? momentum, history and their No. 1 pitcher on the mound. After much debate about what manager Tony La Russa would do, Chris Carpenter is set to start on three days' rest for the second time in his career.
The first time was Game 2 of the NL division series in Philadelphia, and that one didn't go very well. But the 36-year-old right-hander says he learned a few things about how to handle pitching on short rest.
The home team has won eight straight Game 7s in the World Series, a streak started by the Cardinals in 1982 against Milwaukee. This is the first time the Series has gone the distance since 2002, when the Angels beat San Francisco.
Matt Harrison gets the ball for Texas. Let down by his defense, he was pulled in the fourth inning of a Game 3 defeat.
Twice, the Rangers were one strike away from their first World Series championship Thursday night. They couldn't nail it down.
Now, after such a painful defeat, can they possibly recover? The last team to win Game 7 of the World Series on the road was the Pittsburgh Pirates at Baltimore in 1979.
Almost lost in all the back-and-forth excitement Thursday night were injuries to several key players. Nelson Cruz strained his right groin and Mike Napoli twisted his left ankle, but both Rangers sluggers are in the Game 7 lineup.
Matt Holliday, however, was removed from the St. Louis roster with a bruised right wrist. Allen Craig starts in left field in place of Holliday.
La Russa also dropped slumping leadoff man Rafael Furcal to seventh in the lineup and Skip Schumaker to eighth. Second baseman Ryan Theriot is at the top of the order and Craig bats second in front of Albert Pujols.
Holliday's absence might not be such a terrible thing for the Cardinals.
Sure, it shortens their lineup. He's a dangerous hitter and a legitimate All-Star. But he really struggled with his swing during the World Series (.158), and he hurt the Cardinals with his glove and on the bases in Game 6, too.
With Holliday out, Freese moves up to fifth in the lineup, perhaps providing better protection for Pujols and Lance Berkman. Freese has been a clutch hitter throughout the postseason, never more so than Thursday night.
Speedy outfielder Adron Chambers, a rookie, replaced Holliday on the active roster.
Clear skies at Busch Stadium. The temperature is 51 degrees, with a little light wind.
All set to play ball.
oakland garmin nuvi 1450 amzn tommy john surgery andy rooney andy rooney occupy oakland
KABUL (Reuters) ? Taliban insurgents armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, as well as a suicide car bomber, attacked two bases used by foreign troops in southern Afghanistan Thursday, the U.S. embassy and NATO-led coalition officials said.
An attack on a military and civilian provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in southern Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban, was still going several hours after it began, and there were some unconfirmed reports of casualties.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
"The attack included RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and small arms fire and is still ongoing at this time," the U.S. embassy in Kabul said in a statement Thursday evening.
"Afghan and coalition forces have responded to the incident. All PRT chief of mission personnel are safe and accounted for, but there are unconfirmed reports of a number of other injuries," it said.
Afghan interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said soldiers also found a car suspected to contain explosives, and sealed off the area while inspecting the vehicle for bombs.
Earlier, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said no ISAF troops had been killed in the Kandahar PRT attack.
Also Thursday, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb outside an ISAF base in Kandahar province's Panjwai district. There were no ISAF casualties and the perimeter of the base was not breached, the coalition said.
Kandahar city, 480 km (300 miles) southwest of the capital, Kabul, and surrounding districts remain some of the most insecure areas of Afghanistan despite more than a year of offensives by NATO and Afghan troops.
Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the start of the war 10 years ago, according to the United Nations, despite the presence of more than 130,000 foreign troops.
ISAF says there has recently been a fall in attacks by insurgents but this data excludes attacks that kill only civilians and attacks on Afghan security forces operating without international troops.
There has been a series of high-profile assassinations, as well as day-to-day attacks by insurgents, over the past year.
In one of the most spectacular attacks, insurgents launched a 20-hour assault on the U.S. embassy and ISAF headquarters in Kabul in September, killing more than a dozen people.
In August, Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 22 people in an attack on the governor of Parwan province's compound.
(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Paul Tait)
atlanta falcons nancy shevell nancy shevell weezer weezer slavoj zizek falcons
PARIS (Reuters) ? U.N. cultural agency UNESCO will vote on Monday on a Palestinian request for membership, part of a wider Palestinian campaign for recognition as a state within the wider United Nations system.
UNESCO's executive board decided on October 6 to allow the 193 member countries vote on the application, angering Israel and the United States, which provides 22 percent of the funding of the U.N. subsidiary and could cut that lifeline as a result.
A UNESCO spokeswoman said the vote was likely to take place late on Monday morning at UNESCO's Paris headquarters, during an
annual gathering that runs from October 25 to November 15.
UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since applying for membership of the United Nations on September 23.
The bid for a full U.N. seat, which can be granted only by the Security Council, is destined to fail because Washington has vowed to use its veto in the forum if it comes to a vote.
Washington views the Palestinian quest for U.N. recognition of statehood as a unilateral move unhelpful to U.S. efforts to revive stalled peace negotiations with Israel, which it says are the only way forward.
The Palestinians say talks with Israel, which also opposes the Palestinian U.N. initiative, have brought them no closer to their goal of independence in the two decades since such negotiations began.
(Reporting By Vicky Buffery; Editing by Brian Love and Alistair Lyon)
equifax typing games javascript javascript history channel est maze
JUBA (Reuters) ? South Sudan said on Wednesday its schools will start teaching English, phasing out Arabic that had been used as a tool to spread Islamic law and Arab heritage by former civil war foe Khartoum.
The mainly Muslim north imposed Islamic law and Arabic on the south, which seceded in July to become the world's newest nation, and where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs.
The language move is symbolic of the nation's vision of closer integration with African neighbors, said Samson Wattara, an associate professor in political science at Juba University.
"The switch will not be automatic and will probably be problematic but South Sudanese want to look southwards," Wattara told Reuters.
"This is a departure from the arabisation doctrine which was consistently opposed by different rebellions," he said.
South Sudan's government passed a bill making English mandatory for teaching in primary and secondary schools, Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told reporters.
"Under the Khartoum government subjects were universally taught in Arabic. We will teach our national languages at pre-school and for the rest, the instructions in mathematics or science will all be in English," he said.
South Sudan has dozens of local languages and dialects, but the most commonly spoken languages are English and Arabic.
Benjamin said the country is training 7,000 new teachers to help launch the new syllabus, to give students easier access to universities in east Africa. Secondary school students will continue to sit exams in Arabic for the next three years.
South Sudan's independence vote, agreed under a 2005 peace deal, ended decades of civil war with the north over religion, oil, ethnicity and ideology.
North and South Sudan yet have to settle a range of disputes such as sharing oil revenues and other assets and find a solution for the disputed border region of Abyei.
(Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Louise Ireland)
slither schweddy balls schweddy balls craigslist killer chattanooga joey lawrence joey lawrence
GENEVA ? The start of a second day of talks between U.S. and North Korean diplomats on Pyongyang's nuclear program was delayed without explanation Tuesday, a day after the top U.S. envoy reported some progress in narrowing differences between the two sides.
U.S. officials said North Korea had asked the American delegation to come to its U.N. mission in Geneva "for a working lunch and an afternoon session." The talks had been scheduled to start at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT; 4 a.m. EST).
North Korean officials couldn't be reached for comment.
In the closely watched meetings, the second direct encounter between the two parties in less than three months, diplomats from both sides are trying to determine whether the so-called six-party nuclear talks, which include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea in addition to North Korea and the United States, can resume.
The top U.S. envoy, Stephen Bosworth, said late Monday night that the discussions are also touching on other long-standing issues, such as urgently needed food aid for the North, families long separated on the Korean peninsula and the remains of troops missing in action. The U.S. and North Korea are still technically at war.
The U.N.'s top relief official, Valerie Amos, said Monday after visiting North Korea that it was "not appropriate" for the nuclear talks in Switzerland to extend to humanitarian assistance to the chronically hungry Asian country because that aid "must be kept separate from a political agenda." The U.N. is calling on countries to provide $218 million in emergency aid to North Korea.
The first day of talks was hosted by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The U.S. delegation was being hosted Tuesday at the North Koreans' U.N. mission, on the opposite side of Lake Geneva, where Bosworth's counterpart is First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. Bosworth is accompanied by Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is taking over the negotiating brief in future talks.
At his hotel late Monday night, Bosworth told reporters he was "neither optimistic nor pessimistic" with one day left for discussions.
"I think we're moving in a positive direction. We have narrowed some differences, but we still have differences that we have to resolve," he said at the elegant lakeside hotel where both parties are staying.
"As you know, our goal is to try to find a solid foundation on which to launch a resumption of discussions both bilateral and multilateral, and we will continue to work hard to bring that about," Bosworth said. "We have made some progress, we have issues still to resolve and we will work hard to do that."
U.S. diplomats want North Korea to adhere to a 2005 agreement it reneged on requiring verifiable denuclearization in exchange for better relations with its Asian neighbors. China, North Korea's closest ally, has urged Pyongyang to improve its strained ties with the United States and South Korea.
Beijing wants to revive the stalled six-nation disarmament negotiations. North Korea walked out on the talks in 2009 ? and exploded a second nuclear-test device ? but now wants to re-engage. Last year, Pyongyang also was blamed for two military attacks on South Korea that heightened tensions on the peninsula.
ted haggard neutrino carly fiorina girl with the dragon tattoo trailer girl with the dragon tattoo trailer parks and rec facebook announcement
COLUMBUS, Ohio ? A federal judge handed down a three-year sentence Wednesday to the tattoo parlor owner whose purchase of Ohio State University football memorabilia triggered a far-reaching football scandal and an ongoing NCAA investigation.
But U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost found that Edward Rife didn't have the ability to pay a $10,000 fine following his conviction earlier this year on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
Rife, 31, had asked for leniency, saying previous convictions for assault and forgery occurred several years ago and didn't suggest he was likely to commit future crimes.
Rife, owner of Fine Line Ink Tattoos and Body Piercings on the west side of Columbus, tearfully apologized to his family and friends for his actions.
He said he's had to sell his house, move his daughters, ages 6 and 11, to different schools because of taunts they've received and is currently separated from his wife.
"I know what I did was wrong and I regret it every day," he said. "I never plan on doing anything wrong again."
Rife's conviction for dealing hundreds of pounds of marijuana was not all that different from other drug cases that often come before Frost. But the fact that Rife's actions inadvertently caused upheavals at Ohio State created intense interest in the case.
Frost made it clear he didn't care about the Ohio State connection.
"This is about drugs. This is not about trinkets," Frost said.
"I don't care about trinkets, I don't care about Ohio State, I don't care about the players," Frost said. "I care about the drugs."
Frost said he took into consideration the many letters of support he had received on Rife's behalf and said Rife was different from many other drug defendants.
He also told Rife that while he had sympathy for his family, he had little sympathy for Rife as the source of their ills.
"This is a terrible offense," Frost said. "There's no getting around it."
Even prosecutors seemed sympathetic toward Rife, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelley telling Frost he didn't know what punishment Rife could receive that would be worse "than what he's already gone through."
Prosecutors alleged that in addition to Rife's tattoo parlor, he had a lucrative side business selling hundreds of pounds of marijuana in Columbus, a second job that federal prosecutors say allowed him to pay $21,500 for a luxury SUV.
In December, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor and four other Ohio State players were found to have received cash and discounted tattoos from Rife in exchange for signed Buckeye memorabilia and championship rings.
All were permitted by the NCAA to play in the Buckeyes' 31-26 victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, with their five-game suspensions to begin with the first game of the 2011 season. Another player, Jordan Whiting, was suspended for one game.
After the team returned from New Orleans, investigators found that coach Jim Tressel had learned in April 2010 about the players' involvement with Rife.
Rife had met with Christopher Cicero, a local attorney and former Ohio State walk-on player, that month to discuss his case but never hired Cicero. Cicero sent Tressel emails detailing the improper benefits, and the two ended up trading a dozen emails on the subject.
Tressel had signed an NCAA compliance form in September saying he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by athletes. His contract, in addition to NCAA rules, specified that he had to tell his superiors or compliance department about any potential NCAA rules violations.
Tressel, who won a national championship and seven Big Ten titles at Ohio State, resigned May 30. Pryor also left Ohio State.
Three people testified in favor of Rife on Wednesday, including a woman who said she'd taken him in as a boy when he was homeless and begging on the street.
A friend, Sean Abbott, said Rife often took him into his house when he was homeless and always cared for him.
After Abbott finished speaking, Frost, laughing, said he had to ask Abbott where he got the Ohio State jersey he was wearing.
"I bought this one from Wal-Mart," Abbott said.
Rife's lawyer, Stephen Palmer, said his client had been wrongly portrayed as the villain behind Ohio State's woes and that people hadn't seen his human side.
"It's been crushing," Palmer said. "He's not just an ugly mug shot as we've seen in the news."
In June, Rife pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 200 pounds of marijuana.
Rife has forfeited $50,000 in drug proceeds, but was allowed to keep the memorabilia found in his suburban Columbus home. Those include Big Ten championship rings, gold pants pendants, autographed items and parts of football uniforms.
IRS criminal investigators have said they couldn't determine whether Rife had used drug profits to buy the memorabilia.
The IRS said investigators learned of Rife's drug dealing while probing a major marijuana and cocaine operation in central Ohio.
Kelley said there was no evidence Ohio State players were involved in the marijuana operation.
___
Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
john cabot john cabot safety razor safety razor star wars blu ray star wars blu ray trans siberian orchestra
FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2011 photo, Richard Shenkman watches on as his attorney Hugh Keefe takes notes while final evidence and witnesses are presented by the State's Attorney's Office during Shenkman's trial in Hartford Superior Court, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 in Hartford, Conn. Shenkman was convicted Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011 of kidnapping his ex-wife, holding her hostage for nearly 12 hours and burning down the Connecticut home they used to share. (AP Photo/Tim Cook, Pool)
FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2011 photo, Richard Shenkman watches on as his attorney Hugh Keefe takes notes while final evidence and witnesses are presented by the State's Attorney's Office during Shenkman's trial in Hartford Superior Court, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 in Hartford, Conn. Shenkman was convicted Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011 of kidnapping his ex-wife, holding her hostage for nearly 12 hours and burning down the Connecticut home they used to share. (AP Photo/Tim Cook, Pool)
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? A former advertising executive is facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison after being convicted Tuesday of kidnapping his ex-wife, holding her hostage for nearly 12 hours and burning down the Connecticut home they used to share.
Richard Shenkman, 62, showed no visible emotion as the six-person jury in Hartford rejected his insanity defense and convicted him of all 10 charges, including kidnapping, arson, assault, threatening and violating a protective order. His ex-wife, who escaped without serious injury, testified that Shenkman fired a handgun near her head, prepared a noose for her and claimed to have rigged the house with explosives.
The standoff in 2009 ended when Shenkman came out of the burning home and pointed the gun at his head. Police subdued him with rubber bullets and stun guns and took him into custody. Two psychiatrists testified that Shenkman was psychotic at the time, but the prosecutor argued that he was just acting mentally ill to avoid prison and presented experts who testified Shenkman wasn't psychotic.
Shenkman, who didn't testify, has been detained since his arrest. He is set to be sentenced Jan. 4. The 10 charges carry up to about 90 years in prison.
He also awaits trial for allegedly burning down his and ex-wife Nancy Tyler's former beachfront home in East Lyme in 2007.
Prosecutor Vicki Melchiorre said Tyler was relieved that the trial was over and that he was found guilty instead of not guilty by reason of insanity, which would have resulted in him being sent to a state psychiatric hospital for criminals with periodic reviews on whether he should be released.
"She wants her life back," Melchiorre said.
Tyler, a civil litigation attorney, didn't talk with reporters at the courthouse after the verdict but sent an email to The Associated Press late Tuesday afternoon.
"I'm so grateful to the jury for their hard work and careful deliberation," she wrote. "My family and I are pleased with the verdict and appreciate the prosecutor's hard work, dedication and skill."
Shenkman's lawyer, Hugh Keefe said he was disappointed with the verdict, but wasn't surprised because insanity defenses are hard to prove. He said such defenses are used in only 1 percent of criminal trials and only a quarter of those succeed. He also said he believes juries are biased against mentally ill defendants.
"He knew how difficult this defense was, and he knew he didn't sound pretty on the tapes," Keefe said, referring to recorded calls between Shenkman and police during the crisis.
Jurors declined to comment while leaving the courthouse Tuesday. They began deliberations at the end of the three-week trial Monday afternoon.
On July 7, 2009, police said Shenkman kidnapped Tyler from a downtown Hartford parking garage at gunpoint and forced her to drive about nine miles to the South Windsor home they once shared.
Authorities said Shenkman and Tyler were due in court for a divorce-related hearing later that morning, and he was supposed to turn over the house to her or face jail time for contempt of court.
Tyler testified at the trial about her harrowing ordeal, saying Shenkman handcuffed himself to her, fired a handgun twice near her head, prepared a noose for her and claimed to have rigged the house with explosives as swarms of police surrounded the home. Tyler had called a friend on her cellphone in concern over seeing Shenkman's minivan near her Hartford office and urged her to call police just before she was kidnapped.
Tyler said that Shenkman handcuffed her to an eyebolt in a basement wall at one point, and that she managed to unscrew the bolt and run outside when Shenkman went upstairs to check on police activity.
Shenkman talked on the phone to dispatchers and police officers several times during the crisis. The jury listened to the recorded conversations, in which Shenkman sometimes sounded frantic, screamed, used profanity and several times counted down the seconds to his threatened killing of Tyler.
Police testified that the nearly 15-hour standoff ended when Shenkman came out of the burning home, which was uninsured at the time, and pointed a handgun at his head. Minutes later, officers shot Shenkman with rubber bullets and used a stun gun on him twice before subduing him and taking him into custody.
Shenkman and Tyler married in 1993 and she filed for divorce in 2006. A judge approved the divorce in 2008, but court proceedings continued as Shenkman appealed.
Tyler also testified that Shenkman once told her that he had learned he could get his way in many situations if he acted crazy.
Melchiorre told the jury during closing arguments Monday that Shenkman kidnapped Tyler and burned down the home because he was upset she filed for divorce and he didn't want her to have the house. She also said he was scared to go to prison.
"Fear of going to jail is not psychotic," Melchiorre said, "especially when you're a 60-year-old, short, out-of-shape guy with an annoying disposition. It's not something that would make him popular in jail."
In the East Lyme house fire, Shenkman is being detained without bail on charges he burned that house down just hours before he was to hand it over to Tyler as part of the divorce.
Shenkman is the brother of Mark Shenkman, founder and president of one of the nation's largest money management firms, Shenkman Capital Management. His former advertising firm, Primedia, once produced the former "Gayle King Show" in 1997 starring Oprah Winfrey's best friend, who now has a new TV show with the same title.
Associated Pressea sports ovarian cancer symptoms angola manny ramirez harvest moon alyssa campanella alyssa campanella
Maybe somewhere out there, a diehard Motorola and Android fan has patiently been waiting for the LTE edition of the Xoom. He's stuck it out, not wanting to buy the 3G Xoom and eventually having to send it back to Motorola for its LTE transplant. He's been waiting for the complete package. Well, nearly eight months to the day after the Xoom first hit the market, Motorola finally introduced the Xoom 4G LTE and it's available from Verizon.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6sZ16cJODUk/
lion king 3d the lion king 3d the lion king 3d missoni maker faire the hub the hub
FRANKFURT (Reuters) ? SAP, the world's biggest maker of business software, said on Wednesday it would consider buying back shares after reporting a 23 percent jump in third-quarter operating profit and sticking to its 2011 outlook.
"Given SAP's strong free cash flow generation over the first nine months of 2011, the company plans to further evaluate buying back shares in the future," the company said in a statement.
SAP said free cash flow was 2.64 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in the first nine months of the year, up 42 percent from 1.85 billion euros last year or 27 percent of total revenue.
SAP, which competes with Oracle Corp, said earlier this month third quarter sales at its key software and software-related services business rose 16 percent to 2.69 billion euros, while group sales came in at 3.41 billion.
Underlying operating profit for the group jumped 23 percent from a year ago to 1.13 billion euros, beating analysts' average forecast of 1 billion.
The company reiterated its outlook saying it would reach the high end of its 10 to 14 percent growth forecast for software and related services. Operating profit would come in at the high end of between 4.45 billion euros and 4.65 billion.
($1 = 0.719 Euros)
(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde)
miami hurricanes football miami hurricanes football emmy winners emmy winners sportsbook sportsbook directions driving
TUNIS (Reuters) ? Tunisia's moderate Islamist party on Tuesday claimed a thumping victory in the country's first election, sending a message to the region that once-banned Islamists are challenging for power after the "Arab Spring."
With election officials still counting ballots from Sunday's vote -- the first to follow as a result of the uprisings which began in Tunisia and spread through the region -- the Ennahda party said its own tally showed it had won. Several of its biggest rivals conceded defeat.
Seeking to reassure secularists in Tunisia and elsewhere who see a threat to liberal values in the region, party officials said they would share power and would not try to push through radical measures.
"There will be no rupture. There will be continuity because we came to power via democracy, not through tanks," campaign manager Abdelhamid Jlazzi said at party headquarters.
"We suffered from dictatorship and repression and now is an historic opportunity to savor the taste of freedom and democracy," he said.
Shortly before he spoke, an Ennahda female candidate who does not wear the Islamic head scarf, or hijab, sang along to Lebanese and Tunisian pop songs on a stage. The party says her inclusion is proof of its moderate outlook.
In the only hint of trouble so far in the election, about 400 people protested outside the election commission building, alleging that Ennahda, led by the long exiled Rachid Ghannouchi, was guilty of vote fraud.
The protesters, encircled by police, carried banners saying: "What democracy?" and "Shame on you, Ghannouchi!" Police later dispersed them without violence.
Election officials say there were only minor violations and Western monitors applauded the election.
Ennahda, citing its own figures, said the election gave it 40 percent of the seats in the assembly which will draft a new constitution, appoint an interim government and set a date for new elections late next year or early in 2013.
That tally, if confirmed by the election commission counting the votes, would still require the party to form alliances with secularist parties if it is to have a majority. That is expected to dilute its influence.
RESONANT WIN
The victory was the first in the Arab world for an Islamist party since Hamas won a 2006 election in the Palestinian Territories.
The election result is likely to resonate in Egypt, which starts voting in November in a multi-stage election. An Islamist party which shares much of the same ideology as Ennahda is predicted to perform strongly.
Tunisia became the birthplace of the "Arab Spring" when Mohamed Bouazizi, a vegetable seller in a provincial town, set fire to himself in protest at poverty and government repression.
His suicide provoked a wave of protests which forced autocratic President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia in January.
The revolution in Tunisia, a former French colony, in turn inspired uprisings which forced out entrenched leaders in Egypt and Libya, and convulsed Yemen and Syria -- re-shaping the political landscape of the Middle East.
Only a trickle of official results has so far appeared -- unlike votes under Ben Ali when the outcome was announced straight away, probably because it had been pre-determined.
Returns from the handful of electoral districts which completed their counts showed Ennahda so far had 37 seats in the 217-seat assembly. Its nearest rival, the secularist Congress for the Republic, had 13 seats.
TURKISH MODEL
Ennahda's leader Ghannouchi was forced into exile in Britain for 22 years because of harassment by Ben Ali's police. A soft-spoken scholar, he dresses in suits and open-necked shirts while his wife and daughter wear the hijab.
Ghannouchi is at pains to stress his party will not enforce any code of morality on Tunisian society, or the millions of Western tourists who holiday on its Mediterranean beaches. He models his approach on the moderate Islamism of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
The party's rise has been met with ambivalence by some in Tunisia. The country's strong secularist traditions go back to the first post-independence president, Habib Bourguiba, who called the hijab an "odious rag."
"I really feel a lot of fear and concern after this result," said Meriam Othmani, a 28-year-old journalist. "Women's rights will be eroded," she said.
"Also, you'll see the return of dictatorship once Ennahda achieves a majority in the constituent assembly."
Ennahda's win was a remarkable turnaround for a party which just 10 months ago had to operate underground because of a government ban which had put hundreds of followers in prison.
In a slick and well-funded campaign, the party tapped into a desire among ordinary Tunisians to be able to express their faith freely after years of aggressively enforced secularism.
Western diplomats say Ennahda is largely funded by Tunisian businessmen, which they say means the party will pursue pro-market economic policies.
It also sought to show it could represent all Tunisians, including the large number who take a laissez-faire view of Islam's strictures, drink alcohol, wear revealing clothes and rarely visit the mosque.
Secularist opponents say they believe this is just a cleverly constructed front that conceals more radical views, especially among Ennahda's rank and file in the provinces.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Tunis; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Michael Roddy)
kim zolciak kim zolciak aziz ansari aziz ansari corn maze icloud kroy biermann
SAN FRANCISCO ? Google is dealing with more government demands to turn over information about its users as more people immerse themselves online.
The mounting pressure on the Internet search leader emerged in a statistical snapshot that Google Inc. released Tuesday of its dealings with authorities around the world. The breakdown provides a country-by-country capsule of Google's legal sparring with authorities during the first six months of the year.
This is the fourth time Google has disclosed a six-month summary of government requests since the company started reporting the numbers last year following a high-profile showdown with China's communist government over online censorship. With Tuesday's update, Google included the total number of user accounts targeted, instead of just the number of requests made by police, prosecutors, courts and other agencies at all levels of government worldwide.
Google received more than 15,600 requests in the January-June period, 10 percent more than the final six months of last year. The requests in the latest period spanned more than 25,400 individual accounts worldwide ? a tiny fraction of Google's more than billion users.
Google became a caretaker of sensitive personal information through its dominant search engine, which processes about two of every three online queries in the U.S. and an even larger share in parts of Europe. The company vacuums up even more information about what people are doing and thinking through its YouTube video service and increasingly popular Gmail service for communications. Meanwhile, Google is trying to get users to share even more tidbits about their lives on a social networking service called Plus, which has attracted more than 40 million accountholders since it debuted in June as an alternative to Facebook.
All that information makes Google a potentially valuable resource for authorities fighting crime, terrorism or other activities opposed by the government.
The highest volume of government demands for user data came from the U.S. (5,950 requests, a 29 percent increase from the previous six-month stretch); India (1,739 requests, up 2 percent); France (1,300 requests, up 27 percent); Britain (1,273 requests, up 10 percent); and Germany (1,060 requests, up 38 percent).
Google also listed how many times governments sought to censor video on the company's widely watched YouTube video site or demanded some other piece of content be removed for reasons ranging from privacy concerns to laws prohibiting hate speech.
The volume of worldwide censorship demands from governments remained at roughly the same level from the previous six-month period, although there were sharp spikes in some countries. In Britain, for instance, the government asked Google to remove 220 videos from YouTube during the first six months of the year, compared with 40 videos during the previous six months. The British government wanted most of the videos taken down for "national security" reasons.
Google declined to provide more details on the videos that the British government saw as national security risk. Britain's Home Office would only say that "the government takes the threat of online extremism or hate content very seriously."
Google acquiesced to 82 percent of the British government's censorship demands in whole or part, according to Tuesday's breakdown.
The company usually complies with at least a portion of most government demands. Google has said that it often has little choice because it must obey laws in the countries where it operates. The alternative is to leave, as it did last year when it shifted its search engine to Hong Kong so it wouldn't have to follow mainland China's censorship requirements.
In the U.S., Google gave federal, state and other agencies what they wanted 93 percent of the time. The nearly 6,000 requests affected more than 11,000 user accounts during the January-June period.
In India, Google honored 70 percent of the 1,739 requests, which targeted more than 2,400 users, the second highest totals.
Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., rejected the most government demands for user information in Argentina, where 68 percent of the requests were denied. Less than 50 percent of the government requests for user data were complied with in Canada, Chile, France, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey and South Korea.
By disclosing how many government requests it receives every six months, Google hopes to encourage the passage of new laws that will give the company more leverage to deny government access to people's online communications and activities.
___
AP Writer Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this story.
___
Online:
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/
harbaugh the walking dead season 2 milwaukee brewers will power will power indy 500 martin luther king memorial
BAGHDAD ? A U.S. State Department program to train Iraqi police lacks focus, could become a "bottomless pit" of American money and may not even be wanted by the Iraqi department it's supposed to help, reports released Monday by a U.S. government watchdog show.
The findings by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction paint what is supposed to be the State Department's flagship program in Iraq in a harsh light.
The report comes at a crucial time for the State Department as it assumes sole responsibility for securing U.S.-Iraqi ties as American forces leave by the end of this year.
On Oct. 1, the State Department took over the job of training Iraqi police from the Defense Department. According to the inspector general's report, the training program faces many problems.
Only a small portion ? about 12 percent ? of the millions of dollars budgeted will actually go to helping the Iraqi police, the report said. The "vast preponderance of money" will pay for security and other items like living quarters for the people doing the training, the review found.
The audit also said although the State Department has known since 2009 it would be taking over the training program, it failed to develop a comprehensive and detailed plan for the training.
"Without specific goals, objectives and performance measures, the PDP (Police Development Program) could become a 'bottomless pit' for U.S. dollars intended for mentoring, advising and training the Iraqi police forces," the report stated.
The oversight agency also found that budget concerns led to the program being significantly downsized.
In 2009, the State Department agency in charge of the training, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, estimated it would cost about $721 million to pay for a program with 350 police advisers. That averaged out to about $2.1 million per adviser, said SIGIR.
But in December 2010, the program was downsized to 190 advisers while costs had increased, the report stated. According to SIGIR calculations, the average cost per adviser jumped to $6.2 million per year.
By July of this year, the number of advisers had dropped to 115 for what the State Department described as Phase 1 of the program. If its budget request is approved for fiscal year 2012, the program could be beefed up again to 190 advisers, state department officials told the oversight agency.
Despite the considerable outlay in U.S. taxpayer money, the Iraqi government has yet to sign off on the program and doesn't seem to want it. The official in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MOI) responsible for the ministry's day-to-day operations, Adnan al-Asadi, suggested to SIGIR that the U.S. should spend the money on something for the American people instead.
"What tangible benefit will Iraqis see from this police training program? With most of the money spent on lodging, security, support, all the MOI gets is a little expertise, and that is if the program materializes. It has yet to start," al-Asadi said.
The inspector general said the State Department did not fully cooperate with their audit.
"There were delays in gaining access to key officials and in obtaining documents. Moreover, the documents provided were incomplete," the audit read. One meeting in May was canceled an hour before it was to start because State Department officials needed to additional "Department guidance," SIGIR wrote.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad did not respond to a request for comment.
In a letter to SIGIR, the State Department said it "generally agrees" with the report's recommendations but defended its efforts.
State Department Assistant Secretary William Brownfield wrote that because they were unsure of whether they would get all the money they'd requested, they decided to start with a smaller number of trainers, and they could ramp up to 190 trainers if the money comes through.
Brownfield also said an independent organization was supposed to do a detailed assessment of Iraqi law enforcement capabilities but did not have access to people on the Iraqi side to finish the assessment in time. He said it would be done by November.
The fact that Iraq still does not have a permanent in interior minister has hampered efforts to come up with an agreement on implementing the training program, Brownfield wrote. But he said the MOI was committed to the program. He also wrote that the State Department hoped to reduce costs in the coming years and to hire more Iraqi support employees.
__
Online:
http://www.sigir.mil/directorates/audits/auditReports.html
__
Rebecca Santana can be reached at http://twitter.com/@ruskygal
dolphin tale one for the money crock pot recipes crock pot recipes bob ward bob ward susan lucci
A wildlife rescue group captures a red-tailed hawk in a San Francisco park that appears to have been shot in the head with a nail gun. Rebecca Dmytryk, executive director of the Monterey-based group WildRescue, says the juvenile bird was trapped Saturday Oct. 22, 2011 shortly before sunset at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. The bird was immediately transported to Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley in San Jose. (AP Photo/Katerine Ulrich - WildRescue)
A wildlife rescue group captures a red-tailed hawk in a San Francisco park that appears to have been shot in the head with a nail gun. Rebecca Dmytryk, executive director of the Monterey-based group WildRescue, says the juvenile bird was trapped Saturday Oct. 22, 2011 shortly before sunset at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. The bird was immediately transported to Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley in San Jose. (AP Photo/Katerine Ulrich - WildRescue)
In this photo provided by WildRescue, a red-tailed hawk is seen with a nail in its head at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. Animal rescuers are set to return to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on Wednesday to try to capture the red-tailed hawk. Crews spent much of Tuesday chasing the bird, which may have been shot with a nail gun. Rebecca Dmytryk, director of the group, WildRescue, says rescuers set two traps but were unable to lure the animal. (AP Photo/WildRescue, Rebecca Dmytryk)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? A red-tailed hawk that rescuers said was shot in the head with a nail gun was recovering Sunday at a Northern California wildlife center.
The hawk, captured in a San Francisco park by rescuers Saturday, was doing "very well" while being cared for at the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley in San Jose, said Rebecca Dmytryk, executive director of the Monterey-based group WildRescue.
"The nail dislodged and dropped out during transport with no sign of additional trauma and no bleeding," Dmytryk said.
The juvenile bird was trapped Saturday evening at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. It was immediately transported to the wildlife center where specialists stayed late to receive it, Dmytryk said.
WildRescue had been notified of the injured bird nearly a week ago and had tried to trap it several times last week without success.
But observers got close enough to the bird to see the nail extending from its cheek through the front of its head. They said the hawk appeared to be in pain.
Dmytryk's group had been using a trap called a bal-chatri, a trap made of wire mesh, to try to catch the injured hawk.
Rescuers believe someone intentionally hurt the hawk earlier this month. A reward of $10,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever harmed the bird.
She has said that wild birds like hawks are protected, and that it's a felony to try to capture the birds without a license.
Associated Pressnick swisher pirates of silicon valley htc flyer tablet htc flyer tablet hank williams bruins big 12
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts ? When Dudley Williams was a police commander in the mid-1980s, law enforcement in St. Kitts and Nevis was a leisurely occupation. Violent crime was rare on the sleepy specks of land in the eastern Caribbean.
"If fellows got into a heated dispute at a rum bar, things were settled with fists, a piece of stick, a knife at the worst," said Williams, now 79. "You'd get a shooting once every five years."
Times have changed here and for many islands across the Caribbean, where an escalating arms race among criminal gangs has turned once-peaceful neighborhoods into battle zones.
St. Kitts and Nevis, a two-island federation of nearly 50,000 people, has tallied 31 homicides so far in 2011, already making it the bloodiest year on record. Police blame gangs with names like Killer Mafia Soldiers and Tek Life for the escalating violence.
Usually far from the view of sunbathing tourists, tit-for-tat shootings by trigger-happy gangsters have become common in the Caribbean, according to a new report on global homicides by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
Alarmed citizens are putting pressure on politicians throughout the region to attack the problem. In Trinidad and Tobago, which is off Venezuela's coast along a prime drug shipment route, the government has declared a state of emergency, imposing nightly curfews and giving police and soldiers broad powers to conduct searches and seizures.
Little of the violence so far has affected tourists to the Caribbean, where about 6 million Americans visit each year. Many stick to all-inclusive resorts, and those who don't rarely stray into the gritty slums where the violence flares up.
Still, there are isolated cases: A vacationing U.S. Army sergeant was killed during a robbery in Trinidad last year. A Welsh couple was butchered in an Antigua vacation cottage on the last day of their two-week honeymoon in 2008. In St. Kitts, bandits held up a small bus of tourists last year, prompting two cruise lines to briefly suspend stops there. Two British women were raped on a remote beach in St. Lucia earlier this year.
Drug traffickers have helped drive up the crime rates by introducing firearms and narcotics with a street value exceeding the size of the Caribbean's legal economy.
Although the islands remain near-perfect conduits for drug shipments, with their numerous unpoliced islets and barely monitored coasts, the U.N. crime office says Caribbean drug seizures actually diminished 71 percent between 1997 and 2009 as more contraband shifted to Central American routes.
According to the agency, the increase in the Caribbean's lethal violence can partly be traced to frenzied competition between underworld groups fighting for turf in a diminished drug smuggling market.
Caribbean experts worry a culture of violence has become entrenched on the islands, where nearly 70 percent of homicides are committed by firearms.
"Until fairly recently, we had an innocence about ourselves in the Caribbean, but that's been lost. This thing is a Pandora's Box and I'm not sure you can ever close it again," said Marcus Day, director of the Caribbean Drug & Alcohol Research Institute in St. Lucia.
Comparisons with other parts of the world can be stark. Jamaica, an island of roughly 3 million people that has been hit hard by drug and extortion gangs for years, chalked up 1,428 killings in 2010. Chicago, a city of nearly 3 million, reported 435 homicides last year.
Statistics from the U.N. crime office show homicide rates nearly doubling in a number of Caribbean countries since 1995. In St. Kitts and Nevis, slayings have increased sixfold since 2002, when there were just five killings.
Ivelaw Griffith, an expert on Caribbean security at City University of New York, said outmaneuvered and outgunned law enforcement agencies on the islands have a limited ability to cope with the problem on their own.
He said the spread of cable television and popular music has raised expectations among youths by depicting the easy life even as the rough global economy is making pockets of poverty grow deeper and wider. It's "really creating a very unholy and unhealthy recipe for these small societies," Griffith said.
To counter the gang culture, the Bahamas is toughening crime and bail laws, building more courts, trying to round up unlicensed guns and funding programs to steer at-risk youth away from crime.
The archipelago off Florida's east coast has seen 104 people killed so far this year, easily topping the previous full-year record of 94 set just last year.
Norelle Scott, a 19-year-old college student who lives on the most populous island of New Providence, said she is now fearful of leaving home at any time of day and is pessimistic about the chances for change.
"Criminals are getting bold these days. I'm ashamed to know that my people are killing each other over small things, material things, and it's getting worse," she said.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is urging Bahamians to join neighborhood watch programs and help police identify criminals.
"Community engagement and service will be more effective in combating crime than iron bars and gated communities," Ingraham said during a recent televised address.
Trinidad and Tobago's emergency decree, imposed in August and expected to extend through December, angered some young people, but others applauded the move.
"We don't mind living under curfew conditions if it makes the country safer," said Zana Ramdial, a fortysomething mother of three in the capital of Port-of-Spain.
Many Caribbean islands have been known for feeble local enforcement. In St. Lucia, drug smugglers know immediately when the maritime police are on patrol, making evasion nearly effortless, said Day, the crime researcher in St. Lucia.
"We don't really have enough fuel to pay for the police boats so we can only run them at certain times. And the criminals know when they go out," Day said.
Some of the poor, developing islands have reached out to Scotland Yard and the FBI for help, or brought in foreign police and security consultants.
St. Kitts recruited a new police commissioner, Celvin G. Walwyn, who is a native islander with long experience as police officer in Texas and Florida. He has warned street gangs he plans to eradicate them and has special teams of police and soldiers to patrol crime hotspots together. A tough new law can put people away for 20 years if they are convicted of recruiting for the gangs.
"Rumors on the street are that the gangs have an arsenal. But if push comes to shove, we can wipe them out," Walwyn told The Associated Press.
He said employment and other services will be available for young people who wish to leave gangs.
Dale Watley, a 31-year-old who served three years in an overcrowded St. Lucia prison for a shooting, says youths can be lured away. He turned his back on the underworld life he had known since childhood and now runs his own barber shop.
"The young guys, they want a movie kind of life, like 'Scarface,'" he said. "But once they get a chance to survive in the real world with respect, they don't want to shoot anyone anymore. They want to live."
_____
Associated Press writer Megan Reynolds in Nassau, Bahamas, contributed to this story.
___
David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadden
democracy democracy doctor saab megalodon human centipede ancient egypt
News
By John Cox
October 22, 2011 01:39 PM ET
Network World - For the iOSsphere, it's like the iPhone 4S never happened. The fever of speculation around the Next Apple iPhone rises and ebbs like a great tide, ever restless.
This week: questioning Apple's supremacy, LTE or Die, the rise in iPhone 5 Facebook scams, and why Apple turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the strong call from the faithful for NFC.
You read it here second.
"So, it's probably not unreasonable to expect the iPhone 5 to be a 'complete redesign,' as the source said--meaning both externally and internally, though probably less so internally when compared with pronounced user-facing changes like the display size."~ Brooke Crothers, CNET.com
iPhone 5 better have LTEor else!
It was a headline sure to iGnite iPhanatics's iRe: "TeliaSonera exec questions Apple's supremacy."
The exec in question is Tommy Ljunggren, senior vice president and head of system development for mobility services at TeliaSonera, that famous, big, important mobile carrierin Sweden. And boy did he question it, in an interview at Telecoms.com.
"If you asked me two years ago I would have said Apple would be very important," he said. "But now it will be a bad mistake not to include LTE in the iPhone 5 as otherwise they will really be run over by the others."
Ljunggren went on to say, according to Telecoms, that:
* competitors are quickly catching up with Apple* the company's supremacy in the handset space is coming into question* "They are not unique enough and there is disappointment over the 4S it was too small a step for them."
That did not sit well with 9to5Mac's Christian Zibreg. "Ljunggren, of course, is confused and here's why," Zibreg said. But Zibreg doesn't actually explain why. He just lays out numbers that show Apple's success to date in the smartphone and tablet market worldwide. Of course it's had considerable success. Apparently the idea is that Apple is Too Successful to Fail. An idea which many people had until recently said about companies like, say, Nokia and RIM.
TeliaSonera isn't exactly in the forefront of LTE deployment. Ljunggren admitted the carrier doesn't currently support any LTE smartphones. TeliaSonera is waiting for "true LTE smartphonesnot the ones that the US has right now with two radios." That sounds like he's questioning U.S. supremacy insomething.
The fake U.S. LTE smartphones "drain the batteries flat very quickly as they have one LTE terminal for data and a CDMA voice terminal. It's basically a dongle and phone that they glue together. They work just not for long!" That's pretty good point, and Zibreg is spot-on to note that it's a point Apple has been making for months: waiting for silicon that's highly integrated, and power efficient, because it's all about the User Experience.
leonardo dicaprio the view bastrop texas ryan gosling eva mendes dilbert alex jones
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama delivered on another foreign policy promise on Friday with plans to pull the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But in a re-election campaign all about the weak U.S. economy, he may not get much credit.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi -- these are all dead U.S. opponents that Democrat Obama can claim a measure of credit for getting.
Now add to that Obama's announcement on Friday that the eight-year war in Iraq is ending, fulfilling a campaign goal he made in 2008 when he declared the conflict a misguided mistake by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
In any other year, Obama might be able to ride these accomplishments to re-election in November 2012. But with the economy teetering and Americans hungry for jobs, the national security successes may only inoculate him from Republican criticism of his foreign policy.
Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said Obama has shown a decisiveness and coolness of character that will help him in 2012, when Obama is seeking a second term. And he called it proof that Obama was able to do the job that his chief opponent for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, said he could not with a famous TV ad.
"We now know the answer to the question of whether he's good at answering the phone when it rings at 3 a.m. to tell him there's a crisis," said Shrum, who was 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign manager.
But will voters care?
For clues, look at what happened to Republican President George H.W. Bush two decades ago. He saw his approval ratings rise above 90 percent after U.S. forces won the first Gulf War against Iraq, only to see his popularity tumble due to an anemic economy.
Bush lost the 1992 election to Democrat Bill Clinton, whose campaign mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid."
APPROVAL RATING
Now look at some numbers: Obama's job approval rating was at 42 percent on Friday with 74 percent saying the economic outlook was getting worse, according to a Gallup poll.
The biggest number he faces is the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
"The debate this year and next year is going to be overwhelmingly focused on the economy, on jobs," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. "Foreign policy and international affairs are really going to be sort of pushed to the background."
As political experts attest, however, it is never easy to oust an incumbent president who has the advantages of the office to make his case and ample campaign funds to portray his opponent in a negative light.
Much about politics is about positioning, and Republicans were reluctant to cede much ground to Obama on foreign policy.
Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for George W. Bush, said Obama's announcement has to be seen in context, that it was Bush who had established the end of this year as the timetable for a U.S. pullout from Iraq, a date he declared when he visited Iraq in 2008 and just missed being hit by a shoe thrown by an Iraqi.
Still, he said, Obama deserves some credit. "Unlike Jimmy Carter who was vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy, Barack Obama heading into this election will not be as vulnerable on foreign policy," Fleischer said.
Carter, a Democrat, lost his re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Republicans raised questions about Obama's Iraq announcement because he had failed to reach an agreement with Iraqi leaders to leave several thousands U.S. troops there as a counter-weight against Iran.
"It's very unfortunate," Republican Senator John McCain told Reuters. "I think that it can have serious implications for Iraq and also the region. It also I think certainly has political reasoning behind it."
And Michael Goldfarb, a Republican national security expert, said Republicans have plenty of ground to make a foreign policy case against the president.
"The mix of it makes it very difficult to attack Obama on war-on-terror policies. Republicans will have a compelling foreign policy argument against the president on Russia, China and the Middle East. Those are not bright spots," Goldfarb said.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
funny pics funny pics contagion contagion memory ducati demi moore
