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birr: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

birr: force; energy; vigor.

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BBC News

IMF issues austerity cuts warning

Inappropriate spending cuts could "strangle" growth, so austerity measures should be tailor-made by each country, the head of the IMF warns.

New Libya torture claims emerge

The BBC hears accounts from prison inmates in Libya suggesting that supporters of former leader Col Gaddafi are being tortured in detention.

Azarenka stuns Sharapova in final

Victoria Azarenka beats Maria Sharapova 6-3 6-0 in the Australian Open final to win her maiden Grand Slam title and become the new world number one.

US fears for Bin Laden 'informer'

The US defence secretary says he is concerned about a Pakistani doctor arrested for providing intelligence for the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

South Sudan 'nears oil shutdown'

South Sudan says it will complete its threatened shutdown of oil production on Saturday after no deal was reached with Sudan over pipeline use.

Demi Moore 911 call tape released

Demi Moore suffered convulsions after smoking an undisclosed substance, according to a tape of an emergency call made on Monday.

UN considers Syria crisis action

The UN Security Council is considering a draft resolution against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, amid an upsurge in violence.

Senegal Wade ruling fuels clashes

Violence breaks out in Senegal after the country's top court rules that President Abdoulaye Wade can run for a third term in office.

Four held in police payment probe

Four men, including a police officer, are arrested by Scotland Yard officers investigating payments to police by journalists.

Hamid Karzai in Britain for talks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in the UK to meet PM David Cameron following France's decision to speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

CNet News

Adobe shows the raw, dark side of Photoshop CS6

Photoshop CS6 will get a dark gray interface by default and, of course it inherits Lightroom 4's new raw-image editing controls.

Twitter boycott looms with censorship accusations

When Twitter announced it would withhold tweets country-by-country based on local restrictions, it said it was being more transparent. But some users disagree.

Anonymous takes aim over Europe's SOPA

Hackers are attacking sites and looking to expose information on European officials in response to the signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA critics say it's even worse than the Stop Online Piracy Act floated in the U.S.

Microsoft's Kelihos botnet suspect says he's innocent

St. Petersburg, Russia-based Andrey N. Sabelnikov says he is "absolutely not guilty" of participating in the creation of the huge spam network that Microsoft shut down last September.

Windows 8 stable on ARM, going to developers soon, say sources

Windows 8 on ARM is coming along nicely, thank you, according to a couple of sources with whom CNET spoke.

What's a PS Vita game cost? Ask again tomorrow

The bean counters at Sony need to make up their minds on how they are pricing PS Vita games.

Hey, AT&T, quit whining!

Instead of complaining about the FCC's decision to squash the T-Mobile merger and blaming the agency for raising prices, AT&T needs to shut up and move on.

Google thinks that Google+ is Google. Is it?

If Google+ and Google search aren't two different things, there's no conflict in emphasizing Google+ in search results. Right?

Apple eyeing move to 'programmable magnets'?

Coded magnets could introduce new means of data transfer and user interfaces, indicates patent application uncovered by Patently Apple.

Jobs e-mail to Schmidt suggests no-poaching deal in play

A newly unearthed e-mail exchange between Apple's Steve Jobs and Google's Eric Schmidt shows Jobs actively telling Google not to try to hire its employees, resulting in the firing of at least one recruiter.

Music Videos

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The Onion, Daily

TV Listings: Piers Morgan: The Animated Adventure

ABC 9 a.m. EST/8 a.m. CST This Saturday morning, Piers sets out on a quest to find the most-talented person in all of Morgania before sitting down for a chatty, yet in-depth interview with cartoon Rob Lowe.

Australian Open Canceled As Tennis Balls Fall Off Bottom Of Earth Into The Sky

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—Organizers of the Australian Open canceled the highly anticipated Grand Slam event Wednesday night after admitting they were unable to prevent tennis balls from falling off the underside of the planet and into the sky.

American Voices: Oklahoma Bill Would Ban Use Of Fetuses In Food

A bill introduced by Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey would prohibit the use of aborted fetuses in food products.

[video] Embarrassed Steven Chu Accidentally Calls Barack Obama ‘Dad’ In Cabinet Meeting

A new law prohibits Kaleidoscoping while driving, Joe Biden advertises guitar lessons on the White House bulletin board, and Romneymania sweeps the nation.

Statshot: What Are We Replacing?

What Are We Replacing?

New Law Prohibits Kaleidoscoping While Driving

TRENTON, NJ— Citing the nearly 1,500 deaths that occurred in the United States last year as a result of kaleidoscoping while driving, New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed legislation Friday banning the practice.

Magazine: Are Bugs Mad At Us? 

Are Bugs Mad At Us? 

Nation's Ninetysomethings Gear Up For Last Year Of Their Lives

BOCA RATON, FL—Excited ninetysomethings across the country announced Wednesday they were gearing up to take full advantage of what promises to be the final year of their lives.

[audio] Bill's Friends From Work Calling Him 'William'

Bill's Friends From Work Calling Him 'William'

Letters To The Editor: Grapes

Dear The Onion, I recently found out about a great new food I'm sure your readers would love to hear about: grapes. Give them a try. Joyce Babb, Wayne, NJ

Scientific American

Microbubbles Cut Cost of Algae-Derived Biofuel

Algae naturally produce oil. When it's processed, that oil can be turned into biofuel, an alternative energy source. There's just one snag--harvesting the oil from algae-filled water is prohibitively expensive. But researchers have come up with an effervescent solution: bubbles smaller than the width of a human hair can help reduce the costs of collecting algae oil. [More]

How Google's New Privacy Policy Could Affect You

You're on the way to a meeting. Traffic seems to be slowing. A text comes in: "You're going to be late. Take the next exit for alternate route." It's from Google. [More]

California OKs New Rules to Cut Tailpipe Emissions

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's powerful air-quality regulator on Friday approved sweeping new rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by requiring automakers to put many more electric and hybrid vehicles on the state's roads. The regulations, approved unanimously by the state's Air Resources Board at a meeting in Los Angeles, would also support development of an infrastructure for hydrogen fueling stations. [More]

Dozens and Dozens: NASA's Kepler Spies Packs of New Exoplanets

[More]

Blue Ribbon Commissions Calls for New Home for Nuclear Waste

The embarrassing and damaging failure of U.S. policy on spent nuclear fuel can be repaired if the administration and Congress begin work now on new strategies, the co-chairmen of a presidential commission said yesterday. [More]

Readers Respond to "Toxins All Around Us" and Other Articles

CHEMISTRY COMMENTARY [More]

Can Too Much Information Harm Patients? [Excerpt]

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care (Basic Books, 2012), by Eric Topol, a professor of innovative medicine and the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute. [More]

Are Wallabies Left or Right Handed? Both! (Sometimes)

Which limb do you prefer? If you’re like most members of our species, you prefer your right hand for most tasks. If you’re like a smaller minority of our species, you might prefer your left hand. Very, very few of us are truly ambidextrous. Most of us have at least a minor preference for one hand over the other. So do wallabies. On the one hand (ha!), this shouldn’t be all that surprising. Nervous systems became lateralized quite early in the evolution of vertebrates. For example, there is research showing that fish show a preference for touching the sides of aquariums with one side of their ventral fins or another. And it is not surprising that humans overwhelmingly favor their right hands. When it comes to feeding behaviors, fishes, reptiles, and toads all favor their right eye (and their brain’s left hemisphere). The same is true for birds like chickens, pigeons, quails, and stilts. The right-eye preference can be so strong that one bird – New Zealand wry-billed plover – evolved a beak that slopes slightly to the right. And a study of seventy-five whales showed that sixty of them had abrasions on the right side of their jaws, while the other fifteen had only injured the left side of their jaws. As Peter F. MacNeilage, Lesley J. Rogers and Giorgio Vallortigara pointed out in a 2009 article in Scientific American , the data indicated that whales tended to use one side of the jaw more than the other for gathering food, “and that ‘right-jawedness’ is by far the norm.” [More]

Guest Post: Shale Gas - The Low Carbon Option?

It may be surprising to hear that hydraulic fracturing is not the cause of water contamination , but what may be even more surprising is that shale gas produced using fracking may have lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than conventional gas. According to a recent Environmental Science and Technology report , shale gas life-cycle [greenhouse gas] emissions are 6% lower than conventional natural gas [More]

MIND Reviews: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow [More]

Buzz Machine

Efficiency over growth (and jobs)

The hook to every song sung at Davos is "jobs, jobs, jobs." The chorus of machers on stages here operate under an article of faith that growth can come back, that they can stimulate it, that that will create jobs, and then that all will be eventually well.
What if that's not the case? I [...]

Davos, disrupted

I'm among the disrupted of Davos. Outside, there's an #OccupyDavos encampment in igloos (really). Down the road, someone will be giving out an award to the worst company of the world. But the disruption is no longer outside. That's what I sensed in past years; that's what they wanted to believe here. Now the disruption [...]

Public Parts on Reding’s four pillars

Since European Commission VP Viviane Reding's proposal for internet regulation — under her four pillars — are the topic of discussion this week at DLD in Munich and in Europe, here is what I wrote about them in Public Parts:
* * *
I fear the unintended consequences that may come from regulation. Take, for example, European [...]

#DLD12: Viviane Reding on privacy

I'm at the DLD conference in Munich. Haven't live-blogged in ages. But the European Commission vice-president Viviane Reding is speaking and I disagreed with her rather a lot in Public Parts, arguing that her four pillars for internet governance — privacy by default, demanding European standards for storage of data, the right to be forgotten, [...]

Where Gutenberg worked

I took a detour on a trip to Europe so I could visit Mainz and the Gutenberg Museum, having become obsessed with the great man and his magnificent disruption as both an inventor and an entrepreneur.
It was awe-inspiring to stand before the first known page of his printing (a snippet from the Sibylline prophesy, [...]

We are the lobbyists

The internet has helped untold publics to form. Yesterday, the internet became a public.
Or rather, millions of people who care about internet freedom used the net to organize and defend it against efforts to control and harm it.
The SOPA-PIPA blackout got attention in media that previously all but ignored the issue, whether out [...]

Network knowledge

I'm a bit late in blogging about and urging you to read David Weinberger's new book, Too Big to Know. That's because I couldn't find my oft-underlined, much-dogeared galley, which I soaked in as soon as I got it.
David is an intellectual hero of mine. He is a coauthor of the seminal work of [...]

Murdoch doesn’t understand links

[View the story "Murdoch doesn't understand links...." on Storify]

Shifting the discussion to principles

The good news about the White House's response to an anti-SOPA petition is that it raised the discussion to the level of principles, arguing against "disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet." That is where it needs to be.
The bad news, as Tim O'Reilly eloquently explores, is that the White House makes a gross [...]

Journalism via jokes

Tonight I redeemed the greatest Christmas present from my son, Jake: tickets to see The Daily Show taping with him. It was fun and funny. But even better, it inspired me as a journalist.
I left the studio determined to teach a course in journalism via jokes. (I'd call it Truth Through Humor, but that [...]

Slashdot

New Privacy Laws Could Boost EU Cloud Industry

sweetpea86 writes "Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the U.S. Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn't end up in the hands of U.S. authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iPhone 4S's Siri Is a Bandwidth Guzzler

Frankie70 writes "'Siri's dirty little secret is that she's a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.' A study by Arieso shows that users of the iPhone 4S demand three times as much data as iPhone 3G users and twice as much as iPhone 4 users, who were identified as the most demanding in a 2010 study. 'In all, Arieso says that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S "appears to unleash data consumption behaviors that have no precedent."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android Malware May Have Infected 5 Million Users

bonch writes "A massive Android malware campaign may be responsible for duping as many as 5 million users into downloading the Android.Counterclan infection from the Google Android Market. The trojan collects the user's personal information, modifies the home page, and displays unwanted advertisements. It is packaged in 13 different applications, some of which have been on the store for at least a month. Several of the malicious apps are still available on the Android Market as of 3 P.M. ET. Symantec has posted the full list of infected applications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sea Water Could Cause Uranium Pollution From Nuclear Fuel Rods

New submitter Required Snark writes "UC Davis researchers have found a mechanism where the sodium in sea water can cause uranium nano-particles to be released from nuclear reactor fuel rods. Normally the uranium oxide compounds composing the rods are very resistant to leaching into water. This could have serious consequences for the Fukushima disaster, since sea water was used for emergency cooling."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How Allan Scherr Hacked Around the First Computer Password

New submitter MikeatWired writes "If you're like most people, you're annoyed by passwords. So who's to blame? Who invented the computer password? They probably arrived at MIT in the mid-1960s, when researchers built a massive time-sharing computer called CTSS. Technology changes. But, then again, it doesn't, writes Bob McMillan. Twenty-five years after the fact, Allan Scherr, a Ph.D. researcher at MIT in the early '60s, came clean about the earliest documented case of password theft. In the spring of 1962, Scherr was looking for a way to bump up his usage time on CTSS. He had been allotted four hours per week, but it wasn't nearly enough time to run the detailed performance simulations he'd designed for the new computer system. So he simply printed out all of the passwords stored on the system. 'There was a way to request files to be printed offline by submitting a punched card,' he remembered in a pamphlet (PDF) written last year to commemorate the invention of the CTSS. 'Late one Friday night, I submitted a request to print the password files and very early Saturday morning went to the file cabinet where printouts were placed and took the listing.' To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them — J.C.R. Licklieder — promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

January 28 is Data Privacy Day

An anonymous reader writes "A bit early, but just a reminder that January 28 is international Data Privacy Day in the U.S., Canada, and many European countries. Various events are being held around the globe: the head of the FTC opened a weekend forum on the topic by calling out Facebook and Google, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner is holding a symposium on 'Surveillance by Design', and of course Google recently announced they'll be tracking you more thoroughly in the future."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mars-Bound Probe Serves As Radiation Guinea Pig

sighted writes "This week's huge solar storm will benefit future astronauts, thanks to the rover Curiosity, now on its way to Mars. The rover is equipped with an instrument that measures the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut en route to the Red Planet. Scientists are just starting to pore over the data from the blast of particles. Don't worry about the poor robotic geologist, though: 'No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event,' says NASA."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

USPTO Declares Invalid Third of Three Critical Rambus Patents

slew writes "This is a followup to this earlier story about 2 of 3 of Rambus's 'critical' patents being invalidated. Apparently now it's a hat-trick."
There's something that seems unsavory and wasteful about a business environment in which a company's stock value "fluctuates sharply on its successes and failures in patent litigation and licensing." The linked article offers a brief but decent summary of the way Rambus has profited over the years from these now-invalidated patents.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

White House Chief Technology Officer Steps Down

New submitter Krazy Kanuck writes "The White House is running a story on their OSTP blog that Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is stepping down after being appointed to the post by President Obama in 2009. There is some mention of him returning to his home state of Virginia, and the Washington Post suggests a possible bid for lieutenant governor."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DARPA Funding a $50 Drone-Droppable Spy Computer

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "At the Shmoocon security conference, researcher Brendan O'Connor plans to present the F-BOMB, or Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors. Built from just the disassembled hardware in a commercially-available PogoPlug mini-computer, a few tiny antennae, eight gigabytes of flash memory and some 3D-printed plastic casing, the F-BOMB serves as 3.5"-by-4"-by-1" spy computer. With a contract from DARPA, O'Connor has designed the cheap gadgets to be spy nodes, ready to be dropped from a drone, plugged inconspicuously into a wall socket, (one model impersonates a carbon monoxide detector) thrown over a barrier, or otherwise put into irretrievable positions to quietly collect data and send it back to the owner over any available Wi-Fi network. O'Connor built his prototypes with gear that added up to just $46 each, so sacrificing one for a single use is affordable."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Guardian Unlimited

News International offices searched as four more men are arrested

Serving police officer among four arrested under Operation Elveden investigation into payments to police Four men, including a serving police officer, have been arrested in connection with Scotland Yard's investigation into payments to police officers by journalists. Police are also carrying out searches of the News International offices in Wapping, east London, and the homes of the four people. A 29-year-old serving police officer was arrested at his place of work in central London on suspicion of corruption and misconduct in public office. The officer, of the Met's territorial policing unit, is the second police officer to be arrested under the Operation Elveden investigation. A 48-year-old man and a 56-year-old man were arrested at their homes in Essex. Another man, aged 48, was held at his home in north London. All three were arrested on suspicion of corruption and aiding and abetting misconduct in public office. Scotland Yard said the arrests were made following information provided by News Corp's own investigation team. Rupert Murdoch set up the management and standards committee in July following the escalation of the phone-hacking scandal. According to well-placed sources, it has been conducting a forensic analysis of payments by all journalists between 2000 and 2006. A statement from the Met police said: "The arrests were made between 06.00 and 08.00 by officers from Operation Elveden, the MPS [Metropolitan police service] investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to police. "The home addresses of those arrested are currently being searched, and officers are also carrying out a number of searches at the offices of News International in Wapping, east London. These searches are expected to conclude this afternoon. "Today's operation is the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's management and standards committee. It relates to suspected payments to police officers and is not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately." All four men were being questioned at police stations in Essex and London, police said. Twelve people have so far been arrested under Operation Elveden. The operation is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and is being run in conjunction with Operation Weeting, the MPS inquiry into the phone hacking of voicemail boxes. It was launched after officers were handed documents suggesting that News International journalists made illegal payments to police officers. Others questioned as part of the inquiry include the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, the ex-Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson, the former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman, the former News of the World crime editor Lucy Panton and the Sun district editor, Jamie Pyatt. Brooks and Coulson are both former editors of the News of the World, which was closed in July at the height of the hacking scandal following revelations that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone was hacked. Deborah Glass, the deputy chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said: "It will be clear from today's events that this investigation is following the evidence. "I am satisfied with the strenuous efforts being made by this investigation to identify police officers who may have taken corrupt payments, and I believe the results will speak for themselves." News InternationalNews of the WorldNewspapersNational newspapersNewspapers & magazinesPolicePhone hackingMetropolitan policeLondonJosh HallidayLisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Archbishop of York: don't legalise gay marriage

Dr John Sentamu says the government should not act like 'dictators' by altering centuries-old social structures The government should not overturn centuries of tradition by legalising gay marriage, the archbishop of York has said. Dr John Sentamu, the second most senior bishop in the Church of England, said that the church did not object to the introduction of civil partnerships in 2004 but marriage should only be between men and women. "If you genuinely would like the registration of civil partnerships to happen in a more general way, most people will say they can see the drift. But if you begin to call those marriage, you're trying to change the English language," he said. The archbishop's comments precede the beginning of the government's consultation on gay marriage in March. Sentamu said that it was not the role of the government to alter social structures that had been in place for centuries. "I don't think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can't just [change it] overnight, no matter how powerful you are," he told the Daily Telegraph. "We've seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don't want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way." The issue of homosexuality is a divisive issue in the Church of England. Sentamu expressed concern over the "gay marriage" of homosexual clergy after two ministers exchanged rings and vows at a service held in London in 2008. In a joint statement with the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, he said: "Those clergy who disagree with the church's teaching are at liberty to seek to persuade others within the church of the reasons why they believe, in the light of scripture, tradition and reason that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it." Sentamu, who fled Uganda in 1974, also said the church was failing to represent black and working-class Britons. He said: "The church should be a sign of the kingdom of heaven and should be telling us what it will look like. "Heaven is not going to be full of just black people, just working-class people, just middle-class people, it's going to be, in the words of Desmond Tutu, a rainbow people of God in all its diversity." The murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in 1993 had forced many organisations to address institutional racism, said Sentamu, but others such as media and football were less effective. "Football never did it, so I'm not surprised [by allegations of racism on the pitch]. I didn't hear that the media ever said: 'Let's put a mirror to ourselves and see whether there isn't this tendency of stereotyping, or being prejudiced, of advantaging people because they went to the same school,'" he said. John SentamuGay rightsAnglicanismReligionChristianityConal Urquhart guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Stephen Hester bonus puts David Cameron under pressure

Row erupts after prime minister claims that MPs had no choice but to agree to RBS head's bonus are challenged by Labour David Cameron was under fire for failing to intervene to block a bonus of nearly £1m for Royal Bank of Scotland's chief executive, Stephen Hester, and for allegedly misleading parliament after he blamed Labour for negotiating a contract that prevented the government from intervening. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, speaking in Davos, piled the pressure on the prime minister by describing the bonus as "absolutely bewildering". Labour called on Cameron to appear before MPs to explain why he did nothing to block the bonus. The row erupted on Friday morning when Lord Myners, the former Labour Treasury minister who negotiated the contracts with the new state-controlled banks, challenged the prime minister's claim that ministers had no choice but to agree to the Hester bonus, announced in the same week that the coalition announced proposals to hand shareholders more power to block pay deals. "There is nothing in the employment contract of Stephen Hester or any director of Royal Bank of Scotland which binds the company or its remuneration committee to pay a mandatory bonus," Myners said. "All matters relating to bonuses are at the full discretion of the board of directors and the shareholders, including UKFI, who have elected them." The prime minister, who indicated in recent weeks that Hester's bonus would be less than £1m, said the government had little room for manoeuvre because of the contract negotiated by the last government. The bonus is in shares, which rose to £981,000 last night ? up from the £963,000 they were valued at by the bank in its announcement late on Thursday. The exact value will be determined in 2014 when he finally receives them while a three-year bonus he was handed in shares shortly after he joined in October 2008 ? worth £6.4m ? has now been deemed worthless by the bank. Downing Street said that Hester's contract meant that he had to be considered for a bonus in "good faith". But the prime minister's spokesman admitted that a bonus was not mandatory and that the government, through UK Financial Investments, could have blocked it. The spokesman said: "The contract says that he should be considered for bonus in good faith. That decision is taken by the board. Yes, shareholders have a role in that. UKFI, as the government's shareholder, takes a very active interest. But we are not the only shareholder in that company ? The board is required to act in the interests of all its shareholders and the board takes this decision." Downing Street admitted that Cameron was not relaxed by the bonus but said that Hester has reduced the RBS balance sheet by £0.5tn and has increased business lending in the last year. But George Osborne, the chancellor, defended the bonus after a speech in Davos ? but also distanced the government from the decision. "I would bet his bonus will be a lot less than the bonuses of other people running banks are going to get and half of what he got last year." Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays ? who was also in Davos, speaking at an event on "building trust" ? refused to talk specifically about Hester's bonus, but commented: "If we don't celebrate reward for success we won't have an economy." Diamond declined to comment on the scale of his own bonus, which could be in the region of £10m. Osborne added: "The alternatives [to the Hester payout] would have been worse for the taxpayer. Either there would have been a much larger bonus, of the kind he would have got a few years ago. Or the British government would have had to take over complete ownership of RBS and over-ruled the board, and I think that would have cost the taxpayer more as well." His comments did not appease critics. Ed Miliband, also in Davos, described it as a " disgraceful failure of leadership" by the prime minister. "He owns, through the British government, 83% of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He must now explain, not least to the British people, why he has allowed this to happen." Labour sought to increase the pressure on the government by writing to the prime minister to ask him to set out to MPs why he said he was bound by a contract which is flexible. Simon Danczuk, a Labour MP, said in the letter: " I trust you will want to come to the house to explain why you previously told the house that you did not have any such power, as well as to explain why your government has decided, in its role as the majority shareholder in RBS, to approve a bonus to Stephen Hester worth almost £1m." The TUC's general secretary, Brendan Barber, also in Davos, described the decision to hand Hester a bonus as terrible. "The government might have been able to subcontract the decision [to UK Financial Investments] but they can't sidestep the responsibility." Already doubful that government plans to hand shareholders new powers to tackle high pay would be effective, Barber said: "The government through their stakes in the banks had the possibility of sending the signal. They've really bottled the decision". It is not clear whether John Hourican, head of the RBS investment bank or Ellen Alemany, head of the US bank, will receive their bonuses this year. Stephen HesterBankingRoyal Bank of ScotlandDavid CameronExecutive pay and bonusesNicholas WattLarry ElliottJill Treanor guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

NHS 'faces peril' if reform plans are derailed

Group of 50 GPs managing health services through clinical commissioning groups say they are 'already improving services' The NHS could be "in peril" if the government's plans to overhaul it are derailed by doctors and nurses' organisations, a group of GPs piloting the reforms has warned. The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has proposed that the management of hospitals and budgets in England is reformed by allowing doctors rather than managers to control health services and budgets. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nurses and the Royal College of Midwives oppose the reform, describing it as a covert privatisation of the NHS. David Cameron agreed to "pause" the reforms last year as a result of the opposition. But more than 50 doctors who are already managing health services through clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), have backed the government's reforms, saying the professional bodies did not represent their views. "Blanket opposition to the NHS reforms by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nurses is not representative of the views of GPs ? and nurses who support us," they said in a letter. The doctors wrote that CCGs were already improving services in the areas of England in which they are established. "The risks of derailing the development of clinical commissioning must not be underestimated," they wrote. "Without strong clinical leadership and the co-ordinated efforts of local clinicians, the NHS itself may be in peril ? local services can only be improved if we all pull together." NHSGPsDoctorsHealthPublic services policyAndrew LansleyHealth policyConal Urquhart guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Stephen Lawrence's mother says No 10 must do more on race

? Cameron 'not doing enough to tackle racial prejudice' ? Murdered boy's brother stopped and searched 20 times ? Trust set up to help deprived youth has money problems Doreen Lawrence has said David Cameron's government is not doing enough to tackle racial prejudice, which continues to blight society, and has warned that spending cuts will hit working-class and black Britons the hardest. In a Guardian interview, Lawrence says the government has huge powers to make a difference in leading the fight against racism, but says: "I've not heard them talk about race." Earlier this month her 18-year battle for justice saw Gary Dobson and David Norris convicted of the 1993 racist murder of her son Stephen by a white gang in south London. The murder led to a public inquiry that exposed police failings and prejudice in the ranks and in wider society. In the interview, she reveals: ? While the police were failing to catch her son's murderers, they managed to stop his brother 20 times as a criminal suspect. ? Police also managed to stop Mrs Lawrence the year after the murder and told her she was suspected of driving a stolen car. She says continuing racist stereotyping by officers explains why African-Caribbeans are more likely to be stopped. ? She was told she should be "ashamed to show our faces" by a police employee, during a visit to Scotland Yard in 2009 to discuss her son's murder. ? The trust she set up in Stephen's name to help youngsters from deprived backgrounds to realise their ambitions is in financial trouble. Lawrence criticises the government's record on race, saying they are squandering the opportunity to restart the war against prejudice presented by the conviction of two men for her son's murder. She says the convictions have at least temporarily put the battle against racial discrimination back on the agenda, after years of the fight having stalled. "There is a lot they can do. People take their lead from the government. If the prime minister said 'this is what I'd like to see happen in our society' ... people will try to work towards that. At the moment, I'm not sure exactly what they are doing around race." Cameron has tried to cleanse the Tories of their "nasty party" image, but the criticism from one of the leading black figures in Britain raises questions about that. Cameron, Lawrence says, was wrong to attack multiculturalism in a speech last year. "Sometimes people misinterpret what the word means," she says. Recalling longstanding Conservative hostility ? the party opposed the setting up of the Macpherson inquiry, and attacked its findings ? she notes some top Tories have changed their tune, such as Boris Johnson, who once attacked the Macpherson reforms but of whom she quips: "He's changed completely. He's my best friend now." She says she regrets that after the guilty verdicts no minister sent a letter "in recognition of what has been denied for so long". Her surviving son, Stuart, said: "David Cameron has not sent my mum a letter saying sorry it has taken so long. It shows the stance of the Conservative government. I don't think they care at all." Mrs Lawrence said the government may be preoccupied with the economy, but warned that spending cuts would hurt those who have least. "It is the working class and black people who are going to suffer the most ? they are at the bottom of the ladder." She said some of the reforms proposed by Macpherson had made Britain less racially prejudiced, but much more could have been done: "It's like a missed opportunity. For so long the perception is we've dealt with race, so we can move on. Under the surface they have not dealt with race ? it is still there." People suffering discrimination contact Mrs Lawrence for help ? "families feel there is a lot of discrimination happening" ? and she believes black Britons have to be four times better than their white counterparts to get as far. Stop and search, which she says police use disproportionately against African-Caribbeans, "has a great effect on their lives" and racist stereotyping is to blame: "Because in their mindset they still believe that they are criminals." Despite the fact that the Lawrences have been praised by prime ministers and police chiefs as a model law-abiding family, Mrs Lawrence, Stuart and her former husband, Neville, have all been stopped under stop-and-search powers. Stuart has been stopped more than 20 times: "He will be on the phone saying 'mum I can't believe they have stopped me again'." Once, after she complained, a police chief suggested an officer who had stopped Stuart should meet him and discuss why. The officer refused to do so. Stuart said: "There is no reason I can give, other than I am a young black man, who usually wears a baseball cap in my car, which is my God-given right." Asked if it is possible police were targeting her son because of any suggestion of criminality, she said: "He's a teacher for goodness sake." Mrs Lawrence reveals she was stopped in 1994, a year after Stephen's murder, by police who first said she might have been drinking. When she pressed them to breathalyse her, they suggested she had been driving erractically, then that it was possible she was driving a stolen car. She says the police were wrong to claim they were no longer institutionally racist, as Macpherson had found, and said in September 2009, on a visit to Scotland Yard, one staff member had said "we should be ashamed to show our face in the building". The Metropolitan police said: "The incident that Mrs Lawrence referred to was completely unacceptable and the individual was immediately dealt with by their line manager." The force added it is "immeasurably different to 1993" and that the Lawrence case had "contributed to major changes within policing". Lawrence described Norris and Dobson as "pure evil". Asked if she, a churchgoing Christian, could see herself forgiving the racists who killed her son, she said: "You can only forgive somebody, something, who asks for forgiveness, who admits their wrongs and they have never done that." She believes there is very little chance of the other men suspected of her son's murder standing trial. She will now focus her efforts on the Stephen Lawrence trust which gives young people opportunities. She met Cameron once, when he was in opposition: he came to a memorial service to mark the 15th anniversary of Stephen's death. Cameron and Nick Clegg sent a letter in support of a fundraising dinner for the trust, and the home secretary had visited its south London base, which Lawrence appreciated. A Downing Street spokesperson said the PM admired Lawrence for her "great bravery" and her family's "tireless fight for justice" and added: "He also recently made clear that he believes that although things have changed for the better, there is still a problem with racism in this country and more work to be done to tackle it." No 10 added that "a new action plan to tackle hate crime" would be unveiled soon, building on "one of the strongest legislative frameworks anywhere in the world", as would "a new approach to the integration of local communities". Lawrence said the trust was facing a cash crisis and needs to plug a £150,000 shortfall by the end of March. ? Donations to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust can be given: ? By credit card or paypal at the trust's JustGiving web page click here justgiving.com/slct/donate ? By texting SLCT18 followed by the £ symbol, then the amount to 70070 ? By bank deposit to the following account: sort code 30-94-08 account number 02963035 ? By cheque, made payable to Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and sent to 39 Brookmill Road, Deptford, London SE8 4HU. Stephen LawrenceRace issuesLiberal-Conservative coalitionPoliceConservativesVikram Dodd guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Boko Haram vows to fight until Nigeria establishes sharia law

Exclusive: Spokesman for Islamist group says it will not stop deadly attacks until country is ruled according to dictates of Allah The Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed almost 1,000 people in Nigeria, will continue its campaign of violence until the country is ruled by sharia law, a senior member has told the Guardian. "We will consider negotiation only when we have brought the government to their knees," the spokesman, Abu Qaqa, said in the group's first major interview with a western newspaper. "Once we see that things are being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are released [from prison], we will only put aside our arms ? but we will not lay them down. You don't put down your arms in Islam, you only put them aside." Qaqa, whose name is a pseudonym, said the group's members were spiritual followers of al-Qaida, and claimed they had met senior figures in the network founded by Osama bin Laden during visits to Saudia Arabia. The interview comes a week after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for Nigeria's single deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 186 people in the northern city of Kano. In an audio message posted on YouTube on Friday, the group's current leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to bomb schools and kidnap family members of government officials. "If [security forces] are going to places of worship and destroying them, like mosques and Quranic schools, you have primary schools as well, you have secondary schools and universities, and we will start bombing them." Shekau rejected calls for a negotiated peace from President Goodluck Jonathan, who on Thursday called for the shadowy sect to step out of the shadows and engage in dialogue. Nigerian officials have voiced hopes for a negotiated settlement with "moderate elements" of the group. "Under the circumstances, if you look hard enough, you can find moderate elements you can communicate with," General Andrew Azazi, the national security adviser to the president, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. Western diplomats say Boko Haram has splintered and the hardliners leading the factions responsible for the wave of violence that has killed some 250 people this year appear to have rejected any suggestion of dialogue. The Guardian was able to contact Abu Qaqa through an intermediary from the group's home state. The go-between has been in contact with the group since its inception, and met with its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, several times before he was killed in 2009. For most of the interview he used a voice modulator, but local journalists confirmed that his undisguised voice matched recordings of previous interviews. Qaqa said Shekau and others had travelled to Saudi Arabia for training and funding. "Al-Qaida are our elder brothers. During the lesser Hajj [last August], our leader travelled to Saudi Arabia and met al-Qaida there. We enjoy financial and technical support from them. Anything we want from them we ask them." He said recruits from neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger had joined the group. A recent UN report said weapons from Libya may have been smuggled to Boko Haram and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb via Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Security officials and diplomats in Abuja said they had no evidence of a link with al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, but an official confirmed that "elements of Boko Haram have made contact with external groups". The extent and frequency of that contact was unknown, the official said. In the decade since it first appeared, Boko Haram has graduated from crude driveby attacks on beer parlours to bombing security buildings in the northern Muslim heartland. Its most audacious attack targeted the United Nations building in the capital, Abuja, killing 25 in August. In recent weeks, Christians institutions have increasingly come under fire. A Christmas Day bomb attack on a packed church just outside the capital claimed almost 40 lives. But Qaqa said the rights of the country's 70 million Christians, who represent half of Nigeria's population, "would be protected" under the group's envisioned Islamic state. "Even the prophet Mohammed lived with non-Muslims and he gave them their dues." But he said everyone must abide by sharia law: "There are no exceptions. Even if you are a Muslim and you don't abide by sharia, we will kill you. Even if you are my own father, we will kill you." Speaking fluent but non-native Hausa, the lingua franca across the Sahelian belt on the cusp of the Sahara desert, he said: "It's the secular state that is responsible for the woes we are seeing today. People should understand that we are not saying we have to rule Nigeria, but we have been motivated by the stark injustice in the land. People underrate us but we have our sights set on [bringing sharia to] the whole world, not just Nigeria." Sharia law is already in place across 12 states in the Muslim-majority north. Few believe the group's radical ideology has traction in Nigeria's mainly Christian south, which is also home to millions of Muslims and has so far been out of the group's reach. Raising his voice for the only time during the interview, Qaqa denied reports that some governors in northern Nigeria paid the group monthly allowances in exchange for immunity from attacks. "May God punish anyone that said so," he said, before adding that the group has popular support in the north. "Poor people are tired of the injustice, people are crying for saviours and they know the messiahs are Boko Haram. "People were singing songs in [northern cities] Kano and Kaduna saying: 'We want Boko Haram'," Qaqa said, describing how the group can blend into the communities in which it operates. "If the masses don't like us they would have exposed us by now. When Islam comes everyone would be happy," he said. Diplomats say Nigeria's security services are belatedly attempting to gain control of the situation, which was previously dismissed as an internal, northern squabble often fuelled by politicians with personal grievances. "There is an ongoing review of all security agencies," the presidential aide Ken Wiwa said. "This is a relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria and the administration is working hard to improve its capacity to respond. There are various other initiatives which will be implemented but this is as much a political as a security issue." An official said Nigeria's central bank was involved in measures aimed at strangling the group's external funding sources, including speeding up a cashless economy. Boko HaramNigeriaMonica Mark guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

David Cameron in U-turn over fiscal policing of eurozone

Government signals it will not challenge fiscal enforcement role for European commission and European court of justice The prime minister has abandoned his pledge to block the eurozone from using common EU institutions to police a new regime of fiscal integration and stiff German-style rules for the embattled single currency. Ahead of Monday's summit of EU leaders, which is due to finalise "political agreement" on the fiscal compact treaty, the government signalled that it would not challenge a role for the European commission and, more sensitively, would also allow resort to the European court of justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg to enforce new debt ceilings and fines for fiscal miscreants in the eurozone. Last month David Cameron shocked the rest of Europe by vetoing new EU laws on fiscal rigour, forcing the other member states instead to turn the pact into an international treaty between participating governments outside the EU treaties. Cameron also vowed to resist a role for EU institutions on the grounds that they served all 27 member states. Berlin insists that the Luxembourg court should be empowered to rule on whether the new "debt brakes" are being properly enshrined in national law across the eurozone and applied. A senior German official said the European commission would act as "referee" in deciding whether eurozone members were breaching the new rules. A commission ruling would be accepted by eurozone governments unless overturned by "reverse majority voting" and any signatory government could then take the perceived sinner to the European court. Senior diplomatic sources in Brussels made clear on Friday that while Britain still had reservations about these provisions, there would be no attempt to block them and no quick legal challenge. Cameron is understood to have made it clear to José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, in a telephone call on Wednesday that Britain would no longer object to using the ECJ to enforce the new treaty. "There were a number of issues in the heat of the moment," one EU source said of the prime minister's threat in December to block the use of EU institutions to police the fiscal compact. "But they quickly disappeared." Cameron's concession marks a significant watering down of his previous position and represents a victory for Nick Clegg, who has been urging the prime minister to recover ground after wielding the veto. The deputy prime minister lobbied hard inside Whitehall for Cameron to drop his objections to the use of EU institutions to enforce the compact. The prime minister raised concerns about the use of the ECJ as recently as 6 January. He told the Today programme on Radio 4: "You can't have a treaty outside the European Union that starts doing what should be done within the European Union and that goes back to the issue of safeguards. "There are legal difficulties over this. One of the problems is that the European court of justice, we all think it is a great independent arbiter, but the European court of justice tends to come down on the side of whatever 'more Europe' involves. Let me be very clear that they shouldn't do things outside the European Union that are the property of the European Union." The abrupt change of heart by Cameron may have been prompted by German anger over the British veto. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, highlighted concerns in Berlin about Britain when he blamed Cameron for blocking the EU from embedding the eurozone fiscal compact in the Lisbon treaty. Asked in Davos on Friday about the failure to agree a revision of the Lisbon treaty, Schäuble said: "I would like to give you the number of David Cameron. Of course, this is not a joke. It would be much better, and better to understand for everyone outside of Europe, if we were to do what we will now have to do in our fiscal compact in the framework of European treaties." Tory Eurosceptics warned Cameron against diluting his opposition to the use of the ECJ. Bill Cash, the veteran Conservative Eurosceptic who chairs the commons European scrutiny committee, said: "There mustn't be any backsliding. There are serious concerns about the lawfulness of these proposals. The institutions are simply not allowed to use the European commission and the [European] court of justice in an unlawful manner." David CameronEurozone crisisEuroEuropean UnionEuropeEuropean commissionCourt of justice of the European UnionEuroEconomic policyEconomicsIan TraynorNicholas Watt guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Syria violence has risen significantly, says Arab League mission chief

As UN prepares to debate resolution on crisis, at least 100 are thought to have been killed in Homs since Wednesday The head of the Arab League monitoring mission in Syria has said violence has risen significantly in the country in recent days, as the UN prepares to debate a resolution on the crisis next week. The flashpoint city of Homs has again been the focal point of clashes, which are thought to have killed at least 100 people since Wednesday. Activists in the besieged city reported a massacre had taken place at the hands of regime forces on Thursday. European and Arab states are frantically drafting a resolution aimed at ending the violence and seizing power from the president, Bashar al-Assad, whose regime had enjoyed absolute control over Syria until a sustained and increasingly violent challenge to its rule. However, a key member of the UN security council, Russia, said it would again use its veto to kill any resolution that calls for Assad to stand down. The stance of Moscow, a staunch ally of the Assad regime, appears to end any notion of a short-term solution to the crisis in Syria, where 10 months of violence has killed at least 6,000 people. The UN said on Friday that 384 children had died since the rebellion began last March. Escalating tensions have since pitted an increasingly armed and organised opposition against a loyalist military. In his most strident comments since the Arab League monitoring mission began in November, its chief, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, said: "The situation at present, in terms of violence, does not help prepare the atmosphere ? to get all sides to sit at the negotiating table." He identified Hama, Homs and Idlib as key areas of concern. Parts of the capital, Damascus, are also becoming an active conflict zone, although regime forces remain in control of most of the city and death tolls during clashes are not as high. Western states have remained reluctant to characterise the increasing violence in Syria as a civil war. Neither Britain, France, nor the US has described the violence in Syria, which is increasingly destabilising the country and alarming the region, as anything more than a rebellion, or budding insurgency. "As the UK, we don't believe it's a civil war at present," said a Foreign Office spokesman. "But the situation is clearly deteriorating steadily, which is why we are pressing for swift action at the UN in support of the Arab League." US legislators have also described the crisis in Syria in ominous tones, without being prepared to offer a clear descriptor. "It is pretty close to a civil war," said John Kerry, US Senate foreign relations chairman, this week. There is little debate in academic circles about whether the situation in Syria now meets the defined benchmarks of civil war. "By the coding rules typically used by political scientists and sociologists who study civil war, yes, the conflict in Syria almost surely qualifies," said Jim Fearon, Stanford University political scientist. "A fairly typical first cut at a definition for civil war would be 'an armed conflict between organised groups fighting over power at the centre or in a region, that has killed at least 1,000 within one year, and at least 100 on both sides.'" Analysts contacted by the Guardian say the reluctance of governments who are condemning the Syrian regime to accept that the term civil war applies there is driven by three factors: domestic political considerations, a fear that the term would exacerbate the situation, and out of concern to avoid making a moral judgement that could legitimise either side. "People use the definition in a morally loaded way," said Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute in London. "It can propel sides into action. It has connotations about the actors involved. It's much better for [governments] if they can continue to call the other side rebels because you can then characterise the conflict as rebels versus a dictatorship. "If you call it a civil war, it gives the [Syrian] government licence to treat it as a civil war. And that is a licence you don't want to give them. We need to recognise that there is still a peaceful process taking place alongside the violence. Western governments are still holding out some hope that they can make political gains without violence." In a potentially significant development, the secretary general of the Gulf Co-operation Council, which this week withdrew its monitors from the Arab League monitoring mission to Syria, will on Monday meet the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, at the organisation's headquarters. SyriaBashar al-AssadArab and Middle East unrestMiddle East and North AfricaUnited NationsMartin Chulov guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Labour must do more to be credible on economy, says Douglas Alexander

Shadow foreign secretary warns that public has not heard enough from Labour party about how it would cut the deficit Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, is warning Labour it has only created a bridgehead towards establishing economic credibility and will need to talk "a lot more" about bringing the deficit down if it is to reap political dividends from the government's economic failure. Making a rare intervention in the debate on Labour's economic approach, he said in a Guardian interview: "I don't think the public has yet heard us talking enough about dealing with the deficit, as well as talking about the need to boost growth and jobs." He also warned the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, that he will endanger the patience of Scotland if he is seen to be trying to fix a referendum on independence. Alexander added that Labour would support a cap on household welfare benefits, saying: "This is a difficult but necessary step but let us be clear we support the principle, of a benefit cap, but with the important caveat that it should not render people homeless." Regarded as one of the party's key strategists, Alexander's intervention is likely to be taken as a sign of determination within the shadow cabinet not to lose the momentum created by the two big speeches by leader Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, insisting Labour needed to adjust to an era of austerity, including the need for further spending cuts after the 2015 election. Balls committed the party to a continued public sector pay freeze, so long as extra help is given to the low paid, a move that prompted a furious union response and was described by Miliband as a watershed for his leadership. Some critics have accused Miliband of running up the white flag on economic policy, and others that the message is still confused. Alexander believes the party now has to go further to convince the electorate of its credentials, and suggests it has to rebalance its rhetorical emphasis from stimulus to deficit. He said: "There have always been two parts to the Labour argument ? a short-term stimulus now to get the economy moving and medium-term cuts to get the deficit down. "It was always vital that we won the first part of that argument ? that the government are going too far and too fast ? and I think thanks to Ed Miliband and Ed Balls we are winning that argument. "But the second half of that argument ? that the deficit has to come down ? has to be emphasised more, and all of us have a responsibility to make that case. We have talked a lot about the first and we need to talk a lot more about the second" He added: "We must convince the public of our commitment to both parts of our argument ? securing growth and securing deficit reduction. We have to be heard on both sides of our argument to win." He also praised Balls's announcement on keeping the public sector pay freeze as the best way to keep people in work. "Ed's was just the first tough choice of many ? credibility will involve other tough choices. We cannot promise now to reverse every Tory cut, not least because we do not know the state of public finances in 2015. "To some that may seem controversial, to me it is common sense. Securing economic credibility is never easy, but it is always essential ? fiscal realism is the only path to power." Urging his party not to back away, he said: "We need to step into this conversation and not step away from it. This is not about positioning against the unions or even towards the electorate. It is more fundamental than that - it is about being open about the condition of the economy. For me fiscal realism is not a betrayal of Labour values, it is the foundation by which we win the trust of the public." Alexander also urged his party to recognise that the public are in the mood to hear realism from politicians, rather than evasions. "My sense is that, given people's real worries about the economy, there is a yearning for politicians to level with the public. They want us to be honest about the difficult decisions we face to ensure that Britain earns its living and pays its way in the world in the tough years ahead." Faced by the warnings of disaffiliation by some unions in response to the leadership's shift, Alexander said: "Labour has to hold its nerve. Some of our own supporters will be upset, but we cannot have a reverse gear on this. This is just the start of a difficult process ? the two speeches were a beachhead." He also warned his party that the public would not regard Labour as credible simply if Conservative austerity economics turned out to have failed. Such a view, he said, would be wrong and complacent. With Labour level pegging with the Tories in the polls he says: "At the time of the Autumn statement we saw that economic failure for the Tories did not translate into political success for us. The task for all of us is to ensure that George Osborne's economic failure becomes an electoral failure for him as well . We will not win the next election just because George Osborne is being exposed as making the wrong economic judgements. The Tory economic policy is clear and it is clearly wrong ? you cannot simply cut your way to recovery". But Alexander argued that the party was paying the price for a deeper failure to be straight with the electorate before the 2010 election, saying: "We should have been much clearer much sooner after the crisis in 2008 about the consequences." That failure created a benign political environment for the Conservatives. He said: "From 2007 to 2011, the Conservatives worked very hard to establish a public language and a public logic that the crisis was caused by Labour's actions in government. Both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband made important steps forward in correcting that in recent speeches. We all have a responsibility to continue that process." On Scotland, he said Salmond was trying to avoid a straight choice between separation and the status quo by promoting a third option of greater independence within the UK. He said: "He is on the horns of a dilemma. He knows he is selling a product that the Scottish people do not want to buy ? that is why he is scrambling around trying to find a get out of jail card, and his card is devo max. He cannot explain it, he cannot define it but he hopes it will provide a means by which he can claim victory when he suffers defeat over the sovereignty question. "As I understand it, Salmond said this week that if 99.5% voted for devo max and 50.1% voted for independence, then Scotland would be independent ? try explaining that. If he goes on like this, the tolerance of the public will be strained if this looks like an attempt to rig a referendum. We need a clear and decisive question on independence, and soon. ''The Scottish [Labour] party leader Johann Lamont recently said it is as if he is Moses and he has taken people to the top of the mountain, and shown them the promised land, and then said why don't we camp here for two years." Douglas AlexanderLabourEconomic policyPatrick Wintour guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Spain unemployment tops 5.3m and set to get worse

The conservative government of Mariano Rajoy has started to quietly beg the EU to ease up on deficit targets which require savage spending cuts Spanish unemployment broke through the 5-million barrier on Friday as the new government of Mariano Rajoy began to quietly beg the European Union to ease up on deficit targets that are sending the country hurtling back into recession. Spain, which already boasted Europe's worst unemployment rate, recorded 350,000 people losing their jobs in the last quarter of 2011. That rate now stands at 22.8% of the population and is set to worsen as Rajoy's conservative People's party government pursues a ?40bn (£33bn) budget adjustment, most of it in spending cuts, to meet the EU's deficit target of 4.4% this year. With a record 5.3 million unemployed, Spain faces a spiral of decline. The IMF has already predicted that the economy will shrink by 1.7% this year, with a further decline in 2013. While Rajoy, who met German chancellor Angel Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, publicly maintains his target of reducing the deficit to 4.4% from more than 8% last year, his ministers are letting it be known that they want the EU to ease up on deficit targets which require severe adjustments. Rajoy himself has pointed out that the EU's target for 2011 supposed not only that last year's deficit would be 6%, but also that growth this year would reach 2.3%. "We need growth predictions from Brussels and that is when we will start negotiating with them on Spain's stability programme," the finance minister, Luis de Guindos said. Almost 1.5m Spanish households now have no wage earner, with 3.5 million people joining the dole queue over the past four-and-a-half years. Southern Andalucia has a 31% unemployment rate, while 35% of immigrants and 39% of under-25s are jobless. "Harsh adjustment policies not only fail to solve the problem, they can make it worse," warned Cándido Méndez of the General Workers' Union. Further evidence that public austerity programmes were damaging the wider economy came from figures on company closures. Around 35,000 companies folded in the second half of the year ? a third of all those to have shut since Spain's economy ran into trouble at the end of 2008. Much of the spending cuts have to come from regional governments, who provide basic services such as health, education and social services. Spain's pharmaceutical companies said regional governments were now taking 525 days to pay bills for medicines provided to hospitals, with ?6.3bn outstanding. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Caixa savings bank, Isidre Fainé, predicted further gloom in the housing market, in which up to 700,000 new-build homes remain unsold after a housing bubble burst several years ago. He predicted that house prices, which have dropped around 30% since their peak, could fall to 50% or 60% of their top value before recovering. Eurozone crisisSpainEuropean UnionEconomicsEuropeGiles Tremlett guardian.co.uk ? 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

ComputerWorld

Are Google and Apple really 'monopolies'?

Recent charges claiming that Google or Apple are monopolies, are monopolistic or wield monopoly power are simply false. And those who use the M word about these companies are misleading you, writes columnist Mike Elgan.

Twitter's country-specific blocking brings hazards and hope

Twitter's move to comply with government requests and block tweets in specific countries could blunt its edge as a political tool, but there may be an upside in helping to unmask censorship, some privacy experts said Friday.

Lookout Security rebuts rival's Android malware claims

Researchers from Lookout Security disagreed with rival Symantec that 13 apps on the Android Market were malicious, instead saying that they showed the same behaviors as other ad-supported apps.

Adscend denies Facebook, AG allegations

Adscend Media, the defendant in lawsuits filed this week by Facebook and the Washington attorney general, on Friday denied the allegations in the complaints and shifted blame to its affiliates.

Juniper's financial challenges continue

Juniper Networks' challenges are due to timing with new product rollouts and shifts in investments from customers and channel partners.

Salesforce.com customers say new analytics should be included in core fees

Salesforce.com customers are sounding off about the fact that an upcoming Analytics Edition of the CRM (customer relationship management) software will have an additional price tag, saying that the functionality it includes should be part of their base subscriptions.

Massive Android malware op may have infected 5 million users

The largest-ever Android malware campaign may have duped as many as 5 million users into downloading infected apps from Google's Android Market, Symantec said today.

Cisco aims to simplify, unify collaboration products' design, interfaces

Cisco is in the midst of a major initiative to better integrate its various collaboration products and to give their interfaces a uniform, consistent design in order to make them easier to use and more effective at helping employees work with each other.

Wall Street Beat: Tech shines as earnings come in strong

This week's tsunami of tech earnings, led by Apple's jaw-dropping quarterly report, has given market watchers something to cheer about and also points to industry shifts around tablets and cloud computing.

Dig deep into Lion: The best overlooked, underrated features

Mission Control and other snazzy new Lion features may have gotten all the press, but columnist Ryan Faas has uncovered a slew of lesser-known features that every OS X Lion user should know about.

Christian Science Monitor

College tuition costs: Hold 'em down or else, Obama says

College tuition costs could determine how much federal aid colleges and universities get, President Obama says in a speech at the University of Michigan. College tuition costs rose 7 percent at the university this year.?

$132.9 billion: Remember TARP? It still owes you.

$132.9 billion short, the 2008 US bailout of the financial system could continue through 2017. Some of the $132.9 billion TARP money will never be recovered.?

Can California change US cars forever? New zero-emissions rules take aim.

California has adopted new rules that require 15 percent of all cars sold in the state to be electric, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen-powered by 2025. Perhaps surprisingly, automakers are onboard.

#TwitterBlackout: Protests brew as complaints over censorship come to a boil

Twitter on Thursday announced it would invoke the ability to censor some tweets on a country-by-country basis. Cue the global backlash.?

Can economy help Obama reelection? One statistic gives him hope.

Since 1948 only one incumbent president has won reelection with joblessness over 7 percent. There is another unemployment statistic, however, that could play in President Obama's favor.

Can one professor teach 500,000 students at once?

Former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun has already taught a class of 160,000. Now he's aiming to teach 500,000 students. ?

Facebook IPO: Are 800 million users worth $100 billion

Facebook, the most successful social network in history, is close to going public, according to one new report.?

Utah school bomb plot: from inspiration to prevention, Columbine had a part

One suspect in the Utah high school bomb plot interviewed the Columbine principal in December. Police were tipped off by a friend of the suspect who received a suspicious message.?

The Monitor's Weekly News Quiz for Jan. 21-27, 2012

How well do stay up with the news ? from the mainstream to the obscure? Match wits with our quiz!

How Pentagon budget cuts will reshape the Army

The Army has been seen as one of the big losers in the Pentagon budget cuts released Thursday. But Army officials say now is the perfect time for the force to recast itself.?

Church Of The Customer

FedEx's apology: expertly delivered

The simplest definition of word of mouth marketing

14 new statistics about word of mouth marketing

How Nordstrom creates word of mouth around the holidays

Steve Jobs

Where do most people talk about brands?

Creating word-of-mouth for a cause, the Innocent Drinks way

Kicking out unwanted customers, Alamo Drafthouse style

Hamburger love

Your most valued customer

Wired News

Theophilus London Brings His Unique Style to Sundance

A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 28

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Documents Artist's Social Media Dissent

SEC Goes After Online Trading Firms That Unwittingly Helped Latvian Hacker

In an effort to crack down on hacker/stock traders who hijack brokerage accounts and exploit the stock market for gain, the Securities and Exchange Commission has, in a novel move, gone after four online trading companies and eight executives who they say helped a Latvian hacker make more than $850,000 from fraudulent trades.

Apple's New iBooks Won't School College Bookstores Any Time Soon

On its face, matching iPad textbooks with college students seems almost perfect. But Apple's plans for its new iBookstore, from the way it's structured book purchases to its development strategy for multimedia e-books, doesn't seem like it's well suited for the college textbook market at all ? if it even has that target in mind.

Solar-Storm-Fueled Auroras Make for Awesome Backyard Photography

The sun is waking up. After several quiet years, it bombarded the Earth with a one-two punch of solar storms this week, which generated consecutive nights of spectacular auroras.

Twitter Censorship Move Sparks Backlash: Is It Justified?

Internet scorn for Twitter's announcement that it would censor tweets was swift and unforgiving. But even free-speech and other experts were divided on the service's move that it might censor tweets if required by law in "countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression."

Simulate Daylight to Combat SAD

Pentagon Confused by Its Own 'Subs vs. Terrorists' Plan

It's the Pentagon dream that won't die: hitting enemy targets with missiles anywhere around the world within mere hours. (Too bad it could trigger a nuclear war.) Now that the brass swears it's got a technological fix for the ambitious missile project, it's got a bigger problem: the Pentagon can't seem to decide how it should actually work.

Microsoft Kinect Could Make Its Way to Laptops

The ability to control a Windows desktop with a simple hand gesture could become reality sooner than we once thought. The Daily got a sneak peek at two Microsoft-developed Windows 8 notebook prototypes with built-in Kinect sensors. The system would allow for gesture recognition in portable devices for the first time.

CNN Live

Sandusky asks court for permission to visit grandkids

Despite being accused of child sex abuse, former Penn State assistant head coach Jerry Sandusky is asking a judge to modify the terms of his bail so he can see his grandchildren.

Romney faces Medicare attacks in Fla.

GOP presidential front-runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich barnstormed across Florida on Friday, trying to rally supporters and break away in the polls four days before what is shaking up to be a pivotal primary in that state.

Bennett: Romney's new tack is working

South Carolina was a wake-up call for Mitt Romney. In Thursday night's CNN debate, Romney delivered an aggressive, forceful performance that many thought he was incapable of. The upcoming Florida primary could turn out very differently now, and the results could go a long way toward helping him win the Republican nomination.

Iran hopeful on eve of IAEA visit

Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday he is hopeful that this weekend's planned visit by representatives of the nuclear watchdog will "resolve any ambiguity and show (our) transparency and cooperation with the agency."

Police arrest 4, raid UK paper's offices

Four arrests have been made in connection with allegations of inappropriate payments to police, London's Metropolitan Police Service said Saturday, with a police officer among those detained.

DOJ submits 'Fast and Furious' docs

The Justice Department on Friday night provided Congress with a new batch of Operation Fast and Furious documents from early 2011.

Pardoned murderer drops out of sight

Joseph Ozment was picked up by his mom from the governor's mansion after his pardon this month. Now a reward is being offered for anyone who can help locate him.

Experts split on planned Pentagon cuts

Some military experts Friday called Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's proposed budget cuts "much to do about nothing," but others expressed concern about the potential of a shrinking U.S. military in the strategic Mideast and Asia.

U.S. to send MIA team to North Korea

The United States will send a team to North Korea this year to search for the remains of missing U.S. veterans of the Korean War, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Hope fades in Brazil buildings collapse

The death toll in the collapse of three buildings in Rio de Janeiro rose to 15 Friday night as rescuers found two more bodies, state media reported.

ESPN

• Thompson: Jay Paterno finds comfort
• Azarenka rolls to Aussie title, ascends to No. 1
• LeBron, Wade help Heat take down Knicks
• Manning, Irsay seek to 'dispel misperception'
• Source: Oswalt likely to sign with Cards 'soon'
• U.S. blanks Costa Rica; qualifies for Olympics
• Thomas: White House flap 'all media-driven'
• Hornets actively trying to trade center Kaman
• Selig expects extra wild cards to start this year
• Mickelson misses cut; Stanley leads at Farmers
• Olympian Clark wins 4th career Winter X gold
• Broncos hire ex-Jaguars coach Del Rio as DC
• Phillies, Pence agree on one-year, $10.4M deal
• Mavericks ponder sitting struggling Odom next
• Browns hire Childress as offensive coordinator
• Goodell: Recession has helped build fan base

Cool Tools

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap

This is a battery operated cat door that unlocks (going inside) by reading the cat's microchip. Our cat was chipped at our shelter for around $10, but commercial vets are also able to do it for a bit more. No need to worry about lost collar keys, or magnets. Keeps out unprogrammed animals. The door also has the standard four-setting mechanical overide locking feature of: in-out, in only, out only, locked. If your cat is not chipped, you can also use an RFID collar key (not included).

We previously had a magnetically keyed cat door, but you then have the choice of using a safety collar and losing the (not cheap) key every now and then, or using a non-safety collar and risking the cat strangling itself.

Raccoons eventually defeated our magnetically keyed door. They haven't defeated this one (yet), although the mechanical parts of the latching action are similar.

-- Bruce Bowen

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap
$140

Available from Amazon

Material Libraries

There are thousands of types of materials to make things from. The first impulse for most of us is to use known materials like wood, steel, concrete, and glass. But each of those have hundreds of varieties, each with their own properties. How about metallic ceramics? And every year brand new materials are invented. How can one find out what materials are available?

One way to become familiar with the vast possibilities of materials is to visit a materials library. That's what professional designers and architectures do when embarking on a project. Maybe what they design can be made of some kind of glass? Or super strong plastic? Or bendable wood? Larger design firms have their own material collection, which they use for inspiration, research and for sharing with clients. Below is an unusually large material library at the New York City architecture firm 1100: Architect. Smaller ones can be found at most design firms.

Not everyone has the space or time to build their own. So Material Connexion is a commercial business operating in 8 major design-center cities of the world. For a subscription fee you can use their extensive material library. They add about a dozen new materials per month. A fair number of university art centers also use them to install and manager their collections.

Art, architecture and design centers in colleges and universities have begun creating material libraries that rival the depth and usefulness of book libraries. Notable collections include Harvard's Materials Collection and RISD's Material Resource Center in Providence, RI. At both you can check out a sample to study, just like a book:

To Borrow Items from the Material Resource Center
Select items from the shelves and bring them to the checkout desk.
Materials circulate for 7 days at a time. Please return materials promptly - an overdue fine of .20 per 5 items will be charged.

The Materials Lab at the University of Texas was the pioneer in creating material libraries several decades ago. Their own library contains 25,000 different types of materials. Even better, the catalog of the Material Lab is openly available online. It's organized by domain and even though you can't touch them, you can learn a lot by browsing and searching. You can quickly see, say, how many different types of concrete blocks are available, or how many types of metallic glass, or plywood laminates.

Chances are that if there is a art/design college near you, they have a material library that you could at least visit. The local art college in my neighborhood is the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I visited their materials library, which is small, but stimulating. Here the librarian oversees the collection. I was free to browse it.

Even better, it is not hard to accumulate your own collection of materials, or even start a shared library with friends and colleagues. It is not just the pieces of stuff that is valuable, but the information about the stuff -- its specs, what it can do, or not do, where it comes from, how to get more of it.

-- KK

Flexible LED Strip Lights

We installed flexible LED light strips in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. These are very low energy consumption, cool to the touch, and rated to last for 50,000 hours.

The strips are about 1 cm wide and 2 mm thick. The strips come on a spool with a sticky tape side. You press the sticky side to the bottom of the cabinet (or the sides inside) and the strip gives a very diffuse effective and efficient light. They are so thin, you can't really see the light strip itself, only the glow. The strip is a circuit of LEDs in a row. They have marked segments about every 2-3 inches where you can cut them to fit. They typically run off of 12 volts; the transformer can sit i a cabinet, attic, or basement. You can also specific different color temperatures (very warm to very cool). The lights are dimmable.

We used them under our cabinets and inside of one cabinet (picture above).

There are tons of manufacturers peddling flexible LED strips now. You can purchase them in meter strips or on 5 meter reels. Here is one supplier with many products and variations: Superbrightleds.com. I have no experience in using this outfit. It is a new market so quality varies.

We used a local California-based manufacturer, Aion. Their prices are higher than many of the imports (usually from China), but they had a deliverable guarantee of 5 years. Unfortunately they don't deal retail, wholesale only through electricians, who can reliably install it.

If anyone has experience with installing DIY LED strips, please let us know.

And these nifty strips can be used for all kinds of other illumination where flexibility and thinness is desired.

-- KK

Carpenter Pencil and Keson Sharpener

I have been a carpenter for thirty years or so. I started out as a framer on single family homes, where I used the flat carpenter's pencil. Its sturdy lead stood up to marking rough lumber but was a little tricky to sharpen. You want a flat chisel point not a conical point. This is accomplished quickly and easily with an inexpensive Keson pencil sharpener.

My framing days are long gone, thankfully. I have worked in many aspects of the field, from general carpentry to boatbuilding to cabinetmaking and am currently installing interior doors and high-end trim. Through it all I have held on to that flat pencil. It never ceased to amaze me how many employers (and I've been through a few) have told me to lose the flat pencil and get with the program and use a round pencil. To my mind, the only thing a round pencil is good for is taking a lunch order or making out the bill. The point breaks easily when marking wood and is difficult to sharpen unless you have an electric sharpener under your chopbox, which many guys do.

-- Paul Francy

Keson Carpenter Pencil Sharpener
$8

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Keson

Smart Light Switch

We just had a new light switch installed in our bathroom, the Lutron Maestro Occupancy Sensor. It is smart and cool, but it needs a user manual! Yes, a manual for a light switch!

Because of new building codes, bathroom gear needs to conserve energy by keeping electricity use to a minimum. One way of low use is via LED lights; the other is via a smart switch that has a motion detector built in, which will fade the lights after X minutes if no one moving inside. And it will turn them on when you enter. It also remembers what level the light was last when you turn it on. The downside is that you have to PROGRAM the light switch -- what levels, when, and how long it takes to go off. It comes with a dense how-to-manual. But the default settings seem fine and the device is pretty cool. Here is a shot of the instructions, which also cover the other side of the paper.

It costs about $32 from places like Amazon.

-- KK

3M Scotch-Weld EPX Applicator

I always used to buy epoxy locally in disposable dispensers that are supposed to dispense equal ratios of the components. The dispensers never work that well: one side always starts to move first and then to get a reasonably equal mix I have to mix up a lot more than I need.

The 3M duo-pack adhesives are sold separately from the dispenser. Because the dispenser is not disposable, it can be a decently built tool, like a caulk gun for epoxy.

The way it works is that you slip on the adhesive cartridge. The applicator has a plunger that pushes up the adhesive cartridge. Think caulk gun. The epoxy comes in double tubes like a doubled tube of caulk. When an adhesive has a different mixing ratio the tubes in the cartridge have different diameters. And there is a different plunger that fits in the tube. The supported mixing ratios are 1:1, 1:2 and 1:10 because those are the ratios of adhesives available. When you buy the system you get the first two plungers, but the 1:10 plunger is sold separately as it is used only for DP-8005 and DP-8010, I think. Just like a caulk gun you can, but you need not remove the adhesive cartridge between uses. The gun stays clean. There is no need to clean it. (Unlike a caulk gun, the adhesive doesn't leak out the back and get on the gun.)

In fact, if you're not so worried about waste there's even a further convenience: static mixing nozzles. These nozzles attach to the end of the epoxy tube and do all the mixing for you so that it really works like a caulk gun: what comes out is ready to use, completely mixed epoxy.

But even if you don't use the somewhat wasteful mixing nozzles you can still use the gun to extrude the correct ratio mix of 3M adhesive products and then hand mix. I have been able to mix up just the amount of epoxy I need when with the old system I would have mixed ten times what I needed. (No exaggeration here.)

I first got this system because I was trying to glue zinc-plated magnets to polyethylene. I tried regular epoxy. It doesn't stick well to either one of these materials. There are two adhesives that I think are of particular note in the 3M lineup.

The DP-190 (which I have only used a tiny bit) is supposed to stick to everything except the "low surface energy" plastics. I saw that it is recommended for use with the zinc-plated rare earth magnets (by the magnet sellers). The DP-8005 is designed to stick to low surface energy plastics. I got it for my application.

I also got a small mat made out of teflon because nothing is supposed to stick to that. This was great for repairs using epoxy. I repaired something and laid it on the teflon and it peeled right off after it was cured.

According to 3M, epoxy shelf life is less than a couple years, so you don't want to buy a lifetime supply at any given time. The shelf life of DP-8005 is only 6 months. The shelf life of the previously reviewed Scotch-Weld Two Part Urethane is 1 year.

-- Adrian M.

3M Scotch-Weld EPX Applicator
$60

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by 3M

Ask Cool Tools Unanswered Questions #11

What's the best cheese grater for arthritic hands?

Which PDA has the best basic functions?

What's the most realistic driving simulator?

Do you have recommendations for a product that can help me strengthen my nails?

Squeak No More

This tool is a system for eliminating squeaky floors. There are several versions available; I used the Squeeeek-No-More for carpeted floors.

Essentially, the kit inclues the following: a tool for finding joists under the floor; a tripod depth stop and square-drive driver bit for the drill; and square-drive screws which are grooved at the top of the threads.

First, you locate the joist by chucking the joist finder, which is a long screw threaded only on the end and has a hex end for the drill/driver. Pick a place and go for it. If you are over a joist, once the screw is down a couple inches, when you back it out it will push itself out. If you're not over a joist, it spins freely. It's pretty easy to tell even when the screw goes in if you are on a joist.

Then you set the tripod stand over the joist and drive a screw through the center into the floor. The screw goes through the carpet, through the sub-floor, and into the joist. Once a few screws are in place, you can use the side of the tripod to rock the screws back and forth to break it off where grooved. The screws' depth is set by the tripod so that they break off slightly below the surface of the sub-floor.

After a little brushing with your hand, the carpet reveals no evidence of the screws.

After seeing an add in the back of a magazine, I bought a set. When I saw it, I did not expect the system to work, since I was expecting a dual-pitch screw that would pull the subfloor to the joist. The screws are just like wood screws with a groove. We had a large area about 1' x 3' in our bedroom that squeaked a lot. You could feel the give in the floor.

I put about 15 screws into the area, about every 4" in three different joists. Now it is almost completely silent. This was only a few days ago, so I'm not sure of how long it will last, but so far so good.

-- Jason Melvin

Squeak No More Kit
$17

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by O'Berry Enterprises

Sample Excerpts:

A cutaway view of one of the screws after it has been embedded in the joist.

Youngstown Waterproof Winter Plus Work Gloves

I received these gloves about six years ago from my wife, in one of those rare intersections of need and availability. It was Christmastime and I needed to shovel, so I broke these out and went to work. I never gave them a second thought, until I realized I had done a fair amount of ice chopping, opening the garage, and manipulating other things without ever removing the gloves. This is somewhat of a rarity for me since I usually cannot work in gloves. Fast-forward to spring, and I used them to protect my hands when chopping and stacking wood; working on the car; working in the garage. I *far extended* the prescribed use of these, despite the fact that they were winter gloves and waterproof. In a pinch, I've even used them when moving flaming logs in an outdoor fire pit.

A short word about the waterproofing: I tend to agree with other owners in that these aren't strictly waterproof. If I was a long-line fisherman I may not use them. However, as a north Jersey resident who works on his cars, shovels snow, and builds snowmen for the kids, I can attest to their warmth and utility in the cold and wet.

With respect to function, they fit my slightly larger hand size well, and the back strap does seal in against cold and snow. The palms and fingers are textured and I am able to pick up bolts, thread nuts, small tools and sockets, and work with wrenches rather easily. The fingertips are boxed, not tapered, but in some ways the fingertips work to my advantage in picking up things on the ground.

When they get *really* dirty, you can toss them in the wash. The construction is such that the inner glove liner is not sewn to the shell, but it is a huge pain in the posterior to re-fit the glove components back to original fit. I used a wooden spoon and patience to eventually restore it to normal comfort.

You can kill them. Eventually, I wore them down at the seams where the fingers meet the palm, and the palm itself. I hung onto them as long as I could but until recently could not find them. I hung onto the wrist strap tag so that if I ever found them online, I'd be ready. I rediscovered them on Amazon not too long ago and will be re-ordering soon. I plan to look at the normal work ones in addition to the winter ones; the capacitive thread ones look intriguing, since they have a conductive thread sewn into the fingertips and thumbs for smartphone use.

-- Christopher Wanko

Youngstown Waterproof Winter Plus Glove
$28

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Youngstown Gloves

Homemade Hot Pad

When I need to make a hot compress I put dried beans (preferably lentils) in a pillowcase and heat in the microwave for a minute or two. It's cheap, easy, doesn't smell horrible, and retains heat for quite some time. Reusable, too. If you want a pretty one, there are some nice ones available from etsy, including scented ones.

-- Courtney Ostaff

I also make hot compresses at home, but with rice in a long sock. Same method: microwave for a minute or two to enjoy around 10 minutes of heat. After several uses, the rice will eventually start to breakdown and you'll need to replace it. The heated rice does emit a very faint smell, but I actually find it to be comforting. This might be a problem, though, if you're using the heat to treat migraine pain.

I tried using a rubber hot-water pouch recently, but I found that the thick rubber walls weren't transmitting heat very well, so I went back to rice in a sock.

-- Camille Cloutier

Digg Frontpage News

Happy Australia Day: 14 Sexy Women From Down Under

"Welcome Back Kotter" 'Epstein' Actor Robert Hegyes Dead at 60

Reinventing the Schoolhouse: Making High School Look More Fun Than It Really Is

Five Surprising Foods That Boost Immunity

AAA Puts Spare Tires On The Endangered List Thanks To Fuel Economy Rules

Philadelphia launch Cadbury's flavour

Five Alien Planetary Systems

Vice President Joe Biden Owes An Apology To Indian Americans

SOPA and PIPA are on the wrong side of history

Bidders fight to own 'Homer Simpson' glue blob (Video)

Wonkette

Here's Video Reminder of Why Politicians Should Really Be Required To Rap In Every Campaign Ad

White guys! Rapping! About Newt Gingrich! In 1994! That is all we can say about this, because we can't understand anything else about this old campaign ad from the Dukes of Hazzard guy whose congressional seat Newt stole. There should be a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT requiring all political attack ad scripts to be rapped, from now [...]

Pennsylvania House Votes To Declare Bible Awesomest Book of 2012

Oh thank goodness, IT WAS ABOUT TIME: Pennsylvania lawmakers unanimously approved a resolution declaring 2012 the "Year of the Bible" in their state, to publicly recognize some of the important famous people in American history who have owned Bibles and talked about Bibles — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and of course possibly most [...]

Obama Says College Will Be Affordable Again One Day, Maybe

Greetings old friends! It's your Wonkabout on Special Assignment for your Wonkette to report on Obama's college affordability speech at the University of Michigan where she just happens to be doing some learning of her own these days. So what did our dear President have to say to a crowd of hopeless college students hungover [...]

Tennessee Bigot: AIDS Caused By One Monkey-Loving Airline Pilot

Arguably the worst person permitted to make laws on behalf of America, Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield, author of the "Don't Say Gay" bill, recently took part in an interview on Sirius in which he not only defended his already nightmarish views on homosexuality and AIDS, but pushed his insane agenda even farther, twisting the [...]

Palin Defends ‘Angry Little Muffin' Newt Against Right-Wing Conspiracy

Internet mean girl Sarah Palin is forgoing her usual illiterate tweeting in order to defend, on teevee, Newt Gingrich, a multimedia huckster who may or may not have illegally promised Palin a cabinet position in his fantasy moon presidency. The former governor must have really pissed someone off at Fox because she's been relegated to [...]

Oh, Look, Romney Attacked Kennedy's Blind Trust During 1994 Senate Race

Mitt Romney, who was slightly more humanoid in 1994 than he is today, also thought blind trusts, of which he has one, and which he passionately defended during Thursday night's Jacksonville debate, were terrible, devious things. How exactly did he put it? Oh yes, a blind trust is an "age-old ruse." During a debate with [...]

Arizona Cop Not Sure What Big Deal Is Over His Bullet-Riddled Obama Photo

What had we gone, a whole week or so without a news story about a public official cracking jokes online about murdering Barack Obama? That's kind of a long time! Don't "worry," however, Mexico still does not want Arizona back, so we will never go too long without one of these kinds of things while [...]

Engadget

Google tells Android devs to kick the menu button to the curb, seriously you guys

If you've seen Ice Cream Sandwich and the Galaxy Nexus in action, then it should be clear that the menu button has no future in the Android ecosystem. In order to drive that point home, Google has posted over at the Android Developer blog urging app creators to "say goodbye to the menu button." With the until now standard key getting the boot, big G wants devs to start designing interfaces that focus on the ActionBar introduced with Honeycomb. Of course, there's only so much room on the screen, and that's where the "action overflow" button comes in handy. Those vertical elipsis hide useful, but perhaps secondary options, that don't fit in the action bar. It also pops up on the far right of the navigation bar as a replacement to the menu button... basically because it behaves the same as menu, just in a different location. If nothing else at least Google is pushing Android and its apps towards a more uniform design. Check out the source for more details.Google tells Android devs to kick the menu button to the curb, seriously you guys originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? Android Developers Blog ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Plasmonic cloak makes objects invisble, but only in the microwave region of the spectrum

Okay, so we're not up to USS Pegasus levels yet, but for the first time researchers have been able to cloak a three dimensional object. Don't start planning your first trip to the Hogwarts library restricted section just yet though, the breakthrough is only in the microwave region of the EM spectrum. Using a shell of plasmonic materials, it's possible to create a "photo negative" of the object being cloaked in order to make it disappear. The technique is different to the use of metamaterials, which try to bounce light around the object. Instead, plasmonics try to deceive the light as to what's actually there at the time -- but because it has to be tailored to create a "negative image" of the object you're hiding, it's not as flexible, but it could be an important step on the road to that bank heist we've been planning.Plasmonic cloak makes objects invisble, but only in the microwave region of the spectrum originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink?BBC News ?|? NJP ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Tamron and Kenko bring third-party glass to the Micro Four Thirds bash

The fresh trend of Micro Four Thirds shooters is on the rise, thus it shouldn't come as a surprise that more glass-makers are jumping on the MFT bandwagon. Joining the likes of Panasonic, Olympus and Kodak as part of the Micro Four Thirds Group, is a trifecta of third-party lens manufacturers: Tamron, Kenko Tokina and ASTRODESIGN. Following closely behind rival Sigma, the newcomers are looking to make a dent in the four-thirds universe. Better late than never, right? There's still no sign of these optics being available for you to stack in your camera bag, but the news just came in, so it shouldn't be too long before you can get some extra glass for your shiny new GX1.Continue reading Tamron and Kenko bring third-party glass to the Micro Four Thirds bash Tamron and Kenko bring third-party glass to the Micro Four Thirds bash originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink?Wired ?|? Four Thirds ?|?Email this?|?Comments

IBM builds 9 nanometer carbon nanotube transistor, puts silicon on notice

It's not the smallest transistor out there, but the boffins at IBM have constructed the tiniest carbon nanotube transistor to date. It's nine nanometers in size, making it one nanometer smaller than the presumed physical limit of silicon transistors. Plus, it consumes less power and is able to carry more current than present-day technology. The researchers accomplished the trick by laying a nanotube on a thin layer of insulation, and using a two-step process -- involving some sort of black magic, no doubt -- to add the electrical gates inside. The catch? (There's always a catch) Manufacturing pure batches of semiconducting nanotubes is difficult, as is aligning them in such a way that the transistors can function. So, it'll be some time before the technology can compete with Intel's 3D silicon, but at least we're one step closer to carbon-based computing.IBM builds 9 nanometer carbon nanotube transistor, puts silicon on notice originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink?Technology Review ?|? Nano Letters ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Shocker! New RIM CEO targets existing BlackBerry users for upgrades

All of new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins' fresh ideas will apparently still be revealed to the company's board in a couple of weeks, but he's already dropped some gems in interviews with the Wall Street Journal and Reuters (update: and Bloomberg). First item on the agenda? Getting current users upgraded to the latest and greatest BlackBerry hardware. Citing internal statistics that indicate 80- to 90- percent of the company's customer base aren't running BlackBerry 7 hardware yet, it will work closely with US carriers to promote upgrades until the new BB10 devices hit later this year. There's no word on what the carrier deals include, but he hinted at device or preloaded app bundles. He also promised an LTE version of the PlayBook would arrive this spring, with LTE connected handsets also planned for the BlackBerry 10 lineup. Is that enough to turn around RIM's fortunes in the US, where he acknowledged the company is "a turnaround candidate"? We'll find out, but as obvious as the need to placate the already BBM-addicted may be, execution of the plan is everything.Shocker! New RIM CEO targets existing BlackBerry users for upgrades originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg ?|?Email this?|?Comments

MasterCard's QkR mobile payment system enters trial in Australia

MasterCard is all over the map when it comes to mobile payments. The credit company will partner with anyone, anywhere, anytime if it means getting new customers and making a buck on the deal. Its latest offering is called QkR, an Australian effort with support from the Hoyts chain of movie theaters and Commonwealth Bank. The initial trial run will be at La Premiere cinemas, where customers will be able to order and pay for food and beverages right from their seat with the QkR app. To initiate the transaction a you scan the QR code or tap the NFC tag attached to the arm rest, and a staff member delivers the trough of popcorn and kiddie pool of coke right to your seat. Now all we need is this sort of high-end treatment in American movie theaters. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.Continue reading MasterCard's QkR mobile payment system enters trial in Australia MasterCard's QkR mobile payment system enters trial in Australia originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Israel announces plans to build national broadband network, increases fiber intake

Israel is home to a burgeoning tech industry, but the country's broadband infrastructure hasn't really been able to keep pace. In terms of broadband penetration, in fact, Israel ranks just 21st out of 34 developed nations, according to statistics gathered by the OECD. All this may be changing, however, now that the country's state-run electric company has announced plans to create a new national broadband network. According to the AP, the forthcoming network will use so-called fiber to the home (FTTH) technology, which is capable of providing connections at speeds of between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. That would be about ten to 100 times faster than the connections most Israelis have today, and could offer obvious benefits to a wide array of businesses and industries. The electric company is aiming to have 10 percent of the country connected to its new network by next year, and to have two-thirds covered within the next seven years.Israel announces plans to build national broadband network, increases fiber intake originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? AP (The Australian) ?|?Email this?|?Comments

FCC Fridays: January 27, 2012

We here at Engadget tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol' Federal Communications Commission's site. Since we couldn't possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we've gathered up an exhaustive listing of every phone and / or tablet getting the stamp of approval over the last week. Enjoy!Continue reading FCC Fridays: January 27, 2012 FCC Fridays: January 27, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Did the Galaxy S III just pop up on Samsung's support site?

Seriously, we can't caveat this one enough -- there is no way of knowing if this is in fact the Galaxy S III or, if it is, when it might come to market -- but, it looks like Samsung's "next big smartphone" just made a cameo on the company's support pages. Listed as the GT-i9300, the mystery device reared its head over at the Global Download Center of the United Arab Emerites site. If Sammy is to keep with its naming scheme i93XX would be a flagship device -- the i90XX line was the Galaxy S, i91XX represents the S2 series, while the i9250 and i9220 are the Nexus and Note respectively. As we warned before though, this could be some mid-range device and Samsung could be changing its naming conventions. Or, perhaps, its yet another variation of an existing model. Still, we'll take this as a good sign that Seoul squad has something interesting brewing.Did the Galaxy S III just pop up on Samsung's support site? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink? ?|? PocketNow ?|?Email this?|?Comments

Sony reveals new 3G/WiFi PS Vita bundles: free data, PSN games and memory cards for everyone

Sony's PlayStation Vita hasn't exactly sold like hotcakes over in Japan, so the company has sweetened the pot for the portable's potential Stateside buyers. Those who placed pre-orders will get a couple of extra goodies for their $350. To go with the previously promised limited edition case, 4GB memory card and copy of Little Deviants, you'll also receive 250MB of data from AT&T and a PlayStation Network game gratis as soon as you activate 3G on the device. Furthermore, folks buying a Vita on launch day can look forward to the same free data and PSN game, plus an 8GB memory card in exchange for their $300. So, that enough to get you on the handheld's bandwagon? Sound off in the comments below.Sony reveals new 3G/WiFi PS Vita bundles: free data, PSN games and memory cards for everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink?Joystiq ?|? PlayStation Blog ?|?Email this?|?Comments

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Scobleizer

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEW BLOG

Hello, we know you're still subscribed to this blog (9,000 of you are on Bloglines, for instance). So, please unsubscribe from this blog and come over and visit me in my new home at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
My new RSS feed is here: http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/
I have permanently moved over there, so please do come and visit!

Come visit me on my new WordPress blog

I should have been clearer. My new blog is over on WordPress's new hosted service, which is still in beta. I've been posting frequently over there. http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
I'm still playing around, though, and learning the new system. I'm also setting up a separate blog over on TypePad to learn that blog tool. And have yet another one over on DABU too.
Oh, and of course, there's our book blog (which is also on TypePad) and the Channel 9 video blog, done on modified version of Community Server. So, I'm getting around to a variety of blog tools and services. I find I don't like a lot about all the tools. It's interesting to me that no one has really come out with a big blog breakthrough lately.
I'm getting another demo of Flock tomorrow, too.
Oh, and ou might check in on Channel 9. I just uploaded three videos, including my first Xbox 360 one, an interview with a Vice President in charge of half of our developer division (we're shipping Visual Studio "within days" I hear).

Slate

The Mystery of the Puerto Rican Voter

ORLANDO, Fla.?Starting a caravana in Orlando is no easy business. A few cars bedecked with flags bearing the name of a local candidate may gather in a shopping-center parking lot, but when they turn out onto the public streets other cars are slow to join the procession, as they do across Puerto Rico in the days before an election. There, caravans are part of a broad political pageant in which party colors?blue for the pro-statehood party, red for pro-commonwealth?seem to wash over every inch of available surface area on the island, from murals to neckties. That flair travels to the polls: Puerto Ricans vote at some of the highest rates in the Western Hemisphere. Over the last decade, candidates in Central Florida running for offices at all levels have tried to mobilize the rapidly growing Puerto Rican community by adopting the caravana tradition. But unlike in Puerto Rico, where caravans can go on for hours in a stream of joyful noise, a Floridian homage can be halting and unsettlingly quiet. Sometimes this is by design: Local campaign organizers warn their caravan drivers not to make too much of a racket while traveling through Anglo neighborhoods, for fear of triggering a backlash.

What a Drag

Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close), the diminutive protagonist of Rodrigo Garcia's film of the same name, works as a waiter in a posh hotel in late 19th-century Dublin. He speaks little and, when he does, reveals still less. Outside of a cordial master/servant relationship with Dr. Holloran (Brendan Gleeson), a hard-drinking physician in residence at the hotel, the passive, blank-faced Nobbs seems to have no friendships at all. As he prepares for bed one night in his tiny, drab bedchamber, we learn the truth about this cipher of a man: Albert is in fact a woman who's been passing as male since her hardscrabble teenage years in order to find work and avoid harassment at the hands of men.

Train in Vain

Mass transit has, according to its fans, a staggering array of benefits. It reduces pollution, improves quality of life, and anchors vibrant walkable communities. It boosts public health and makes people happier. But relatively few transit-boosters understand that existing federal guidelines for assessing which new projects to fund not only exclude those considerations, they make it extremely difficult for newly built transit to meet those objectives. A new proposed rule from the Department of Transportation, now entering its 60-day comment period to let people raise objections, should change all that for the better.

Anti-Muslim Training, Sex Predators, and the Labor Behind iPads

Here are this week's top must-read stories from #MuckReads, ProPublica's ongoing collection of the best watchdog journalism. Anyone can contribute by tweeting a link to a story and just including the hashtag #MuckReads or by sending an email to MuckReads@ProPublica.org. The best submissions are selected by ProPublica's editors and reporters and then featured on our site and @ProPublica.

Matt Yglesias Is Wrong About Copyright

I'd like to eat Matt Yglesias' lunch. He's been writing about copyright a fair amount lately, and I've written a little on the subject myself, and I'm beginning to suspect he wouldn't mind.

The Biggest Political Donations of All Time

Anyone who counts out Newt Gingrich after his lackluster performance in Thursday night's Republican debate is overlooking an important fact: He has the support of perhaps the most lavish individual donor in the history of presidential politics.

Let Me Finish

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.?These are boom times for hecklers. Republican members of Congress have scaled back public town hall meetings, chastened by the screams that embarrassed the old Democratic Congress. Powerful Democrats, meanwhile, get ?mic-checked? by Occupy protesters. And three of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates?Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich?are constantly on alert for hecklers. (Nobody seems to heckle Ron Paul; perhaps it's unconstitutional.)

The Shortz Factor

Etta James died last week. To most people that meant the loss of a blues legend, but for crossword puzzle writers like myself, it meant something quite different. Etta James was famous in real life, but she's also ?crossword-famous??a woman whose handy, four-letter first name has gotten us out of many tough corners and spared us countless painful rewrites.

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To the Moon, Newt!

Newt Gingrich described himself as a visionary when he unveiled plans Wednesday to create a mammoth new space program, including a permanent colony on the moon within the next nine years. Within eight years, he pledges a new Mars rocket program?specifically, a ?continually operating propulsion system) capable of getting to Mars within a remarkably short time.? He also reiterated his plan to declare at least part of the moon as U.S. territory, with colonists capable of petitioning for statehood status.

SquidooCool Blog

The (Even Better) Best Ever Squidoo Advice

On SquidooCool.com I've asked the visitors a few times what they think the best Squidoo advice is, and they always say "make lots of lenses". Why is this? Because there's no better way to learn than through experience. Simple: Build lots of lenses, and see how the experts do it. If you observe the successful [...]

Unbelievable Lens Categories Now Available!

Squidoo has now gone live with their new lens categories… and blimey… there are hundreds of them! You can choose from topics as broad as "Entertainment and Media" and as specific as "History of Atheism and Skepticism". They've done a brilliant job. The hard part for us (if you have a lot of lenses) is [...]

6 Best Places To Bookmark Your Lenses

If I've missed out your favourite bookmarking site, post it below in the comments!  You may even win a cookie. If you want to start getting more visitors to your lenses, this list is a great place to start! Remember. Every time you submit your lens to a bookmarking site make sure you add the [...]

Using Squidoo for Marketing Purposes, or , Some Basic Squidoo Advice

To Internet Marketers, Squidoo is a way to get high rankings in Google. Squidoo has a high page rank, and many backlinks pointing to it, and building pages is a super easy process. If you want to venture into a new niche as an experiment, Squidoo is the way to go. See how easy it [...]

RANT: Squidoo Banned Topics: Is Squidoo Going Too Far?

Be Aware: Before you start a lens on whatever topic you think of, be aware of the Squidoo rules. Squidoo Banned Topics: * MLM * "Get your ex back" * Rude XXX * Ringtones * Dieting and weight loss * Gambling * Pharmaceuticals and drugs * "Medical cures" * Downloading movies, music, and TV shows [...]

Edit Your Lens Sidebars Now!

Squidoo has just gone live with an incredible new feature. They've just announced "sidebar widgets", which means you get even more control over the sidebar of your lenses. We pretty much have modules for our lens sidebars! There are 4 types of widgets: * RSS Widget * Amazon Spotlight * Featured Lenses * Recent Squidcasts [...]

RIP Squidoo Groups

The day we all knew would come has arrived. Squidoo groups are dead and buried, never to be seen again. Weep weep, kinda. WHEN: Just a few days ago, Squidoo converted all groups into regular lenses. You can no longer add your lens to a group, and your existing lenses are no longer members of [...]

The $2000 Lens Challenge

Joe from CaptainSquid is back from many adventures, with a new challenge for himself and anyone who wants to follow along. Joe will attempt to get a brand new lensmaster account from $0 to $2000-per-month, using only the tools available to all lensmasters. So anyone will be able to emulate his success. If you are [...]

#1 Most Important Thing… About Guestbooks

If you've put Guestbook modules on your lenses, and you have 10+ published, you'll be very familiar with the kind of comments I'm talking about here. If a guestbook comment doesn't say anything interesting, and add to the conversation, DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT DELETING IT. Don't think just because someone left you a comment you [...]

Pinging Your Lenses

WHAT IS A PING? Any time you update certain webpages or publish a new blog post or lens, you can send a Ping for it. A Ping is a little signal your new updated page sends to various search engines and directories. A ping is the online equivalent of your new lens running up to [...]