Too Much News

Wright pulled by Collins after Braun hit by pitch

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:01:00 +0000

NEW YORK—David Wright was ready to take one for the team. Terry Collins was not going to let that happen.

So the Mets manager pulled his star third baseman.

“In this game there are unwritten rules and one of the unwritten rules is you hit my guy, I’m hitting your guy. They’re not hitting my guy tonight,” Collins said following the Mets’ 8-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night. “He said, ‘If somebody should be hit, I want it to be me.’ I said it’s not going to be you.”

Wright was set to lead off the bottom of the seventh. One problem: Reliever D.J. Carrasco had just hit NL MVP Ryan Braun a pitch after Rickie Weeks homered.

Carrasco was immediately ejected by plate umpire Gary Darling.

“I didn’t like it. I don’t understand it,” Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said.

Collins knew what might happen next and he pinch hit for Wright. The star slugger had two of the Mets’ five hits off Zack Greinke (4-1), a double and a broken-bat single in the fourth inning—a shard of wood whirling past the pitcher.

Wright and Collins had a heated discussion in the dugout over whether he would bat. Wright didn’t intend to become so animated, where others could see.

“I probably should have picked a better spot for it, but in the heat of the moment I got my stuff on and Terry kind of got me at a moment where I was upset with the situation and got me at a moment that I was pretty hot,” Wright said. “It wasn’t directed at Terry at all.”

Braun, who had a pink welt on his left triceps, understood both sides of the argument.

“I respect the fact that he wanted to stay in the game,” Braun said. “I don’t fault them for making that decision at all.”

Greinke ran his scoreless streak to 15 innings and Travis Ishikawa homered twice and drove in a career-high five runs for Milwaukee.

Greinke pitched seven dominant innings. He worked eight innings in his start last Wednesday but Milwaukee’s bullpen was beaten by the Reds.

Tim Dillard pitched the eighth and John Axford gave up a hit in the ninth while finishing the six-hitter.

Ishikawa led off the fifth with his third homer of the year and connected for a three-run shot in the sixth, both drives coming on the first pitch of the at-bat against Dillon Gee (2-3). He also had a run-scoring groundout in the second inning as fog started rolling in, a misty haze that hung over the outfield for the remainder of the game.

“He’s been throwing a lot of strikes,” said Ishikawa, who has been platooning at first base since Mat Gamel tore a ligament in his right knee in early May. “I didn’t want to get deep into the count.”

The Mets had a chance to move six games over .500 for the first time since July 18, 2010, but managed little against Greinke.

The Mets did not make an out to the outfield against the right-hander. Only Wright and pinch-hitter Mike Baxter, who doubled to left in the sixth, reached second.

Greinke came in 30-46 away from home—he is 80-74 overall. His only poor start this season came at the Chicago Cubs, when he gave up eight runs.

“I’m just trying to keep the same mindset,” Greinke said about pitching on the road as compared to home. “I’m trying to make that better. You’re just a little more comfortable at home.”

The Brewers gave Greinke an early lead on Ishikawa’s groundout and Cesar Izturis’ RBI single. Ishikawa homered off the “Wise Snacks” sign above the New York bullpen in right-center on the first pitch of the fifth inning.

Braun and Aramis Ramirez singled off Gee to start the sixth. Jonathan Lucroy had a one-out RBI single before Ishikawa connected again for the first multihomer game of his career. Ishikawa added a third hit in the eighth, an infield single.

Weeks returned to the Brewers’ starting lineup after being limited to one pinch-hit at-bat in three games because of a bruised hand. He struck out twice and grounded to shortstop before getting his first hit since May 6.

Gee was very upset after giving up 10 hits and four runs in 5 2-3 innings in his previous start. this one was worse. He matched a season high by allowing seven runs and yielded eight hits in 5 1-3 innings. Gee has not won in three starts.

“Mistakes that he makes are in the middle of the plate,” Collins said.

NOTES: Brewers OF Carlos Gomez (strained left hamstring) is set to begin a rehab assignment with Class-A Wisconsin on Wednesday. Roenicke said he should be back Sunday. … Major League Baseball will officially name the Mets host of the 2013 All-Star game at Citi Field with a ceremony at City Hall on Wednesday morning. … Mets 2B Daniel Murphy singled in the fifth to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 11 games.

Parkfield quake study offers new clues on a California fault’s mystery

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:00:25 +0000

LOS ANGELES — thanks to a new method of modeling earthquakes, scientists may now understand why the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas fault — a carefully studied region known for producing moderate temblors every 20 years or so — has been behaving unexpectedly since around the time Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

taking data collected by sensors on the ground and in space and combining them with observations from laboratory physics experiments, Caltech researchers conducted a computer simulation of tectonic events at Parkfield and discovered that a series of small quakes there may have staved off a larger shaker that geologists predicted would occur in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Instead, the fault produced a magnitude-6.0 quake in 2004, more than a decade behind schedule.

Someday, exercises like this could help scientists make predictions about the worst-case scenario for different spots along a fault line, said Nadia Lapusta, co-author of a study about the research published Thursday in the journal Science.

“You won’t predict when the earthquake will happen, but you will be able to predict what is possible and plan for it,” she said.

the Parkfield segment, which is in the southeast corner of Monterey County at the boundary of the Pacific and North American plates, may be the most closely scrutinized 15-mile length of fault in the world.

the region is known to have produced magnitude 6 earthquakes every 20 years, on average, since at least 1857.

“The short recurrence time gives every generation of scientists an opportunity to make predictions and test observations,” said Sylvain Barbot, a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech who led the study.

the town of Parkfield lures tourists with the motto “Be here when it happens.” Scientists flock to the town, about 20 miles northeast of Paso Robles, to participate in the U.S. Geological Survey’s Parkfield Experiment, which employs instruments that track seismic activity, plate motion, groundwater levels, magnetic field fluctuations and other details to help scientists understand what’s happening underground.

some of the tools are buried more than a mile below ground. Geologists measure ground movement using GPS satellites in space.

After a magnitude 6.0-quake rocked the segment in 1966, geologists expected another shaker within about 20 years. They were surprised when nothing significant happened until the 6.0 temblor hit in 2004.

They were even more puzzled, Barbot said, by another characteristic of the 2004 quake: Instead of propagating from the northwestern end of the segment, it started at the southeastern end.

the computer program the Caltech team developed took measurements from Parkfield and plugged them into a model that incorporated laws of friction observed in lab experiments, in which scientists rubbed rocks together to simulate the complicated physical forces underground.

To help the researchers plow through the calculations, Lapusta tuned the model to slow the time scale during earthquakes (plotting data points once every 7 or 8 milliseconds) and speed up things when the fault was quiet (computing changes spaced out as long as two days).

When the scientists ran their program, the simulations reproduced the time delay and change in earthquake origin observed by geologists at Parkfield, suggesting the model correctly described the physics of the segment.

Barbot said that the team believed that smaller temblors — on the order of 4.0 magnitude — at Parkfield in the 1980s and 1990s redistributed stresses on the fault and delayed a larger quake at the northern location, giving the southern side its opportunity to take over.

“These two places are both good to start an earthquake,” he said. “It’s sort of a competition, and once one goes the other is out of the race.”

the model predicted the next quakes at Parkfield would again originate at the southern location, said Andy Michael, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Service in Menlo Park, who was not involved in the research.

“That would be really fascinating,” he said. “Of course, to see if that happens will take another 60 years.”

the big limiting factor on running these kinds of models isn’t ideas, but computational time, Barbot said.

it took 64 powerful computers a full week to crunch through the data. but the program was able to simulate 200 years of geology at Parkfield. Earlier simulations focused narrowly on short-term events or depended on conceptual descriptions instead of real data inputs to describe longer geologic cycles, Barbot said.

“Our model is the only one I know of that can simulate many cycles of earthquakes — the phases where the fault is locked, then isn’t, then is — on this scale,” he said.

but the program has significant limitations, he added.

For example, it disregards “an elephant in the room” — how interactions with nearby faults affect the physics at Parkfield.

Michael of the USGS said he thought some of the geological assumptions underlying the model probably weren’t correct.

but he also said the research marked a “nice step” toward creating physics-based computer models that reproduce observations on the ground and promise to help scientists make predictions about quakes. They could also make forecasts about how human activity affects seismic events, the researchers wrote in Science.

Barbot said he would also like to see someone study interactions between the Elsinore, San Jacinto and San Andreas faults to assess the possible behavior of a 7.0-or-larger magnitude quake in Southern California. Lapusta is already working on an analysis of the 9.0 Tohoku quake that shattered Japan in 2011.

“Dancing with the Stars”: Stars dance in threes for “Trio Challenge”

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:00:29 +0000

"Dancing with the Stars" partners William Levy and Cheryl Burke.

(Credit:ABC)

(CBS News) It’s odd to suddenly realize that there are only six couples left in “Dancing with the Stars.”

It’s like being at a party, having a couple of punchy rum punches and suddenly realizing that half the people have gone home.

Worse this week, not only were the couples to dance twice, but two “stars” would be sent home. That’s two funerals in one week. this is hardly entertainment.

Pictures: “Dancing with the Stars” Season 14

Still, the producers had concocted a fitting formula. first they would have to be strictly ballroom. Then they would have to participate in threesomes. No, please, I am not being smutty. this was exactly the term judge Bruno Tonioli used. For the second round involved the contestants dancing with two professionals, rather than one. The eyes watered.

In rehearsals, Donald Driver was offering many footballing cliches. He was messing up, throwing tantrums and promising bonuses for taking out opponents. (No, scratch that last part. That was just in my head.)

When it came to the real thing, his partner, Peta Murgatroyd had a fetching rubber skirt that harmonized well with Driver’s shiny shoes. For once, he didn’t look entirely as if he were still wearing shoulder pads. Len Goodman called it a “first round knockout.”

“I thought I was going to have to call a marriage counselor,” said Bruno Tonioli. He adored the aggression and the disdain – which might have said slightly more about Tonioli than about Driver.

Earlier this week, Maria Menounos had posed for deeply alluring bikini shots with partner Derek Hough. (Well, he wasn’t even wearing a bikini). yet here they were pretending that theirs was a life of struggle.

Menounos was complaining that she hates whiners and complainers during rehearsals. Hough was being harsh. Apparently the semi-finals would mean “everything” to Menounos. this waltz benefited from not being performed in swimwear. Menounos somehow manages to place her head as expertly as an actress hitting her mark. this was elegant, subtle even. Which is not something one could sincerely say about “Access Hollywood” or “Extra.”

“Heavenly fluidity,” said Tonioli, as Menounos wept.

Carrie Ann Inaba wept too. “Sometimes dances speak to you,” she said. “Sometimes they sing to you,” she sniffed.

Goodman whined that there wasn’t enough time in hold. “You disappointed me,” he said, before Tom Bergeron mentioned he needed an eye exam. yes, Goodman offered an eight, while the emotive ones wafted tens.

Melissa Gilbert is in emotional pain. Maksim Chmerkovskiy managed to help by being smashingly abusive and then playing the victim. “You’re painting me as a terrorist,” he protested.

Their foxtrot revealed great efforts from Gilbert and greater efforts from Chmerkovskiy to propel her around the floor, as if she was about to bump into non-existent furniture. Her beginning was filled with uncertainty.

“That was your best dance ever,” insisted Inaba. She happened to mention that the beginning had been a little rough.

Katherine Jenkins‘ waltz saw her partner Mark Ballas wearing a flat cap – perhaps in honor of Welsh miners from the 1930s. it was a curious sight. yet Jenkins’ skills are simply superior. With her hair up, she made this waltz seem utterly effortless.

“Your technique is superb,” said Tonioli. Inaba didn’t love it at all. Tonioli was so incensed that he stood, ranted and pointed a well-choreographed finger in Inaba’s direction.

Roshon Fegan needed expert direction. So his grandmothers turned up to coach him. one granny was very unhappy with his feet. perhaps she’d choreographed the whole thing, as this foxtrot was so demure as to be almost dull.

Tonioli compared him to a young Mickey Rooney. Inaba, naturally, shouted to the grannies in the audience and asked what they thought. this received two 10s and a nine. Which was terribly odd.

William Levy was also asked to dance the foxtrot. Levy hates all the rules of ballroom dancing – any ballroom dancing. For a man who hates rules, it was surely a sacrifice to don tails and make like Gene Kelly. Levy seemed to handle to strictures quite well, especially after partner Cheryl Burke showed him a little leg at the beginning to motivate him.

“Miaow, miaow, miaow,” was Inaba’s considered judgment. “Your movements were exquisite,” she added. She compared him to a sexy version of the Pink Panther – if that can be imagined. Goodman and Tonioli were equally complimentary.

This was nice, but did it deserve three 10s? somehow, when it gets near to the end of “Dancing with the Stars,” the judges offer a remarkable level of generosity. Could it be because they are instructed to let the viewers decide? a dangerous plot, that would be.

We were on to the second round, which seemed to offer a very interesting trip into a quite psychedelic logic. For here, each “star” was asked to dance in a trio, with either an eliminated pro or member of the show’s dance troupe. No, please don’t ask why. There was no why. They’re just trying to make the show more interesting, perhaps.

Driver and his partner Peta Murgatroyd co-opted Karina Smirnoff – last year’s winning professional.

“If anyone can handle two women, it’s Donald,” was Smirnoff’s professional view.

This jive was slightly Hefneresque. it was as if a young, black Hugh was dancing in the Mansion with a couple of his rabbits.

Driver danced his patterns very well, and managed to stick his landing after leap-frogging both his partners for his finale.

“It’s so hard keeping in sync in a threesome,” observed Tonioli. Inaba simply shrieked with pleasure. Or, perhaps, envy.

Menounos was to dance a samba with Henry from the dance troupe. Henry has great abs. So Derek Hough decided this would be the competition’s first Bollywood samba. this was so ridiculously inventive – something that surely should be performed at the next G7 Summit – that you just knew the judges would find fault with it. Lo, they did.

“You lost timing a couple of times,” said Tonioli.

Inaba was sure there had been missteps. It’s just that the choreography had been so intricate that she hadn’t seen quite where they had been. well, indeed.

“There was no connection for me with a samba,” gruffed Goodman, for whom there is rarely a connection with anything that seems like fun.

It was surely no surprise that Chmerkovskiy decided his brother Val was the only man who could suffer his direction. this samba was an exercise in, well, exercise. it was pleasant. it ended with one of Gilbert’s hands on both brothers’ bottoms. but was it something extraordinary? Sadly, not.

“It was like you said ‘who gives a rat’s booty?’” said an admiring Inaba.

Tonioli compared her to Rita Heyworth, which had a certain generosity.

For her cha-cha – or, rather, cha-cha-cha – Jenkins enjoyed the attentions of not merely Ballas, but also Tristan McManus. He had accompanied both Nancy Grace and Gladys Knight in the last two years.

The boys were dressed like a couple of Blues Brothers who had wandered into “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Jenkins, too, was in a suit. Then it was ripped off her. well, mostly. one part of her pant leg resolutely stuck to her ankle while she continued the steps. She finally kicked it off, as if it had been part of the routine all along. this was what they call a functioning wardrobe malfunction.

The judges loved it. Tonioli compared her to Charlize Theron, who I didn’t realize was into ballroom – although she a guest judge on this year’s “Top Chef.”

Sasha from the troupe was asked to join Fegan and Chelsie Hightower. Weirdly, this was a paso doble – which suddenly became a paso triple. Sigmund Freud would have taken one look at this and booked these people for at least 20 sessions on consecutive days. There were stories within stories here, only some appropriate for family television.

There was a lot less constant trio here, with Fegan being given a solo with Hightower, while Sasha presumably wandered off to get a beer. In the end, Fegan performed very well and got the girl.

Inaba was “conflicted.” She loved the routine, but felt Fegan made a few mistakes.

Goodman was more lyrical: “You were like two skinny fries chasing the ketchup.” He also admired the “tight butt-ocks.”

Levy’s macho innards were put to the test, having to dance with professional Tony Dovolani. Levy can cope, it seems, dancing with Burke. For she is female. but to be shown up by a man would seem to threaten his inner being. and this was another paso triple.

Levy donned a Zorro mask – presumably so that, if he made a mistake, no one would recognize him. He ended up kicking Dovolani in the face. Dramatically, that is.

Inaba loved his lines. “It was pretty insanely fun to watch,” she said. Even Goodman offered compliments. Only Tonioli pointed out a little lost sync.

In the end, this venture into the threesome offered quite some spectacle. can it possible be that a twosome will go? Ah, the cruelty of television.

TOP THREE: Donald Driver, Maria Menounos, Katherine JenkinsBOTTOM TWO: Melissa Gilbert, Roshon Fegan, William Levy

Link Between Watching Pornography And Having Sex Younger

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:01:06 +0000

The internet is bad! before it came along and opened up the eyes of youngsters everywhere to online porn, little boys had to steal from their fathers’ secret stash of Playboy, or, at the very least, the swimsuit of Sports Illustrated. but a study published in CyberPyschology and Behaviour revealed that men between 12 and 17 who regularly viewed porn had sex at an earlier age and were more likely to initiate oral sex. Women who watched pornography at younger age also lost their virginity earlier. “The internet is having some kind of accelerant effect, influencing and changing behavior,” said Shane Krauss, a psychologist from Castleton State College in Vermont, who performed the survey. “Males are having oral sex and losing their virginity much younger when they are exposed to pornography, sometimes by a good three or four years for oral sex or two years for their virginity.” in short, make sure your kids stay on the Disney website, rather than clicking over to X Tube if you want them to remain chaste longer. [Sunday Herald (Scotland)]

Howard Stern: good addition to ‘America’s Got Talent’?

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:01:01 +0000

Howard Stern debuted on 'America's Got Talent' Monday night. CREDIT: Virginia Sherwood/NBC

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Howard Stern is one of the most divisive personalities in the country. his reputation over decades on radio was raunchy, immature, crass. He’s the name you see the most when the phrase “shock jock” is mentioned. the Parents Television Council considers him the bogeyman.

So he was the perfect guy to join the most popular summer TV show, right?

“America’s Got Talent” ratings for its first episode was about 10.3 million, according to early Nielsen estimates. That’s down from 15.3 million a year ago, a nearly one-third drop. Ratings 18-49 only dropped by about 15 percent, from 4.3 to 3.6 so Stern may have scared away more older viewers than younger ones.

So far, the feedback online and on Twitter has been mostly positive. he told critics that he knows how to behave on broadcast TV, having been under FCC restrictions for most of his career. And based on the edited version of Stern we saw Monday night, he made only a few references to sexual matters.

For instance, he said the first guy, a stripper-magician, appeared to be modestly endowed, then noting that he is, too, a standard retort he’s made over the decades.

Stern was bluntly honest, but in a warm, friendly way. while he would insult a poor performer, he did it in a way that felt more like a concerned uncle than just a mean guy for the sake of being the mean guy.

His best improvised line of the night:

“Has someone in your life said to you, ‘This isn’t for you?’ ” he said to one bad singer. “A parent, maybe?”

“My parents are dead,” he said.

“Did they die of embarrassment?” Stern cracked.

He has said on his Sirius/XM show that he loves talent shows and it showed. he joined Simply Sergio on stage after the man started crying and hugged him. (The man sang poorly, then much better in his second effort. Redemption!) he needled both Howie and Sharon. he danced with a sexy male sax player. Heck – he even said the following: “This is going to sound sappy. We are the greatest country in the world. You are everything that makes America great.”

Otherwise, the format is the same eclectic mix of talent and so-called talent: a female singer with cockatiels on her shoulders, a guy who shoves a scorpion in his mouth and a dog ventriloquist. the background music during montage portions are always painstakingly loud and the editing manipulations throw anything remotely close to subtlety out the window.

Jimmy Baron, formerly of 99X and Dave FM, Tweeted this morning to beg to differ with me and others, saying the segments felt “forced and scripted. Friendly, likable, antiseptic Howard is terrible.”

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Gov. Jerry Brown removes controversial doctor fighting tobacco tax

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:01:03 +0000

SACRAMENTO — Dr. La Donna Porter, the controversial doctor who starred in a tobacco-industry-backed ad opposing a June ballot measure that would boost cigarette taxes, has been removed from a state medical panel.

After critics complained about her ties to the tobacco industry, Gov. Jerry Brown approved her removal Thursday from the Proposition 65 Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee, along with four others who’d been previously appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The committee identifies toxicants known to be harmful to fetuses and infants.

Plans had been in the works to overhaul the seven-member panel, administration officials said, but intense pressure began building to remove the Porter after news reports revealed that the 46-year-old family physician at San Joaquin Hospital near Stockton had done previous work for the tobacco and chemical industries.

“Changes had been under discussion long before the Proposition 29 ads,” said Sam Delson, deputy director at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, which oversees the committee. “But it’s fair to say attention to those ads may have focused attention on reviewing this panel and making changes.”

Porter became the face of the No on 29 campaign when it released a constant stream of ads featuring her in her doctor’s smock for three weeks. The ad was pulled Wednesday in what the campaign said was a planned rotation with another ad using an actor wearing a lab coat.

Former Senate leader Don Perata, a co-chairman to the Proposition 29 campaign, was jubilant over Porter’s dismissal. Perata had co-signed a letter seeking her removal, as did Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Beth Miller, spokeswoman for the No on 29 campaign, countered that Porter had served “honorably and capably in her tenure,” and that the criticism and removal was “just another example of Campaign 101: when you can’t win on the issue, you attack the opponent’s messenger.

Porter as well as the No on 29 campaign said the doctor had not received any money to appear in the ad.

Gov. Brown has not taken a position on Proposition 29, which would raise tobacco taxes by $1 a pack, and this week he declined to talk about the June 5 election with this newspaper.

The governor recently received a $26,000 campaign contribution from Philip Morris USA, which along with R.J. Reynolds has contributed nearly $40 million to the No on 29 campaign.

Porter’s newly gained high profile invited a search into her past, and this newspaper found that she’d faced two bankruptcies, in 1998 and 2008, and that her home in Wilton, a rural town 30 miles south of Sacramento, is scheduled for a foreclosure auction on may 23.

Porter had previously appeared in a tobacco-backed ad opposing Proposition 86 in 2006. and in 2002, she took the side of the chemical industry against health advocates. she became a key voice in opposing an EPA-proposed regulation of perchlorate, a water pollutant that environmentalists say has harmful effects on infants and children.

Proposition 29 proponents began to fight back this week with a TV ad of their own, titled “Smokescreen,” depicting Porter’s image obscured by smoke.

Contact Steven Harmon at 916-441-2101. Follow him at Twitter.com/ssharmon. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.

Jamie Dimon’s Worst Nightmare

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:00:21 +0000

Over at the conservative American Enterprise Institute blog, James Pethokoukis has an idea that could be a total game-changer for Mitt Romney: he should come out for breaking up the five biggest banks, which control about 70% of all U.S. assets. This would be a move supported by discerning liberals and conservatives–as I wrote yesterday, Jon Huntsman proposed it during the primary campaign; Paul Volcker favors it, too. and out in America, where big Wall Street is about as popular as big Government, this would be very popular with the independent voters who will decide this election…and it would flank President Obama, whose failure to either reform the big banks or indict a single banker for the fraud that led to the Great Recession has been a real disappointment. it would certainly change the nature of the conversation, return the debate to the economic issues that Romney wants to run on–and, for once, establish him as a creative thinker. Which is, I suppose, precisely why he won’t do it.

Update: Several readers have raised the question of how you could break up the big banks. It’s a terrific question–and I’m not sure that I know the best answer. I do know one thing, though: it would have to be done via legislation, rather than regulation. Huntsman’s plan would impose a confiscatory fee on banks over a certain size, forcing them to divest. former Delaware Senator Ted Kaufman and others favor a more straightforward approach: an updated version of the Glass-Steagall law which separated commercial banking from investment banking, and kept the animal passions of Wall Street under control from the Great Depression to the late 1990s, when it was supplanted by Bill Clinton’s unfortunate deregulation. There may be other ways as well–and none of them would have an easy go of it in the Congress, which has been bought and paid for–in the past, at least–by the overwhelming power of the banking lobby.

But with Obama on the record opposed to breaking up the big banks–and favoring the Rube Goldberg Dodd-Frank contraption–we need to know more from Romney: He opposes Dodd-Frank. Fair enough. but he’d replace it with what? Glass-Steagall? some other regulatory apparatus? nothing? I’ve long wanted to ask Romney this question, but–of course–he won’t grant me an interview.

Diablo 3: Blizzard scrambles to action as servers fold

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:40 +0000

Blizzard’s urged Diablo 3 players to be patient as it moves to fix battered launch servers.

The 12-years-in-the-making dungeon crawler finally launched last night, and the rush of players attempting to activate their copies online caused servers to slow down, and subsequent error messages to prevent them logging in to play.

The problem became so bad last night that the error message players were being served started trending on Twitter.

This morning Blizzard told fans who still can’t log on to the game to “wait and try again”. new servers have been launched and Battle.net taken offline.

“Please note that due to a high volume of traffic, login and character creation may be slower than normal,” it said in a statement.

“If you’re unable to login to the game or create characters, please wait and try again. We’ve temporarily taken our Battle.net websites offline and launched more servers to accomodate for the traffic. We hope to resolve these issues as soon as possible and appreciate your patience.”

The launch troubles again highlight the controversial issue of online activation.

All copies of Diablo 3 have to be activated online before they can be played, meaning there’s no review on the site this morning (we started playing it when you did) and consequently thousands of players now can’t access their game.

Ahead of last night’s green light (or should that be amber?) we sat down with Blizzard’s Leonard Boyarski (senior world designer) and Julian Love (lead technical artist) to talk dungeons. Read all in our Diablo 3 interview.

Which America Do You Live In: Newsweek’s “SuperCountry” or Reich’s Stalled “Tinder-Box”?

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:00:22 +0000

Same country. Far different perceptions. Who is right? you decide.

Newsweek’s America: “Like the world’s first bionic man, the U.S. economy has come back–better, stronger, and faster than most analysts expected, and than most of its peers. In fact, the lows of March 2009 marked the beginning of an unexpected recovery–not the beginning of an era of irreversible stagnation” the stock market has doubled since March 2009, while corporate profits and exports have surged to records. the U.S. economy has regained its 2007 peak, and is now growing at a 3 percent annual clip–a more rapid pace than any other developed economy.”

Reich’s America: ”The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 13,338 Tuesday, its highest since December, 2007. the S&P 500 added 16 points. Wall Street will remember May 1 as a great day. But most of these gains are going to the richest 10 percent of Americans who own 90 percent of the shares traded on Wall Street. and the lion’s share of the gains are going to the wealthiest 1 percent.”

David Horsey cartoon

Newsweek’s America : ”It took the U.S. just 18 months to conduct the aggressive fiscal and monetary actions that Japan waited 12 years to carry out after its credit bubble burst. But America’s recovery since then has been fueled by a resilient and nimble private sector. Rather than sit around and wait for salvation, U.S. companies quickly moved to restructure operations and debt.”

Reich’s America: ”Shares are up because corporate profits are up, and profits are up largely because companies have figured out how to do more with less.”

Newsweek’s America: ”Rather than sink deeper into a financial morass, the American private sector emerged better: better equipped to meet obligations, to save, to invest, to spend, and, ultimately, to grow “And rather than throw in the towel and surrender to Chinese competitors, U.S. companies figured out how to get more out of existing resources”.From the fourth quarter of 2008 to the fourth quarter of 2009, productivity rose 5.4 percent. and it rose an impressive 4.1 percent in 2010.”

Our favorite Mother’s Day e-cards

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:00:22 +0000

If you’re down to the wire with Mother’s Day just around the corner — don’t fret! We’ve got you covered with this awesome selection of some of the best e-card sites out there.

American Greetings

The greeting card giant, American greetings, has a fabulous online selection of e-cards for every occasion, and their Mother’s Day e-cards do not disappoint. Many are animated with music and sound and they even have customizable ones for that truly personal touch.

You can have the e-cards sent to your recipient’s email address or even post to their Facebook timeline. You can even add an Amazon.com gift card to any e-card as well for a special touch.

They have a free trial available to users or you can become a paid member through the site.

Check out their wide selection here: americangreetings.com

Hallmark

Another well-known greeting card company that also has an extensive online collection of e-cards is Hallmark. they have free e-cards as well as ones available only to subscribers.

They have many different styles of e-cards. Funky, fresh, hip, trendy, classic, pretty, subtle, cool — whatever you’re looking for, you’re bound to find just the perfect one.

They too have animated options, complete with songs and sound, with space for you to write a heartfelt note.

Their Mother’s Day e-cards can be found here: hallmark.com

someecards

If you have a deadpan sense of humor and aren’t easily offended, you might check out someecards. they are one of the more popular e-card providers for social media users, and as a bonus, all content is free and fabulously funny.

These e-cards are not meant to be used by those under 18, so choose your recipients carefully — and perhaps warn them to keep their little one’s eyes averted from the computer screen when they open them up.

As an added bonus, you can create your own e-card from their large library of provided pictures.

Check out someecards’ Mother’s Day favorites here: someecards.com

JibJab

In the mood for a video, starring you? look no further than JibJab, where you can upload a photo of your face and then watch it sing, dance and drive everyone into laughing fits.

They have e-cards for every occasion, and Mother’s Day is no exception. they usually have at least one free video card for each holiday, but there are many more if you’re a paid member.

There is a slight learning curve — selecting the perfect picture to use can be a little frustrating, but once you get it uploaded and the background cut out, you can save your work and use the picture over and over and over again!

Check out JibJab’s Mother’s Day e-card collection here: jibjab.com