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Stirring up a fight, Obama names consumer watchdog

Originally published: January 4, 2012 3:22 AM
Updated: January 5, 2012 1:12 AM

By The Associated Press
BEN FELLER (Associated Press), JIM KUHNHENN (Associated Press)

Quick ReadObama says he wont take no for an answer; names consumer watchdog by recess appointment

(AP) — Defying Republican lawmakers, President Barack Obama on Wednesday barreled by the Senate and installed a national consumer watchdog on his own, provoking GOP threats of a constitutional showdown in the courts. Setting a fierce tone in the election-year fight for middle-class voters, Obama said: I refuse to take no for an answer.

Obama named Richard Cordray, a respected former attorney…

Updated at 6 pm ET

Hours after a dispiriting finish in the Iowa caucuses, Texas Gov. Rick Perry went jogging today and came to a conclusion.

Hes going to continue running for the GOP presidential nomination, and wage a fight in South Carolina during the nations first Southern primary.

Dad had a run today and cleared his head. He and mom talked, and were in and onto South Carolina, Perrys son, Griffin, told The Dallas Morning News.

Perry told the Dallas paper that he was out on the trail when it kind of came to me.

So that helps explain a Twitpic of Perry in jogging gear giving a thumbs up sign. The governor sent out the image and this message from his personal Twitter account this morning:

And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State…Here we come South Carolina!!!

Catherine Frazier, a campaign spokeswoman, told the Associated Press that Perry plans to stay in Texas for a few days before participating in this weekends two New Hampshire debates and heading to South Carolina.

It was a different story on Tuesday night, when Perry told his supporters in a suburban Des Moines hotel that he was going home to Texas to reassess his campaign.

With the voters decision tonight in Iowa, I decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonights caucus … and determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race, Perry said Tuesday night.

Perry, who entered the GOP presidential race with great fanfare in August, finished a disappointing fifth in the Iowa caucuses, well behind Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

Despite soaring to the top of the public opinion polls in the summer, Perry plummeted in part because of poor debate performances and attacks from his GOP rivals on immigration and other issues.

Armed with millions of dollars in campaign cash, Perry introduced himself to Iowa voters with ads touting himself as a Washington outsider and a true conservative. He also emphasized his Christian faith. In recent days, he barnstormed the state on a bus tour, in the kind of retail politicking he enjoys.

Like Iowa, South Carolina has a bloc of social and religious conservative voters who are key to winning the primary. South Carolina votes on Jan. 21.

The Associated Press reported that Perrys national political director told campaign workers early Wednesday that the governor will review his finances and assess the political landscape in South Carolina and beyond.

5 days ago 

JERUSALEM — Israelis and Palestinians were downbeat about peace prospects on Wednesday, a day after the two sides held their first face-to-face talks since September 2010 at a meeting in Amman.

“It’s difficult to be optimistic because (Palestinian president Mahmud) Abbas continues to insist that Israel must commit to the 1967 lines and a settlement freeze, failing which he threatens tough measures,” Israeli lawmaker Benny Begin told public radio.

“Abu Mazen must say clearly that he is ready for concessions and arrangements,” said Begin, using Abbas’s nom-de-guerre.

“It is very difficult to be optimistic when you know that he insists he will not recognise Israel as a Jewish state,” added Begin, a minister without portfolio.

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghuti said in a letter from his prison cell that “the peace process has failed; it’s finished. It’s not worth desperately trying to resuscitate a corpse.”

“Consider 2012 as the year of massive peaceful popular resistance against colonialism, aggression, the Judaisation of Jerusalem, the blockade and roadblocks,” Barghuti, who is serving several life terms for anti-Israeli attacks, was quoted by the Palestinian press as saying.

Mahmud al-Aloul, a leader of Abbas’s Fatah movement, delivered the same message at a rally in Ramallah.

“The Israelis have dashed our hopes and those of the Jordanians by coming with empty hands, without new ideas and unready for a solution,” he said.

Tuesday’s talks were the first direct discussions between the two sides for more than 15 months, and were hailed as “positive,” though no breakthrough emerged.

They come as the Middle East peace Quartet — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — try to kick start negotiations that ground to a halt shortly after they began in September 2010 over the issue of settlement construction.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement on Wednesday that more meetings were expected to follow Tuesday’s talks during January.

But he reiterated the Palestinian position that negotiations could not resume without a freeze on settlement construction and a framework for talks based on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.

He urged the Israeli government “to announce a settlement freeze, including in east Jerusalem, and accept the principle of a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, to give Jordan’s efforts to resume negotiations the chance they deserve.”

Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli minister and one of the initiators of the Oslo peace accords, told Israeli public radio that he was pessimistic.

“The discussions being embarked upon are in vain and doomed to failure,” he said.

“The two parties may indeed continue to meet, but they don’t have the slightest chance of reaching even a minimum agreement,” he added.

“The Quartet must change direction and propose an interim agreement on the borders.”

None of Israel’s Hebrew-language papers even reported the talks on their front pages.

“The Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and the Quartet all expressed such low expectations that they were able to conclude that it was a ‘good and useful meeting’,” the left-leaning Haaretz said in a sardonic editorial

The militant Palestinian Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, slammed Abbas’s negotiators for not submitting their policies to movements outside Fatah.

“They represent only their authors and in no way the Palestinian people,” it said.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.
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Sullivan Street Press, acknowledged advocate of e-publishing, has signed on with McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan to publish Scags at 18 in a POD format available on December 14, 2011. This exciting move is occasioned by the recent acquisition of the Espresso Book Machine by McNally Jackson Books, the only one available in the New York City metropolitan area.

(PRWEB) January 04, 2012

The launch of Scags at 18 first as an e-book and then as a POD marks a clear departure from e-books only publishing by Sullivan Street Press. The publisher came to this decision based on

the acquisition of the Espresso Book Machine by McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan.

This allows Sullivan Street Press to offer its titles in a new format for those readers who prefer bound copies of books to e-books. McNally Jackson makes it easy to order the POD version of Scags at 18, in fact, it is as simple as ordering the e-book from the SSP website.

The technology behind the Espresso Book Machine is as green as that for e-books. Copies are printed only when ordered. No money or fuel or land resources are wasted to have bound books available. Thus SSP now thinks of itself as a Green E-Publisher.

Soon, On Demand Books, the parent company of the Espresso Book Machine will have in place an interface for small publishers to upload their files onto the entire global system. This will make the POD version of Scags at 18 available anywhere an Espresso Book Machine is located.

With that new global reach, all titles published by Sullivan Street Press can be accessed in two ways and in two different formats. What makes this added channel of distribution possible for Sullivan Street Press to promote is the green way this particular POD format has evolved.

While Sullivan Street Press continues to add new titles to its list, new authors tell us that this has made them more willing to sign with us. Our website will continue to be the only site where a customer can download any e-book format they want. For now, the POD version of Scags at 18 can be ordered only on this web page: www.mcnallyjackson.com/bookmachine/scags-18. (Or the bookstore can be reached by phone during business hours: 212-274-1160 or even greener, walk in. They are located at 52 Prince Street, NY, NY.)

Sullivan Street Press is no longer an e-book only publisher. But SSP is still determined to make publishing as green an activity as possible. We also disseminate through our social networking sites the most timely and futuristic writings by as wide array of sources as we can find. By posting a daily dose of all kinds of news that book lovers can use, SSP is also in the business of educating readers about how the publishing paradigm is changing. A free service, this amalgam of political, business, literary and economic trend watching and reporting may be a bit idiosyncratic and progressive in outlook but it is a unique part of our mission as a publisher.

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/1/prweb9034405.htm

SANTA CLARA, CA, Jan 04, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) –
NVIDIA today announced that it will hold a press conference at the
2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Monday, Jan. 9,
2012, which will be webcast live.

The event will begin at 4 pm Pacific Time (7 pm Eastern Time), at the
Venetian hotel, in Las Vegas. Interested parties can watch a live
webcast, available on the NVIDIA(R) website, at

www.nvidia.com/ces2012 . A replay will be available for seven days.

At CES, NVIDIA will showcase its Tegra(R) mobile processor,
GeForce(R) GPU and NVIDIA 3D Vision(TM) product families. It will
also preview in-vehicle auto navigation and infotainment systems.

Visit us at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth # 31431 in South
Hall 3 and Booth # CP24 in Central Plaza.

To follow all our news at CES, visit our CES Social Media Newsroom on
Facebook. It will include feeds throughout the week with real-time
updates from the NVIDIA Blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile and
YouTube channel.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA

/quotes/zigman/80597/quotes/nls/nvda NVDA
0.00%

awakened the world to computer
graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Today, its processors
power a broad range of products from smart phones to supercomputers.
NVIDIA’s mobile processors are used in cell phones, tablets and auto
infotainment systems. PC gamers rely on GPUs to enjoy spectacularly
immersive worlds. Professionals use them to create visual effects in
movies and design everything from golf clubs to jumbo jets. And
researchers utilize GPUs to advance the frontiers of science with
high-performance computing. The company holds more than 2,200 patents
worldwide, including ones covering ideas essential to modern
computing. For more information, see
www.nvidia.com .

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited
to statements as to: NVIDIA’s participation at CES 2012; and the
effects of the company’s patents on modern computing are
forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and
uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different
than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results
to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our
reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test
our products; the impact of technological development and
competition; development of new products and technologies or
enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market
acceptance of our products or our partners products; design,
manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or
demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected
loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated
into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in
the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission,
or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended November
22, 2011. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the
company’s website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These
forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance
and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law,
NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking
statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

Copyright 2012 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the
NVIDIA logo, GeForce, NVIDIA 3D Vision and Tegra are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and
other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated. Features,
pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change
without notice.

For further information, contact:

Media inquiries:
Robert Sherbin
NVIDIA
(408) 566-5150
rsherbin@nvidia.com

Investor inquiries:
Chris Evenden
NVIDIA
(408) 566-6616
cevenden@nvidia.com

SOURCE: NVIDIA

mailto:rsherbin@nvidia.com
mailto:cevenden@nvidia.com

Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved.

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Add NVDA to portfolio

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Jan. 9, 2012 4:00p

Posted at 07:12 PM ET, 01/04/2012
Winter TV Press Tour 2012: PBS president responds to Mitt Romney’s proposed plan for ads in ‘Sesame Street’
By Lisa de Moraes

PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger
(Frederick M. Brown – GETTY IMAGES)
If GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney thinks you can sell ads on “Masterpiece Theatre” or “Sesame Street” and not wind up with “Masterpiece Pawn Stars,” he’s got a lot to learn about the TV industry. So said PBS CEO Paula Kerger on Wednesday, in the nicest way possible, at Winter TV Press Tour 2012.

It was a feisty start to the semiannual clambake, in which The Reporters Who Cover Television from across the country flock to Los Angeles and roost at a posh hotel for a couple of weeks, while TV networks take turns trotting out suits and shows for them to quiz.

Kerger’s comment came after one reporter asked what she thought of Romney’s plan for Big Bird.

A campaigning Romney last month told a crowd at a deli in Clinton, Iowa, that though he’s a fan of public broadcasting and has nothing against Big Bird, he — as president — would cut off federal funding of public broadcasting and tell PBS to sell ads to make up the difference.

“I like PBS. We subsidize PBS. I’m going to stop that. . . . PBS is going to have advertisements,” Romney said then, adding: “We’re not going to kill Big Bird, but Big Bird’s going to have advertisements, all right?”

“Well, I’m glad that he said he liked public broadcasting,” Kerger began sunnily, adding that she’s keenly aware that this country has to make tough decisions about what it can and cannot afford to continue funding.

But not so long ago, she reminded reporters, they were writing about such cable networks as A&E (which once actually stood for Arts & Entertainment) and History channel having rendered PBS irrelevant by their becoming, in fact, commercial versions of public television. Back in those days, A&E was bidding against PBS for crunchy-gravel dramas like “Vanity Fair,” and History channel was doing, well, history.

“There are a number of channels in the cable world that started out with really great ideas that they would be the commercial version of public television,” Kerger said.

“Many people on Capitol Hill would occasionally say: ‘Well, you know, there are cable operations, like History. Maybe we could learn from them, in terms of bringing in revenue.’

“But [History] found that the way to survive was to create a very different type of programming,” Kerger said. “And programming like ‘Pawn Stars’ and ‘American Pickers’ is not the same as ‘American Experience’ and Ken Burns.”

Kapow!

Antiques Roadshow on PBS
(Credit: Jeffrey Dunn for WGBH – CREDIT: JEFFREY DUNN FOR WGBH)
Yet PBS kicked off Winter TV Press Tour 2012 by announcing that it had ordered a new reality-TV competition series — a sort of spinoff of “Antiques Roadshow” from that show’s producers.

PBS’s first cross-country competition series, “Market Wars” will pit professional antique dealers against the clock — and each other — as they scour the country’s flea markets and bric-a-brac shops, looking for antiques that will score the biggest profit in each episode’s final auction segment.

“I’m wondering if you can explain your thinking behind ‘Market Wars.’ What reasoning went into that?” one reporter asked Kerger as if he meant it to sting.

“As we’ve seen with some of the world’s public broadcasters, like BBC and especially CBC in Canada, these reality shows can take on a life of their own and seize an entire network’s schedule,” the reporter sniffed. “And I’m just wondering: A., what your reasoning was in doing a show; and, B., where you’re drawing the line going ahead.

“I think it’s clear,” Kerger shot back with vim, “that reality shows have not taken over public television, but we think that there’s a place for smart reality programming.”

Here’s what she meant by “smart reality programming”:

“ ‘Antiques Roadshow’ continues to be such an important destination for so many of our viewers that we thought to expand upon that work a little bit on Monday nights and to give another opportunity for people to look a little behind the scenes at the antiques business — and to really learn from people that are doing great work around the country would be an extension of that.”

If you take that sentence and replace “Antiques Roadshow” with “Pawn Stars,” you’ve got History channel’s announcement of its “Cajun Pawn Stars” spinoff that debuts Sunday.

And replace “Antiques Roadshow” with “American Pickers” and you’ve virtually reenacted History’s announcement of its plans for an “American Pickers” spinoff.

Meanwhile, Kerger’s not worried PBS late night talk show host Charlie Rose will be seduced by the glitz and glam of CBS News and leave public broadcasting in the dust. Rose is co-hosting CBS News’s latest stab at a morning infotainment show “CBS This Morning” with Oprah Winfrey BFF Gayle King.

Rose, Kerger explained, has assured her he thinks of his work in the morning as an “opportunity to expand his own presence on television and call some more attention to the work that he’s doing on public television.”

Well, she bought it, anyway.

“I have no concern that he’s going anywhere,” she told reporters.

By Lisa de Moraes
 | 
07:12 PM ET, 01/04/2012

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HANOI Jan 5 (Reuters) – These are some of the leading
stories in the official Vietnamese press on Thursday. Reuters
has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their
accuracy.

FINANCIAL NEWS:

THOI BAO KINH TE VIETNAM

– The market capitalisation of the Hanoi Stock Exchange as
of Dec. 30 had fallen 36.5 percent from a year earlier to 83.72
trillion dong ($3.98 billion), the exchange said.

– Vietnams loans for real estate in 2011 totalled 203.6
trillion dong ($9.7 billion), which was 31 trillion dong lower
than in 2010. Among the real estate loans, long-term loans
accounted for 80 percent, the Construction Ministry said.

– Sacombank said it had bought back 100 million
shares, or 9.31 percent of its registered capital.

– The authorities granted trading accounts to 33 foreign
investors in December, raising the total number at the end of
2011 to 15,569, the Vietnam Securities Depository center said.

ECONOMIC AND GENERAL NEWS:

NHAN DAN

– The Phu My Urea Plant is scheduled to produce 800,000
tonnes of the fertiliser this year, while the Ca Mau plant would
turn out 560,000 tonnes, jointly meeting nearly 70 percent of
domestic urea demand this year.

TUOI TRE

– About 2,500 chickens found to be infected with bird flu
were killed in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, the
provincial animal health department said.

THANH NIEN

– The government has requested that the Ministry of Science
and Technology inspect the quality of petrol and oil products
following recent cases of motorcycles and cars exploding
nationwide.

LAO DONG

– Market watchdogs in the south-central province of Khanh
Hoa said they had fined two Chinese dealers 15 million dong
($713.3) each for illegal seafood stockpiling, and confiscated
40 tonnes of fish.

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom)

In need of some distraction as you settle back into the post-holiday malaise at work? USA TODAYs TV team can help you out there.

TV critic Robert Bianco and reporter/ratings guru Gary Levin are out in Los Angeles for the annual Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, where the networks will parade their executives, writers and stars in front of the media all week. Theyll be talking about what you can expect from your favorite shows (and perhaps your future favorites) from now until May. And well be bringing it all to you.

11 hours ago

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Michael Biesecker, an award-winning reporter and investigative journalist for The News & Observer of Raleigh, has been hired by The Associated Press to cover federal courts, investigations and politics in North Carolina.

Biesecker is a North Carolina native and has spent his 15-year-career in his home state. He worked at the Winston-Salem Journal in a variety of positions including as a columnist and reporter before going to work for The News & Observer in 2003. He has covered the state capital for the newspaper since 2009.

His work probing the failings of North Carolina’s mental health care system in 2008 uncovered more than 80 questionable deaths in state mental hospitals. The newspaper’s series “Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform” led to new policies on how state facilities report deaths and monitor care. He has won numerous awards from the North Carolina Press Association, including for general news and for investigative reporting. In 2008, he was part of a team that won an Associated Press Managing Editors Association First Amendment Award for reporting on access to email written by public officials.

The appointment was announced Monday by South Editor Lisa Marie Pane, Chief of Bureau Michelle Williams and Carolinas News Editor Evan Berland.

“Biesecker has some serious reporting chops and we’re looking forward to his using those to cover the vitally important federal courts beat and being involved in some important investigative projects,” Pane said.

“Michael brings the right mix of investigative reporting skills and deep North Carolina knowledge to our staff,” Williams said. “He will be a great addition to our already aggressive news reporting team.”

Biesecker, 38, is a graduate of North Carolina State University and has a master’s degree from Wake Forest University.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ben and Amber Sessions were forced to foreclose on their Idaho house after they discovered it was infested with garters snakes. (Jessie L. Bonner/Associated Press)An Idaho couple was forced to foreclose on their newly purchased home after they discovered that it was infested with hundreds of garter snakes.

Ben and Amber Sessions bought the house in Rexburg in 2009. They signed a document that noted the snake infestation, but claim their real estate agent had told them it was just a fiction made up by the previous owners, The Associated Press reports.

But fiction quickly turned to a real-life horror story for the young couple. At times the ground surrounding the home was so thick with snakes it appeared to move, AP reports. At night, the couple would lie awake to the sound of snakes slithering inside the walls.

Turns out all the neighbours knew about the snake house, as they called it.

The Sessionses were unable to get out of their mortgage and filed for bankruptcy. Ben Sessions has since been diagnosed with snake-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

The house is currently off the market.

Do you have a homebuyer horror story? Was it an infestation, or a leaky roof? Would you have abandoned the snake house the way the Sessions did? Let us know in the comments field below.

What would be your worst home infestation nightmare?customer surveys

(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers responses.)