Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/158053272?client_source=feed&format=rss
al sharpton izon heart attack grill gaddafi dead steve wynn lytro camera lytro camera
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Demand tepid as Spain raises $6.2B in bond sale (AP)
MADRID ? Spain raised euro4.5 billion ($6.2 billion) in two debt auctions Thursday, with increased interest rates and weak demand showing investor unease amid the Greek debt crisis.
The treasury sold euro2.93 billion in five-year bonds with an average yield of 4.84 percent, up from 4.48 percent in the last such auction Sept. 1.
It also sold euro1.56 billion in bonds maturing January 2014 at an average interest rate of 4.27 percent.
Demand in both auctions was just over 1.5 times the amount supplied, while the amount sold was at the top of the targeted range.
The sale was the first in Spain since Greece's bombshell announcement that it will put the latest European Union debt rescue package to a popular referendum.
The proposal shot the spread between Spanish 10-year bonds and the German equivalent up by more than 30 basis points to 370 basis points this week although it settled back to 360 points Thursday with a yield of 5.5 percent.
Spain's borrowing costs have soared over the past year because of jitters Spain might be the next country to need a bailout, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
The sale came as the Labor Ministry said the number of people filing for unemployment benefits rose by more than 134,000 last month. The increase raised the total seeking benefits to 4,360,926 and marked a 3.2 percent increase from September.
October is often bad for employment being the first month after the summer vacation. October's rise was the biggest for the month since 2008.
The jobless rate stands at a 15-year high of 21.5 percent and the economy posted zero growth in the third quarter. The Bank of Spain says the stagnation is bad news for government efforts to meet deficit-reduction goals.
The overall number of people unemployed in Spain is 4,978,300. It is different from the jobless claims figure because it includes people whose benefits have run out.
Spaniards are expect to punish the governing Socialist party in Nov. 20 general elections by handing the opposition conservative Popular Party a landslide win.
The jobless claim data is the last major economic figure scheduled to be released before the vote.
Meanwhile, austerity measures being taken in much of Spain led to another strike by teachers in four regions. For those in Madrid, it was the seventh school day disrupted since term began in September.
world series game 2 libya bay area news lettuce recall lettuce recall zanesville ohio zanesville ohio
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Hell on Wheels
The building of the First Transcontinental Railroad is a great subject for a cable drama; however, on the evidence of the first five episodes of Hell on Wheels (AMC, Sundays at 10 p.m. ET), it is not precisely a good one. The series' primary setting is the middle of this continent in the middle of the 1860s, not long after the Surrender at Appomattox Court House. But with an early title blaring that ?the nation is an open wound,? the setting is, first and last, a sovereign republic of metaphor. Not content to exploit their subject?s inherent themes, the series' fraternal creators, Joe and Tony Gayton, have adhered them promiscuously, pasting neon Post-it indications of symbolic import in a way that obscures moments of straightforward drama.
?
Out on the prairie, a fair lady observes that the land ?hasn?t changed since Lewis and Clark first saw it 60 years ago??and then promptly witnesses a raid by natives. Elsewhere, characters divest themselves of con-artistic monologues about Manifest Destiny, rumbling speeches about Reconstruction, paeans to the vast possibilities of America, lilting tributes to the frontier, and homilies on the Promised Land delivered beneath looming crosses. Less frequently, they express recognizable human emotion.?
?
The hero is Cullen Bohannon, played by Anson Mount with a grizzled animality and gaunt humanity that help the character to shoulder the burden of history. Bohannon fought for Confederacy. He was a slave owner, but he freed his slaves before the Civil War began, guided by the influence of his wife: ?She convinced me of the evils of slavery.? She also did needlepoint, as we see in a dewy-eyed flashback to the days before Union soldiers raped and killed her. Bohannon has been serving revenge to the perpetrators on the toasty side, and his quest soon leads him to the frontier of the industrial age?to the mobile tent city that followed the railroad's westward progress from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The path was long and winding, as dictated by Thomas Durant, who was the vice-president of Union Pacific Railroad and who owned a swath of Nebraska across which the railway uselessly switched back and forth, much to his personal enrichment. Played by Colm Meaney, Durant is a pioneer of corruption, an avid propagandist, a beastly exterminator of brutes, and a fat little florid orator who hogs all the ripest lines. "What is the building of this grand railroad if not a drama?" he asks at one point. He's practicing a sales pitch, maybe, and presenting a mission statement for sure.
The players in this drama are figures in a panoramic diorama. In its world of mud and sepia, feral whores face down lank preachers, Irish immigrant brothers seek their fortunes, Scandinavian-born enforcers looms as creepily as The Seventh Seal's Grim Reaper, and noble savages keep on keeping on. Second billing goes to Common, who plays Elam Ferguson, a former slave working for Union Pacific. The actor does a lot of good simmering and dutiful glowering, and his character's relationship with Bohannon is the richest one on screen. The performance is just good enough to distract you from the fact that Ferguson less resembles an individual than an archetype addressing a few centuries' worth of racial grievances.
None of Hell on Wheels' juicy eruptions of pulp or sporadic glimpses of soul impedes the myth-belching progress of a story about the little engine of empire that could. The shots are heavily styled in a way that is variously enrapturing and distancing, taking cues from landscape paintings, Mathew Brady photographs, and revisionist Westerns?all to the end of toying with the old myths of the New World. But you can hardly see the world for the myths, and the show seems bent on encouraging a sophisticated audience to set its intelligence aside in a sophisticated way.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=136a2692c751bded7a3366051fb74f6b
nest williams syndrome jay leno machine gun kelly lindsey lohan reed hastings cujo
Friday, November 4, 2011
Asana Is a Free Project Management and Collaboration Tool for People with Multiple Projects [Video]
The developers of Asana definitely had groups and teams in mind when they built the tool. You can use it to keep track of your own responsibilities and projects, and it has a number of powerful tools like categories, dependent tasks, and sub-projects to help you stay organized but still see everything you have going on in one place. However, it really shines when you have a group of people to collaborate with. Asana gives your team a single place to see everyone's to-dos, related documents, notes, and conversations. Instead of emailing files and endless debate threads in your inbox, your team can visit Asana to discuss tasks and review documents together. Everyone else can see updates in real-time, assign each other tasks, and mark their to-dos complete when they're finished.
Asana is free for individuals and teams of up to 30 users. The service just launched its public beta today, but it's been in private beta working out the kinks for several months now. If you're looking for a to-do manager that can help you herd the cats in your office or just organize an event that requires input from multiple people, it's worth a try. Do you have a preferred tool for managing projects with groups? Let us know in the comments below.
Asana
You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.
the killing fields the killing fields texas killing fields burzynski pete seeger itunes match itunes match
Video: Aisle seat? It?ll cost you
Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45157478#45157478
tori spelling minka kelly gop debate presidential debate xbox live update bloomberg tv bloomberg tv
Thursday, November 3, 2011
AP source: Big East to invite Boise St, 5 others
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The Big East is ready to start adding members after spending the last month and a half losing them.
A person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press the Big East will invite Boise State, Navy and Air Force for football only and SMU, Houston and Central Florida for all sports in upcoming days. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the conference was not ready to announce its plan.
Commissioner John Marinatto declined to elaborate on the Big East's next moves after meeting with the league's presidents at a Philadelphia hotel Tuesday. He said he expected the targeted schools to accept, but details still must be worked out with each.
"As we've learned over the last two months, don't believe anything anybody tells you. Nothing's done until it is over. So I'm obviously being very cautious and that's why I'm reluctant to say names of schools," he said.
Marinatto did acknowledge the league intends to expand west.
Boise State and Air Force, both in the Mountain West Conference, and SMU and Houston, members of Conference USA, would be in the Big East's western division, along with Louisville and Cincinnati. Navy, an independent, and UCF, also from CUSA, would be part of the league's eastern division with Connecticut, South Florida, Rutgers and another school. The league would then likely play a conference championship game.
The Big East has been working on a plan to add those six schools and reconfigure as a 12-team football conference since not long after Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced Sept. 18 they would be leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"We got reaffirmation from our members that that was the way we wanted to go," Marinatto said. "It was probably a very small part of our meeting today, where they just reaffirmed everything we had been talking about and authorized me to move forward with formal discussions to get this all wrapped up as soon as possible."
Exactly when was unclear.
"We have not received an invitation from the Big East. However, we understand the things are moving in that direction," UCF spokesman Grant Heston said.
Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said Tuesday he had not yet heard from any Big East officials.
A couple weeks after the Big East found out about Pitt and Syracuse, TCU announced it was backing out of a commitment to join the league next year and instead accepted an invite to the Big 12.
Then last week West Virginia accepted an invitation to the Big 12, stripping the Big East of its most successful football member in recent years. So even with the six potential new members, the Big East still needs another school to get to 12 for the long term.
"We didn't get into the discussion of specifically replacing West Virginia," Marinatto said.
Temple and Memphis are being considered, the person with knowledge of the Big East's decision said.
Temple AD Bill Bradshaw declined comment.
"We're having discussions with Big East officials and continue to consider all of our options," Boise State spokesman Frank Zang said.
Marinatto said again that the Big East intends to enforce the league's 27-month notification period and will hold Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia in the conference until July 2014.
The ACC has said it will not challenge the Big East's rules, but the Big 12 needs 10 teams to fulfill its television contracts in 2012 and has said it expects West Virginia to replace Missouri and join the league next year. Missouri is expected to leave for the Southeastern Conference soon.
West Virginia filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Big East's waiting period and asking the court to speed the school's divorce from the league.
"I quite frankly was stunned when I heard the news that they were filing a lawsuit," Marinatto said. "I couldn't understand under what grounds."
Even with new members ready to commit, the Big East might not have enough football teams next season without Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.
According to Conference USA bylaws, UCF, SMU and Houston would not be able to compete in the Big East until 2013, CUSA spokeswoman Courtney Archer said. Those teams would also have to pay a $500,000 exit fee and relinquish about $6.13 million in television revenue.
Mountain West bylaws won't stand in the way of Boise State or Air Force leaving immediately, but they would have to relinquish this year's revenue, plus pay either $5 million or double the revenue, whichever is greater.
If Boise State makes it to the Bowl Championship Series this season, it could cost as much as $21 million for the Broncos to jump to the Big East in 2012. But getting access to an automatic BCS bid, something neither the MWC nor CUSA has, is what Boise State and most schools are chasing these days.
The MWC and CUSA have announced a football merger they hope will land it BCS automatic bid.
The Big East has that, at least through the 2013 season, and hopes its latest incarnation can keep it ? and be attractive enough to television networks to land a billion-dollar deal similar to what the other automatic-qualifying BCS leagues have signed in recent years.
"(Former Commissioner) Mike Tranghese reinvented the conference in 1990 by creating a football element in order to service its members at the time," Marinatto said. "We reinvented it again in 2003 and created the biggest and most diverse conference in the country. And now because of all these circumstances, we're reinventing it a fourth time."
____
AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia and Associated Press writer Kyle Hightower in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.
___
Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP
Associated Presssan diego news ford evos ford evos ides of march diane sawyer starship troopers starship troopers
'Survivor' winner Ethan Zohn's cancer returns (AP)
NEW YORK ? Former "Survivor" winner Ethan Zohn's cancer has returned.
Zohn's publicist confirms doctors discovered cancer in his chest in September. News of the diagnosis was first reported by People.com.
Zohn was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin's disease in 2009. Two rounds of chemotherapy didn't work, and he underwent a stem cell transplant. He was in remission until his latest diagnosis.
The 37-year-old is undergoing a new form of chemotherapy called SGN-35, which involves an antibody drug that zeroes in on cancer cells and is thought to be less toxic to the rest of the body.
Zohn says he hopes to undergo another stem cell transplant after three months of treatment.
Zohn competed on the current season of CBS' "The Amazing Race" with his girlfriend, fellow "Survivor" champion Jenna Morasca. They were sent home in the second episode.
___
http://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/
hilary duff pregnant psat psat brenda song mountain west mountain west rickross
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)