Never Be Sick again

WHETHER YOU HAVE CANCER OR THE COMMON COLD, bEYOND HEALTH'S MODEL OF HEALTH CAN HELP YOU GET WELL, STAY WELL AND NEVER BE SICK AGAIN.


Click the Title and listen to what Raymond Francis has to say about health.


If you care about health, you have come to the right place. The knowledge required to end our epidemic of chronic disease already exists. To prevent and reverse disease and change your life for the better, all you have to do is put this knowledge to use. Beyond Health helps you do this by providing a highly-advanced model of health that is simple and yet so powerful it has enabled people around the world to produce results that conventional medicine is unable to achieve. How does this happen? Conventional medicine does an excellent job of describing diseases and suppressing symptoms, but very rarely are diseases cured. The Beyond Health Model identifies and addresses the root causes of disease. When you focus on addressing the causes, problems can be solved.

In addition to supplying cutting-edge health information, we take the bewildering guesswork out of buying health products by painstakingly researching and making available to you only those that are the most effective and of the very highest quality. We even assemble supplements into kits to help you choose what you need.

Raymond Francis, founder of Beyond Health, has been called "one the few scientists to achieve a breakthrough understanding of health and disease." A graduate of M.I.T. and an expert in vitamin chemistry, Raymond was forced to save his own life over two decades ago. Since then, to help teach others how to get well and stay well, he has created the Beyond Health Model—there is only ONE DISEASE and only TWO CAUSES of disease.

To learn how the Beyond Health Model can enhance your life, read Raymond's books Never Be Sick Again and Never Be Fat Again as well as our FREE REPORTS: The Roadmap to Ultimate Health and The Roadmap to Choosing Supplements.

malaguena

Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To My Lovely 1998

Enjoy Again and Again

Flash memory drives, the size of your thumb

Flash memory drives, the size of your thumb, are dirt-cheap and offer gigabytes of storage. It's tempting to fill one of them with important computer files, clip it to a key chain and hit the road.
But what if you lose it while fumbling for change at Starbucks and the hacker in the corner finds it? This is not a good thing.
That's where a new breed of flash drives comes in — chock-full of military-strength encryption and passwords and keypad combinations that must be entered before the data can be accessed.
I put a few secure flash-drive solutions to the test: Take Anywhere's Pocket Safe ($59.95), the IronKey ($149) and TrueCrypt, a free software program that works with any USB flash drive.
Each had its strengths and limitations, but I liked the IronKey unit best, with its built-in Firefox browser, large storage space and powerful password protections.

YOGGIE GATEKEEPER PICO
Before moving on to the flash drives, here's something for people who want plug-in computer security: the $149 Yoggie Gatekeeper Pico. This unit looks like a flash drive but instead serves as a physical barrier of security for the laptop or desktop it's plugged into. Instead of relying on installed firewall security on your personal computer, the Yoggie asks that you uninstall your security software and let the flash drive itself do the protecting.
Once the Yoggie management software was installed and launched on my PC, I couldn't conduct any online activity unless the Yoggie was plugged into the USB port. The makers of Yoggie say it's better to block Internet virus and malware threats before they reach your physical PC, rather than depend on installed software to root them out after they've arrived.
It generally worked, although the Yoggie software was sluggish, and the unit wasn't always recognized by my PC. Sometimes the little blue lights on the Yoggie device blinked happily and let me proceed online; sometimes they didn't. Even when it was working, the Yoggie took too long to be recognized by its own software companion.
IRONKEY
Setting up my 4-gigabyte, brushed-metal IronKey drive was pretty painless. After putting it in a USB slot on my home PC, I was asked to create a user name and password before I could access any of the storage space or other features. (Among those extra features: You can create an encrypted backup of the IronKey's contents on a PC desktop.)
Then, every time you plug the IronKey into a computer, a control panel appears on the screen to ask for the password again. If there's no password, there's no reading or tinkering with the drive's contents. In fact, you have to be careful, because if you enter the wrong password 10 times in a row, the unit permanently deletes all of your data and is no longer usable. You can't even reformat it. That's tough love.
My favorite IronKey feature was the built-in Firefox browser. It let me take my favorite Web bookmarks and login information with me, along with my Web-surfing cookies and site history. This means I left no trace of my Web browsing on the computers I plugged the IronKey into.
The IronKey works best with Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X, according to the company.
POCKET SAFE
Next up was the Pocket Safe (for Windows only), from Take Anywhere. The 1-gigabyte device sports a numerical keypad on its case. If you don't remember the password you create, you won't be able to launch the drive's software control panel.
I picked a four-digit password, but there are two numbers for each of the five entry buttons on the keypad. So if my access code were 1-2-3-4, someone could guess it by keying in 0-3-2-5 or 1-2-2-4 or other shared-button combinations. This was disappointing.
Once I keyed in my correct password, a green light began to blink, telling me it was safe to insert the Pocket Safe drive into my USB port.
The Pocket Safe's on-screen control panel features a column of icons down the left side, for categories of data such as financial accounts, Web site logins and vehicle records. This is handy for staying organized.
By default, Pocket Safe times out after 20 minutes of zero interactivity with the control panel, which became annoying. I had to go into the settings and beef it up to an hour.
TRUE CRYPT
TrueCrypt (for Windows 2000 and XP, and Linux) is a piece of open-source software that promises to turn almost any USB flash drive into one that Jason Bourne would be proud of. TrueCrypt creates and then hides a password-protected partition on the drive.
I installed the TrueCrypt application on my laptop and plugged in an old 512-megabyte flash drive, a giveaway from a tech convention. TrueCrypt let me choose between creating a file container on a portion of my flash drive (recommended for newbies) or encrypting the entire drive. Both methods worked flawlessly.
As a test, I plugged my TrueCrypt-encrypted flash drive into a PC that did not have the TrueCrypt application installed.
I found the flash drive listed under "My Computer," but the PC recognized zero bytes of used space and zero bytes of free space. Only installing TrueCrypt and knowing my password would uncloak my data. The method seems secure.

Tucson-area service station started charging less than $3 a gallon for fuel this week.

After months of skyrocketing gas prices, at least one Tucson-area service station started charging less than $3 a gallon for fuel this week.
Statewide, fuel averages fell to a six-month low Friday of $3.29 per gallon for regular fuel, according to the automobile club AAA. A gallon of regular gasoline in Tucson averaged $3.21, the lowest price in the state.
Increasing inventories of both crude oil and gasoline coupled with a reduction in demand for fuel led, in part, to the drop in prices, said Michelle Donati, a spokeswoman for AAA-Arizona. The weakening economy also contributed, she said.
The price of crude has fallen sharply since it reached a record high of $147 a barrel in July. In the three months since then, a barrel of oil has lost 47 percent of its price and on Friday it closed at $77.70.
While the price of oil has been falling since July, the cost to the consumer dropped more slowly because the oil market remained volatile, with occasional increases in the price of crude, Donati said.
Also, gas stations have been paying higher wholesale prices during the spike and had to gain back some of the money they lost, she said.
"Before they can lower their fuel prices they have to recoup their losses," she said.
Pete Jacoby, the owner of Tucson Mountain Motors, said he's been charging $2.94 per gallon since Tuesday and he expected to lower his price another 10 cents per gallon today.
Jacoby said his service center, at 3045 S. Kinney Road southwest of Tucson, has a standard markup, so when his costs go down, he passes the savings on to the customer.
"Sometimes I'm a few cents more than the Circle K down the road," he said. "And sometimes we're a few cents less."
His customers have noticed. "Everybody's thrilled," he said.
The falling gas price also reduces the pressure that credit- card processing fees put on gas station owners, Jacoby said. As the price of gas climbed, so did the interchange fee the station pays to a credit-card processing company.
As gas approached $4 a gallon, that pushed the fees toward 10 cents a gallon, and stations that typically marked up gasoline by 11 or 12 cents a gallon saw profits shrink.
Some gas station owners went far enough to charge different prices for cash and credit card transactions, Donati said.
On the East Side, Union Gas, at 7980 E. Speedway near North Pantano Road, held a promotional event Thursday and charged less than $3 per gallon. That forced a nearby FasFuel, at 8530 E. Speedway, also to drop prices below $3 for a few hours, said owner Muhammad Rana. His regular prices were at $3.08 Friday, he said.
The credit crisis sparked by the subprime mortgage fiasco has driven down energy demand.

Linda Ronstadt..."LA CHARREADA"...Tucson..Joe Acosta

Our best shot in Ohio-Michelle Obama

First Name --
We're right in the middle of a very narrow voting window that could make the difference in this election. And we have to act fast.

Ohio voters have until this Monday, October 6th, to register and vote early... all in one step. This is an extraordinary opportunity to get the votes we need to win Ohio.

And since Ohio is a key battleground state -- and played a pivotal role in the last presidential contest -- winning in Ohio could help us secure a national victory.

So what can you do to help Barack win in Ohio? You can help us Get Out The Vote -- and tip the balance in this election -- right from your own living room.

Get a list of potential Ohio supporters and their phone numbers right now. Give them a call and make sure they vote early for Barack.

Republican officials in Ohio didn't want voters to have this opportunity. In fact, they challenged One-Stop Early Vote in court. They tried to prevent new people from entering the political process. But we fought back, and we won.

This is your chance to make a huge difference in a crucial battleground state. Polls in Ohio are extremely close. You can help push us to victory.

The calls you make today could change the direction of our country for generations. We have to seize this opportunity -- for our children, our country, and our future.

Get your list of potential supporters in Ohio and call them before this narrow three-day window closes:

http://my.barackobama.com/n2nOhio

There are just 30 days left until Election Day.

To win this election, we've got to make sure as many people as possible come out and vote -- and make their voices heard.

It's up to you to make it happen. First in Ohio, then in your state.

Thank you so much for your support of this campaign. We could never have come this far without you. Now, let's work together all the way through Election Day to bring the change our country needs.

Michelle

Placido Domingo's concert at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza

MERIDA, Mexico —
Placido Domingo's concert at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza tonight is being billed as "the world's greatest tenor at one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World," a claim few lovers of opera or history would dispute.
But some Mexicans question whether the show should go on at all.
Archaeologists are pressing for criminal charges against the organizers, reviving a debate over how to use treasured ancient sites.
It's a balancing act that many countries face as they try to promote and protect their cultural heritage. As artists seek to perform in stunning places — from the Great Wall of China to India's Taj Majal and ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian structures — many worry not only about damage but also about cultural propriety.
Domingo sought to reassure his critics Thursday, saying, "I know there has been some discomfort in Mexico because I was going to perform at this site, but we have taken care of every detail to carry out this event."
Mexico's federal government turns down almost all requests to hold concerts at ancient temples, but it is increasingly pressured by state governors to promote ruins that already are swamped with tourists.
Domingo's concert inside Chichen Itza violates a law that requires the ruins to be preserved to educate Mexicans about ancient cultures, said Cuauhtemoc Velasco, a leader of the archaeologists' union.

"These monuments are not there so that rich people can hold events at them," said Velasco, noting that the tickets cost between $45 and $900 in U.S. money, and Mexico has a minimum wage the equivalent of about $4.50 per day.
For present-day Mayas such as Amadeo Cool May, who hosts a Mayan-language radio program, the concert "is an event for foreigners who come here on vacation. It is something completely alien to the Mayas, because of the ticket prices and the type of music."

Jorge Esma, who is organizing the concert for the Yucatan state government, counters that people without tickets can watch it for free on local television, and that the Mayan temples will be well-protected. The government has required light stage structures, has forbidden anything to be anchored into ancient stones, and will have experts on hand to evaluate the impact on the 1,200-year-old temples.

But a researcher at the government archaeology institute filed a criminal complaint with federal prosecutors, seeking to punish the organizers for "degrading" Chichen Itza by using it as a "simple backdrop."
The concert is expected to draw 4,000 people, the number set by the government as a maximum. The site, voted one of seven modern wonders in a global 2007 poll, is visited by as many as 12,000 people a day, leading to concerns of overcrowding, and wear and tear.

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Brain Myth 9: Listening to Mozart Makes You Smarter

Brain Myth 9: Listening to Mozart Makes You Smarter
Don't you just feel cultured when you tune in to a classical music station and take in an opera or a symphony by a great composer like Mozart? Baby Einstein, a company that makes DVDs, videos and other products for babies and toddlers incorporating classical art, music, and poetry, is a million-dollar franchise. Parents buy the products because they believe that exposure to great art (like Baby Mozart DVDs and CDs) can be good for their children's cognitive development. There are even classical music CDs designed to be played to developing fetuses. The idea that listening to classical music can increase your brainpower has become so popular that it's been dubbed "the Mozart effect." So how did this myth start?

In the 1950s, an ear, nose and throat doctor named Albert Tomatis began the trend, claiming success using Mozart's music to help people with speech and auditory disorders. In the 1990s, 36 students in a study at the University of California at Irvine listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata before taking an IQ test. According to Dr. Gordon Shaw, the psychologist in charge of the study, the students' IQ scores went up by about 8 points. The "Mozart effect" was born.

A musician named Dan Campbell trademarked the phrase and created a line of books and CDs based on the concept, and states such as Georgia, Florida and Tennessee set aside money for classical music for babies and other young children. Campbell and others have gone on to assert that listening to Mozart can even improve your health.

However, the original University of California at Irvine study has been controversial in the scientific community. Dr. Frances Rauscher, a researcher involved in the study, stated that they never claimed it actually made anyone smarter; it just increased performance on certain spatial-temporal tasks. Other scientists have been unable to replicate the original results, and there is currently no scientific information to prove that listening to Mozart, or any other classical music, actually makes anyone smarter. Rauscher even said that the money spent by those states might be better spent on musical programs -- there's some evidence to show that learning an instrument improves concentration, self-confidence and coordination.

Mozart certainly can't hurt you, and you might even enjoy it if you give it a try, but you won't get any Smarter.

The Fascist Coup Is Nearly Complete

The fascist coup in the United States is nearly complete.

Over the past few years the U.S. government has abolished countless freedoms of the American people... all in the name of "national security."

They've spent trillions of tax dollars - forced upon citizens under penalty of imprisonment - on an imperialistic military to fight an un-winnable war on terror, while all but neglecting our growing domestic problems.

The government and CONgress protects big business to create a symbiotic business/government relationship giving supreme power to the corporate elite.

And to top it all off, they've controlled mass media (notwithstanding the internet) to put a lid on the truth.

But don't worry. They're looking out for your best interests.

One Small Step for Elitists, One Giant Leap for Fascism

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you've heard the U.S. government has now nationalized the entire mortgage industry with the acquisition of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And now, it hopes to siphon $700 billion from American taxpayers to buy up the bad debt of financial institutions for the next two years.

Now, take a second or two... and think about how much $700 billion really is. It's seven hundred thousand million dollars! $700,000,000,000.00

Another perspective: It's enough to give every man, woman, and child in the city of Philadelphia a half-million dollars.

Listen... that $700 billion figure represents about 5.2% of the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 2007.

If approved, the bailout would raise the statutory limit on the national debt 6.6%... from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion.

And what will U.S. taxpayers like you and I get in return?

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
There are no plans for new regulations or oversights to help avoid this kind of crisis in the future.
There'll be no public interest givebacks to help the people whose homes are in the hands of the banks.
And, perhaps most shockingly of all, we will get absolutely no share in the profits if these fallen-from-grace financial giants bounce back... even though we are now assuming a great deal of the risk.
This is worse than a bad deal for us. In fact, it isn't even a deal!

The new rescue plan may restore a bit of investor confidence to battered financial markets. But investors will again begin to focus on the twin budget and current-account deficits and negative real U.S. interest rates. And eventually the government's plan will derail the dollar's three-month rally, which is, in effect...

The One Last Hurrah for the U.S. Dollar

The greenback has already started to retract. The U.S. Dollar Index, a measure of the value of the U.S. dollar relative to a basket of six foreign currencies, has pullback as much as 5.6% in the past two weeks.

Pirates 'want $35m for tank ship'

Pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship off the coast of Somalia have reportedly demanded a ransom of $35m (£19m) to release the vessel and its crew.
The pirates also warned against any attempt to rescue the crew or cargo of the MV Faina, which is carrying 33 T-72 battle tanks destined for Kenya.
But the Kenyan government later denied it had been issued with ransom demands.
A Russian Navy vessel is heading to the region and the US has said it is also monitoring developments in the area.
Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said he was concerned by the seizure of the military supplies on board the Ukrainian ship.

We are warning France and others who are thinking of carrying out a rescue that we have the power to reach them wherever they are
Januna Ali Jama
Alleged spokesman for the pirates
"They could be used to destabilise the region, and the whole situation on the high seas is a matter of great concern for all of us," he told reporters in New York before a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"We very much hope the international community will respond."
The official Egyptian news agency, Mena, meanwhile has said that an Egyptian ship with 25 crew, which was hijacked by pirates earlier this month off the coast of Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, had been freed.
A local official in northern Somalia said a Japanese cargo vessel had also been released after a ransom was paid.
International concern
In an interview with the BBC, one of the pirates, Januna Ali Jama, claiming to be speaking on their behalf, said they were prepared to negotiate with the Kenyan government, but would not release MV Faina unless the ransom was paid.
"We are demanding a ransom of at least $35m."

But later in a tersely-worded statement, a spokesman for the Kenyan government said they had not received any credible demands for a ransom to release the ship.
He went on to say that the government would not negotiate with what it called international criminals, pirates and terrorists, and said efforts to recover the hijacked ship and its cargo would continue.
The BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi says there is growing international concern for the fate of the Ukrainian vessel, which went missing in what are considered some of the world's most dangerous waters.
There are unconfirmed reports, our correspondent says, that it is currently being steered by the pirates towards ports just north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu - an area controlled by Islamist militants.
'Big business'
On Friday, Ukrainian Defence Minister Yury Yekhanurov confirmed that 33 Russian T-72 tanks and "a substantial quantity of ammunition" were aboard the MV Faina.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said the ship had a crew of 21 and was sailing towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
The ship's captain had reported being surrounded by three boats of armed men on Thursday afternoon, it said.
Earlier reports suggested that the cargo had been destined for south Sudan, but Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua confirmed the tanks were heading to Kenya.
"The cargo in the ship includes military hardware such as tanks and an assortment of spare parts for use by different branches of the Kenyan military," he said.
Security analyst Knox Chitiyo told the BBC the latest incident showed the waters off Somalia's coast had become a "global security problem".
"Piracy has become big business and there seems to be no concerted response to the problem," said Mr Chitiyo, from the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
'Mother ships'
Authorities in Puntland say they are powerless to confront the pirates, who regularly hold ships for ransom at the port of Eyl.
Senior UN officials estimate the ransoms pirates earn from hijacking ships exceed $100m (£54m) a year.
Pirate "mother ships" travel far out to sea and launch smaller boats to attack passing vessels, sometimes using rocket-propelled grenades.
Last week, France circulated a draft UN resolution urging states to deploy naval vessels and aircraft to combat such piracy.
France, which has troops in nearby Djibouti and also participates in a multi-national naval force patrol in the area, has intervened twice to release French sailors kidnapped by pirates.
Commandos freed two people whose boat was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month and in April, six arrested pirates were handed over to the French authorities for trial.
Russia announced on Friday it would start carrying out regular anti-piracy patrols in the waters off Somalia to protect Russian citizens and ships. A warship was sent to the area earlier this week.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government for 17 years and has suffered from continual civil strife.

How Big is $700 Billion

check out a short skit http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95099470

U.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionRecalls Apeks Scuba Diving Regulators Due to Drowning Hazard

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Apeks Second Stage Scuba Regulators

Units: About 25,000

Distributor: Aqua Lung America of Vista, Calif.

Manufacturer: Apeks Marine Equipment Ltd., of Blackburn, England

Hazard: These regulators can be missing the diaphragm cover which can cause the diaphragm to become displaced during a dive, allowing water to enter the scuba regulator. This poses a drowning hazard to divers.

Incidents/Injuries: None.

Description: This recall involves Apeks TX, ATX, and XTX second stage regulators that have never been serviced. Apeks and TX, ATX, or XTX is printed on the regulator.

Sold at: Authorized Apeks dealers nationwide from February 2000 through June 2008 for between $420 and $1,450.

Manufactured in: England

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop diving with these regulators and visit an authorized Apeks dealer for a free inspection and free installation of a diaphragm cover, if the cover is missing.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Aqua Lung toll-free at (877) 253-3483 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. PT Monday through Friday, or visit the company's Web site at www.aqualung.com

To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including pictures of the recalled products, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/084

Beijing may force Starbucks to close its outlet inside 587-year-old Imperial Palace

BEIJING: Caretakers of the Forbidden City in Beijing may force Starbucks to close its outlet inside the 587-year- old imperial palace after the world's largest coffee-shop chain was criticized by a Chinese news anchor on his blog.

The outlet is "a symbol of low-end U.S. food culture" and "an insult to Chinese civilization," Rui Chenggang, an anchor at state broadcaster China Central Television, wrote on his personal Web log.

The blog has attracted more than 540,000 hits and thousands of responses in Internet chat rooms since last Friday.

This has prompted the caretakers to study the matter. They plan to decide by the end of June whether the Starbucks in the Forbidden City should remain or be abolished, The Beijing Morning Post reported Tuesday, citing a Forbidden City spokesman, Feng Naien.

A Forbidden City spokeswoman, who would only gave her family name, Liu, told Bloomberg News on Thursday that the management office was considering its course of action.

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The controversy underscores the increasing power of the Internet in China in shaping public opinion and shifting public policy.

Starbucks, which opened its first outlet in China in 2000, has more than 200 shops in 21 mainland cities.

"Should Starbucks be forbidden in the Forbidden City?' said James Chau, a news anchor at CCTV's Channel 9. "I don't know. I would've said the same if I needed the free publicity for my blog."

China represents the biggest opportunity for Starbucks and will become its biggest market outside the United States, the chairman of the chain, Howard Schultz, said during an interview early this month.

Starbucks, he said, is educating the Chinese market about coffee and introducing people to beverages they have never had before.

"Starbucks appreciates the deep history and culture of the Forbidden City and has operated in a respectful manner that fits within the environment," Eden Woon, the coffee company's China vice president, said in an e- mailed statement Thursday.

Not every blog reader has taken Rui's side. Some have berated him for his unabashed nationalism.

Rui, who says he buys Starbucks coffee, said he was "anything but" a nationalist.

"I support them coming into the Chinese market, but it's a matter of respecting and protecting our own culture as Chinese," he said during an interview.

The Starbucks outlet is in a building that was used by court officials during the Qing dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1911.

Court officials spent time there while they waited for their morning audience with the emperor.

The magnificent palace grounds were used by 24 Chinese emperors and are a major international tourist attraction.

Starbucks is not the only overseas company to display its corporate logo in the Forbidden City, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by the United Nations. American Express has its logo under every sign board that provides descriptions of the palace halls.

Starbucks submitted a bid to provide beverages in the palace six years ago. The company replaced its signage with a discreet logo after complaints.

Rui's blog includes comments he said were from an e-mail sent by the chief executive of Starbucks, James Donald.

"When Starbucks was invited by museum officials to open a store six years ago, we did so with great sensitivity to, and respect for, the historic and cultural heritage of the Forbidden City," the e-mail said.

"We are honored and humbled to have been invited to offer customers a place to relax and enjoy a cup of coffee with their local barista."

Death Of The Brokerage: The Future Of Wall Street

The decision by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies is nothing short of a historic realignment of the financial services industry. It marks the end of the securities firm model that has dominated Wall Street since the Great Depression.

Here, a look at what the change means to the future of investment banking.

Why did Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley decide to become bank holding companies?

The decision enables both firms to gain access to the Federal Reserve's discount window — the same line of credit that is open to other depository institutions. That's in addition to the temporary financial lifeline, called the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, that the Fed established for Wall Street broker-dealers after it bailed out Bear Stearns in March. The transformation into bank holding companies also allows Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to tap into deposits from retail customers.

Goldman Sachs said that over the past several weeks it began discussions with the Fed regarding the possibility of becoming a bank holding company. "We understand that the market views oversight by the Federal Reserve and the ability to source insured bank deposits as providing a greater degree of safety and soundness," the company said in a statement.
Morgan Stanley CEO and Chairman John Mack said the bank holding structure would place his firm in the "strongest possible position — with the stability and flexibility to seize opportunities in the rapidly changing financial marketplace." On Monday, Morgan Stanley announced that it was pursuing a "strategic alliance" with Mitsubishi UFJ financial group Inc., the second-largest bank holding company in the world, with $1.1 trillion in deposits. If the deal closes, Mitsubishi would gain a 20 percent equity share in Morgan Stanley and a seat on its board. Mack said the alliance would enable Morgan Stanley to grow its business in Asia.

What's the difference between a bank holding company and an investment bank?

A bank holding company is essentially an umbrella organization that runs commercial banks, which accept deposits from retail customers. These institutions are regulated by the Federal Reserve and are also subject to oversight by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Investment banks help companies and governments raise funds by selling and issuing securities, and they offer advice on transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions. These firms operate with less oversight than commercial banks and are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have switched to bank holding companies, there are no independent investment banks left on Wall Street.

As of June, Citigroup was the largest bank holding company in the U.S., with $2.1 trillion in assets, followed by JPMorgan Chase, with $1.8 trillion in assets, according to the Federal Reserve. Goldman said it would become the fourth-largest bank holding company. Morgan Stanley did not announce where it would stand in U.S. rankings.

Why is this such a big change in the financial services landscape?

It's a huge change in the way Wall Street has done business since the Great Depression. In 1933 — in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929 — Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act. Many people blamed the crash on commercial banks that were too eager to put deposits at risk on the stock market. In response, the act divided the banking universe into two camps: lending institutions and brokerages.
Officially, this wall of separation crumbled in 1999, when Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which once again allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. However, in practice, this consolidation was slow to take place, because at the time, many investment banking companies did not want to be regulated by the Fed, says financial consultant Bert Ely, the head of Ely & Co.. a financial institutions consulting firm.

So what's changed? Ely says the Bear Stearns bailout followed by Lehman Brothers' collapse and the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America all increased both regulatory and political pressure for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to adopt the more stable — and more regulated — financial holding company model.

Will there be more regulation of these financial services companies under this model?

Yes. More agencies will have a hand in regulating the two firms.

Goldman already operates two banks — one in the United States and one in Europe — with more than $20 billion in deposits. As part of its reorganization, Goldman said that it would move assets into Goldman Sachs Bank USA. Morgan Stanley said that as of August, it has $36 billion in bank deposits and over 3 million retail accounts.

Ely says the three bank charters that Morgan Stanley owns and the two that Goldman possesses have been operating under special exemptions without FDIC oversight. "The more significant regulatory change is that the Fed becomes their primary regulator," says Ely.

The SEC will still regulate their broker-dealer subsidiaries, and the FDIC will be involved with these firms' banking activities.

Is this the end of investment banking activities on Wall Street?

Not at all. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and other firms will still be able to engage in investment banking activities. Their function in the marketplace will be very much the same. But now they'll engage in activities under the supervision of the Fed.
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, said the firm's decision to become a bank holding company was based on the market view that regulation by the Federal Reserve provides a"greater degree of safety and soundness." AP

John Mack, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, said the firm would enter an alliance with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., the second-largest bank holding company in the world, with $1.1 trillion in deposits. AP

Alaska Women Reject Palin

ASK YOUR TV STATIONS WHY THEY DIDN'T COVER WHAT HAS NOW BEEN CALLED THE BIGGEST RALLY IN ALASKA HISTORY?



[The]Alaska Women Reject Palin-rally was planned for outside the front lawn of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women or men.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host.Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally "a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call them. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

In Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thougt if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke...

When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by.This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard.Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska, who know her best, have things to say.

BPA-compound found in baby bottles and water bottles

Watch CBS Videos Online
The debate is heating up over the safety of a common household plastic called BPA-compound found in baby bottles and water bottles. Maggie Rodriguez talks with Dr. Holly Phillips about it.

New eBay Site Strives For "World Of Good"

WorldofGood.com To Sell Goods Produced With Social And Environmental Goals In Mind
Most consumers probably associate eBay Inc. more with vintage lunch boxes and low-priced electronics than with laptop bags made from recycled plastic by women in New Delhi.

The online auction operator is trying to change that perception with WorldofGood.com, a Web site due to launch Wednesday to sell goods produced with social and environmental goals in mind.

EBay developed the site with World of Good Inc., a startup focused on "ethical supply chains" behind consumer products, and licensed the group's name for the marketplace. World of Good will get a share of the revenue from the site, which had been operating for the past six months as an online community focused on the social impact of business.

The site will sell fixed-price goods that purportedly have some positive effect on people and the planet. The goal is to help consumers align their social values with their shopping decisions, WorldofGood.com general manager Robert Chatwani said.

Shoppers will be able to search for products by certain social or environmental categories, revealing, for example, a photo of the man who produced the fair-trade coffee you're interested in buying, details of its origins and whether some of the proceeds support a charitable cause.

Independent third-party organizations like Rainforest Alliance and Co-op America will screen sellers and verify the items listed on the site.

"We really want consumers to drill down into the detail of what's behind that product," Chatwani said.

Already the market for products that emphasize social and environmental awareness is growing. Chatwani cited the Natural Marketing Institute's estimate that the U.S. market for such goods was $209 billion in 2005, and the group projects that will rise to $420 billion in 2010.

And while there are plenty of places to buy such items already, eBay and its 84.5 million active users might dramatically increase awareness for artisans. WorldofGood.com items will also be cross-listed on eBay proper, blended into standard search results.

The arrangement drew praise from Roberto Milk, chief executive of Novica, which works with artisans around the world to sell their home decor items on eBay. The National Geographic Society owns a stake in the company.

Novica has sold things on eBay since 1999, but given the enormous nature of the site, "nobody knows we're on eBay," he said. This could change with additional sales on WorldofGood.com, where Novica will sell items it has either bought or taken on consignment.

"All our artisans really need is exposure," he said.

As on eBay, sellers on WorldofGood.com will pay fees to list items and give eBay a commission on successful sales. All transactions will be made through eBay's electronic payment system, PayPal. At launch, the site will have several hundred sellers, including many merchants who are also current eBay sellers.

Fox News - Tina Fey Returns To SNL To Spoof Sarah Palin / Hillary Clinton

TOO SEE THE COMPLETE SNL SKIT CLICK ON TITLE ABOVE

WORLD WAR 3 SECRET

Freedom of speech? - Bush Heckled "war criminal"

Amazing Coral Reefs

Florida Keys Scuba Divings

CANTINFLAS CRUZANDO EL MURO EN LA FRONTERA

Pancreatic cancer gene therapy is created

RICHMOND, Va. (UPI) -- U.S. cancer researchers say they have developed a chemoprevention gene therapy that successfully kills pancreatic cancer cells.

Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University's Massey Cancer Center and Institute of Molecular Medicine discovered combining a dietary agent with a gene-delivered cytokine effectively eliminates human pancreatic cancer cells in mice.

Cytokines are a category of proteins that are secreted into the circulation and can affect cancer cells at distant sites in the body, including metastases, the researchers said. The cytokine used in the study was melanoma differentiation associated gene-7/interleukin-24, known as mda-7/IL-24. The dietary agent, perillyl alcohol, was combined with mda-7/IL-24, which is already used in other cancer treatments.

The results indicated the therapy not only prevented pancreatic cancer growth and progression, but it also effectively killed established tumors, thereby displaying profound chemopreventive and therapeutic activity.

"We are very excited at the prospect of (using) this chemoprevention gene therapy as a means of both preventing and treating pancreatic cancer, and it has significant potential to move rapidly into human clinical trials," said Professor Paul Fisher, who led the study.

The research is reported in the July issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

NOAA Researchers Co-Author Report on Carbon Dioxide Threats to Marine Life

Ocean Acidification
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane concentrations are now higher than they have been for more than 400,000 years, primarily as a result of human use of fossil fuels and land clearing. The global oceans are the largest natural reservoir for this excess carbon dioxide, absorbing approximately onethird of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activities each year. The uptake of CO2 increases ocean acidification, which threatens marine organisms, including corals that support oceanic biodiversity. Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere. NOAA’s preeminent researchers are rapidly improving our understanding of the carbon cycle thanks to aggressive research in this field.

NOAA Researchers Co-Author Report on Carbon Dioxide Threats to Marine Life


NOAA scientists and technicians make final adjustments on the first buoy to carry equipment that measures ocean acidification. The buoy was launched in the Gulf of Alaska.

A peer-reviewed paper co-authored by NOAA researchers Richard Feely, and Christopher L. Sabine at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in Seattle, WA, documents how carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel dramatically alters ocean chemistry and threatens the health of marine organisms, including corals. The researchers also uncovered new evidence of ocean acidification in the North Pacific. Scientists observed measurable decreases in pH along with an increase in dissolved inorganic carbon, both signs of ocean acidification, which may be the result of the ocean’s uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

The increased acidity lowers the concentration of carbonate ions, a building block of the calcium carbonate that many marine organisms use to grow their skeletons and create coral reef structures. Corals and some free-floating plants and animals at the bottom of the food chain, have a more difficult time producing their shells, with potential consequences for other sea life that depend on the health and availability of these shelled organisms. The report resulted from a workshop sponsored by NOAA, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Feely and Sabine were among a group of NOAA researchers awarded the Commerce Department’s Gold Medal for pioneering research leading to the discovery of increased acidification in the world's oceans.

NOAA Research and Partners Launch First Buoy to Measure Acidification

The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and partners launched the first buoy to monitor ocean acidification, a result of carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean. The Gulf of Alaska buoy is a new tool for researchers to examine how ocean circulation and ecosystems interact to determine how much carbon dioxide the North Pacific Ocean absorbs each year. Attached to the 10-foot diameter buoy are sensors to measure key climate indicators in the lower atmosphere and upper ocean.

The buoy is anchored in water nearly 5,000 meters deep and transmits data via satellite. Buoy instruments will measure the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen gas in addition to the pH, a measure of ocean acidity, of the surface waters. This is the first system specifically designed to monitor for ocean acidification. The buoy is part of a National Science Foundation project awarded to oceanographers at PMEL and the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash., in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney, B.C.

PREEMINENT RESEARCH


Deployment of experimental equipment to measure air-sea gas exchange in the Equatorial Pacific. NOAA Photo.

OAR scientists conduct preeminent research to "understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond" — one of NOAA’s four mission goals. OAR’s Climate Program Office and ocean laboratories improve our understanding of the global carbon cycle, connections to ocean acidification, and the potential impacts on marine life and the planet.

NOAA’s Climate Program Office supports research to improve our ability to predict the fate of human-produced CO2 and how much will end up in the atmosphere in the future using atmospheric and oceanic global observations, process-oriented field studies and modeling. Its priorities are to study the sources of CO2 and its sinks, that is, reservoirs for CO2 outside the atmosphere, such as large forests.

Scientists at NOAA’s PMEL and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL, work closely together to support NOAA's Climate Program and Global Carbon Cycle Program. NOAA’s PMEL has three primary observational activities: (1) instruments that collect CO2 information from a variety of ships as they transit the oceans to determine the rate of air sea CO2 exchange; (2) CO2 time series by building a network of CO2 moorings to make high resolution time series measurements in the global ocean; and (3) global inventory to help monitor changes in ocean carbon chemistry by making inorganic carbon measurements throughout the water column on research cruises in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, in coordination with our international partners through the US CLIVAR/ CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program.

The goal of AOML’s CO2 research is to assess the ocean's role in controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels with focus on observations of the exchange of CO2 across the air-sea interface and its eventual penetration into the water masses of the deep ocean. AOML projects include measurement of surface CO2 levels in the oceans on NOAA ship RONALD H. BROWN and volunteer observing ships (VOS) in order to determine the exchange of CO2 between the ocean and the atmosphere. The VOS include cargo ships and a cruise ship Explorer of the Seas. AOML also takes water column measurements of the total carbon content of seawater to discern changes over time as part of the CO2/ CLIVAR repeat hydrography project.

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division in Boulder, CO, is working with other NOAA labs to develop a new technique to measure CO2 fluxes over the open ocean. This is an important step in assessing the role of oceanic uptake in the global CO2 budget and the likely effectiveness of controls on usage of fossil fuels and land clearing.

VALUE TO SOCIETY

NOAA’s research will help society better understand the potential impacts of changes in the world’s oceans on sensitive marine organisms and how these impacts may alter important ecosystems. For example, healthy coral reefs are the foundation of many viable fisheries, as well as the source of jobs and businesses related to tourism and recreation. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service estimates the annual value of coral reefs to U.S. fish stocks at over $100 million, and local economies receive billions of dollars from reef tourism. In addition, reef biodiversity is considered key to finding new medicines for the 21st century.

Cement from CO2: A Concrete Cure for Global Warming

Cement from CO2: A Concrete Cure for Global Warming?
The turbines at Moss Landing power plant on the California coast burn through natural gas to pump out more than 1,000 megawatts of electric power. The 700-degree Fahrenheit (370-degree Celsius) fumes left over contain at least 30,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming—along with other pollutants.

Today, this flue gas wafts up and out of the power plant's enormous smokestacks, but by simply bubbling it through the nearby seawater, a new California-based company called Calera says it can use more than 90 percent of that CO2 to make something useful - Yes but ...
Ocean Acidification
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane concentrations are now higher than they have been for more than 400,000 years, primarily as a result of human use of fossil fuels and land clearing. The global oceans are the largest natural reservoir for this excess carbon dioxide, absorbing approximately onethird of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by human activities each year. The uptake of CO2 increases ocean acidification, which threatens marine organisms, including corals that support oceanic biodiversity. Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere. NOAA’s preeminent researchers are rapidly improving our understanding of the carbon cycle thanks to aggressive research in this field.

molecular interactions in multiple phases beyond gaseous collision

Not so long ago, Experiments in the synthetic chemistry lab tended to proceed without detailed calculations and predictions. Today, most organic chemists rely on the results of density functional theory (DFT) calculations to help decide between alternative synthetic routes and to provide guidance on structure assignments. However, such readily solved problems are not where theoretical chemists focus their attention for their own current day-to-day work--rather, it is on the problems that still defy solution. This special section highlights some areas where theorists feel that progress can be made in the near future on problems that will benefit their experimental colleagues in chemistry and other disciplines.
Stone (p. 787) describes the ubiquitous first step in tackling theoretical chemistry problems: constructing a potential energy surface, which describes the energy of the molecule or assembly of molecules as a function of the atomic positions. Clary (p. 789) goes on to detail the status of predicting reactions between isolated small molecules in the gas phase--a context in which the highest level of quantum-mechanical detail is currently attainable. Reactions involving three atoms have been modeled successfully in this way, but even four- or six-atom reactions remain challenging. Although DFT has been the workhorse of most computational studies, it is not reliable in certain classes of problems; for example, it often underestimates transition-state barriers in reactions or band gaps of materials. Cohen et al. (p. 792) trace the problems of many DFT approximations to delocalization and static correlation errors through a framework that makes use of fractional charges and fractional spins.

Practical chemistry often involves molecular interactions in multiple phases beyond gaseous collisions. Kroes (p. 794) discusses progress in modeling molecule/surface interactions, which play a central role in heterogeneous catalysis. Much effort has focused on unraveling the contexts in which electronic and nuclear motion become coupled in time. Klein and Shinoda (p. 798) describe simulations of complex molecular systems, in which a vast number of simultaneous interactions are encompassed through molecular dynamics trajectories. Use of so-called coarse-grain models allows the behavior of micrometer-scale systems of polymers or biopolymers to be modeled over the course of microseconds, a time scale that is highly relevant for comparison to experiments.

Theoretical chemistry is now commonly used to address complex problems in biochemistry and materials science. In a News story, Service (p. 784) describes recent successes in simulating protein folding, a problem long hindered by the computational intractability of the immense number of accessible configurations. Carter (p. 800) moves beyond molecular systems to focus on simulations of extended materials. Recent progress in ab initio and DFT methods has facilitated purely theoretical explorations of features ranging from mechanical properties to corrosion behavior. Electronic excitation remains a challenging frontier.

A recurring theme in all of these articles is the complementary role of theory and experiment in exploring chemical questions. Each approach nourishes the other, presenting fresh challenges.

Google todayl added DoubleClick tracking across its sites.

Posted by Larry Dignan -reposted by joe Acosta @ 9:22 pm
Google today rolled out improvements to its ad network and added DoubleClick tracking across its sites. Google also made it easy to opt out of its double dose of cookies with one click. The larger question is whether users will choose to go cookie free.

Among the key ad network changes as detailed on Google’s blog:

Advertisers will control the number of times a user sees ads;
Advertisers have more reporting on frequency changes–who saw an ad and how many times they saw it;
Conversion data to see if people clicked through to a site.

All of these lovely advertiser features are enabled by adding a DoubleClick cookie (known as DART) across Google’s network. Google explains:

We are enabling this functionality by implementing a DoubleClick ad-serving cookie across the Google content network. Using the DoubleClick cookie means that DoubleClick advertisers and publishers don’t have to make any changes on their websites as we continue our integration efforts and offer additional enhancements.

The good news is that Google makes it easy to opt out with one click. And then the pause comes as a user. Do you buy Google’s pitch that more relevant advertising is more useful? Do you buy Google’s argument that advertising can be good for you? Do you trust Google and its claim that it won’t combine personal information with its cookie data without consent?

Every individual will have his or her own answer. I found myself perusing the privacy policy for Google. My decision right now is to hold off on the opting out. I’m a realist and know that cookies make the Web go around. Meanwhile, I’m being tracked by everyone anyway and seem to be fine. That said it’s worth perusing the privacy policy Google has:

Key items:

Google is using DoubleClick’s cookie information to enable frequency capping, click fraud, ad reports, research and data crunching and new services.

And then there’s this tidbit:

The advertising cookie information described above is provided to advertisers and publishers who use our advertising services. In addition, Google or our advertising and publishing customers may use web beacons in conjunction with the DART cookie to collect information about your visit to the website and exposure to a particular advertisement.

Google then assures us that it won’t combine DoubleClick cookie information with personal information without your consent. It also won’t combine the cookie information with DoubleClick’s ad partners without permission.

Ya right - How about if the get a "Court order" >Then you know they will spill the beans like always!
You can opt out by clicking "NO"

Mac OS X security update

Apple has shipped a Mac OS X security update with patches for at least 17 documented vulnerabilities, including a fix for the serious DNS cache poisoning vulnerability reported by hacker Dan Kaminsky.

With Security Update 2008-005, Apple plugs holes that could lead to privilege escalation, denial-of-service, information disclosure and arbitrary code execution attacks.

The update affects Mac OS X Server 10.4, Mac OS X 10.4.11, Mac OS X Server 10.5, and Mac OS X 10.5.4.

[ Microsoft joins ‘patch DNS now’ chant; Apple patch missing ]

Vulnerability details below the fold:

CVE-2008-1447 - BIND: A weakness in the DNS protocol may allow remote attackers to perform DNS cache poisoning attacks. As a result, systems that rely on the BIND server for DNS may receive forged information. This update addresses the issue by implementing source port randomization to improve resilience against cache poisoning attacks. For Mac OS X v10.4.11 systems, BIND is updated to version 9.3.5-P1. For Mac OS X v10.5.4 systems, BIND is updated to version 9.4.2-P1.

CVE-2008-2320 - CarbonCore: A stack buffer overflow exists in the handling of long filenames. Processing long filenames may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved bounds checking.

CVE-2008-2830 - Open Scripting Architecture: A design issue exists in the Open Scripting Architecture libraries when determining whether to load scripting addition plugins into applications running with elevated privileges. Sending scripting addition commands to a privileged application may allow the execution of arbitrary code with those privileges. This update addresses the issue by not loading scripting addition plugins into applications running with system privileges.

CVE-2008-2321 - CoreGraphics: CoreGraphics contains memory corruption issues in the processing of arguments. Passing untrusted input to CoreGraphics via an application, such as a web browser, may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved bounds checking.

CVE-2008-2322 - CoreGraphics: An integer overflow in the handling of PDF files may result in a heap buffer overflow. Viewing a maliciously crafted PDF file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

CVE-2008-2323 - Data Detectors Engine: Viewing maliciously crafted content in an application that uses Data Detectors may lead to a denial of service, but not arbitrary code execution. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X v10.5.

CVE-2008-2324 - Disk Utility: The “Repair Permissions” tool in Disk Utility makes /usr/bin/emacs setuid. After the Repair Permissions tool has been run, a local user may use emacs to run commands with system privileges. This update addresses the issue by correcting the permissions applied to emacs in the Repair Permissions tool.

CVE-2008-2952 - OpenLDAP: An issue exists in OpenLDAP’s ASN.1 BER decoding. Processing a maliciously crafted LDAP message may trigger an assertion and lead to an unexpected application termination of the OpenLDAP daemon, slapd. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of LDAP messages.

CVE-2007-5135 - OpenSSL: A range checking issue exists in the SSL_get_shared_ciphers() utility function within OpenSSL. In an application using this function, processing maliciously crafted packets may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

CVE-2008-2051, CVE-2008-2050, CVE-2007-4850, CVE-2008-0599, CVE-2008-0674: PHP is updated to version 5.2.6 to address multiple vulnerabilities, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution. Further information is available via the PHP website at http://www.php.net/ PHP version 5.2.x is only provided with Mac OS X v10.5 systems.

CVE-2008-2325 - QuickLook: Multiple memory corruption issues exist in QuickLook’s handling of Microsoft Office files. Downloading a maliciously crafted Microsoft Office file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

CVE-2007-6199, CVE-2007-6200 - rsync: Path validation issues exist in rsync’s handling of symbolic links when running in daemon mode. Placing symbolic links in an rsync module may allow files outside of the module root to be accessed or overwritten. Further information on the patches applied is available via the rsync web site at http://rsync.samba.org.

Don't even pertend you know what half of these are!! C U Later-- JOE

FCC slaps Comcast’s wrist over network neutrality; Sets precedent

Re-Posted from Larry Dignan

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday ruled 3-2 that Comcast overstepped its network management authority by blocking BitTorrent peer to peer traffic, but stopped short of fining the cable company. The move clarifies the boundaries a bit for other carriers and sends the message that the FCC enforces network neutrality principles.

The order against Comcast is notable because it’s the first official one making network throttling blocking officially illegal. The order, which was expected, also sets the template for future actions, which may turn up against other providers. In a nutshell, the FCC issued a cease and desist order to Comcast that forces the cable giant to disclose to customers how it manages its network. One thing is certain: This network neutrality issue will continue to reappear. Indeed the Electronic Frontier Foundation created a software tool to gauge your ISP’s neutrality.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin likened Comcast’s behavior–and the Net neutrality issue in general–to the post office. Would it be ok if the post office decided what parcel it moved faster? “Comcast was blocking downloads and doing it 24/7,” said Martin. “Today the commission tells Comcast to stop and allow everyone to have unfettered access to the Internet.”

The commission affirmed that it can and will enforce an open Internet and network neutrality principles. Martin said that Comcast wasn’t merely managing its network. It was blocking specific applications without disclosing it. “Our action today is not about regulating the Internet. Network neutrality rules are unnecessary because the commission already has the tools to enforce (open standards),” said Martin.

Martin said if it didn’t take action against Comcast it would set a bad precedent and tell other carriers that blocking is ok. His message: If the FCC didn’t take action against Comcast it would indicate that network neutrality laws were needed.

The FCC didn’t issue a fine, but Martin said the order is key to create a framework for future actions. “We need to protect consumer access,” he said. Martin also said that Comcast’s deal with BitTorrent doesn’t solve consumer complaints. The only real consensus was that the net neutrality debate will continue.

Vuze, which filed the petition with the FCC along with formal complaints against Comcast, cheered the deal. Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa said in a statement:

Today’s FCC Order does two important things. First, it makes clear that, while reasonable network management of Internet traffic is permissible, there is a line that cannot be crossed. Comcast crossed that line, and has been sanctioned accordingly. Secondly, the FCC endorsed the idea that the rule of law must be accompanied by transparency into what ISPs are actually doing to our Internet traffic.

FCC commissioners were split on what the meaning of the ruling was in the grand scheme of things and all complained that a ruling crafted in the wee hours of the night didn’t provide enough time for analysis. And commissioners noted the order will go through editing. Until Martin’s vote, commissioner vote for the Comcast order was split 2-2.

Commissioner Michael Copps hoped that the ruling would set up a fifth FCC principle declaring that all network traffic should be equal. FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said the order illustrates that the FCC can tackle net neutrality issues on a case by case basis without hampering innovation. Both favored an order against Comcast.

But Deborah Taylor Tate, another commissioner, said the Comcast ruling needs to be narrowly focused so that the FCC doesn’t hamper innovation. Tate said that network providers are making strides on network neutrality without government interference. Tate’s favored approach was to allow the private sector to sort out network neutrality. “My approach was that (Comcast issue) was a review of one complaint and not a monumental decision.”

She noted that Comcast has partnered with BitTorrent as the FCC examined the issue. “This mediation is the best way to solve the problem,” she said. Commissioner Robert McDowell agreed with Tate. McDowell said the network neutrality issue needs to avoid extremes on both sides.

“The FCC doesn’t know what Comcast did or did not do,” said McDowell noting that the evidence is conflicting on what Comcast did exactly to BitTorrent. “Not one of us has a networking degree.” McDowell’s take is that bureaucrats will hamper engineers to effectively manage traffic and potentially slow broadband speeds in the future.

Even Lamer Than Second Life

Google Lively
In retrospect, I was a fool to mention Barack Obama in a place where I could get body-slammed. But I was well into my first hour as an avatar in Google Lively, the search company's frustrating and dull new virtual world, and I was bored. I'd already explored the room designed to resemble Google's gleeful corporate headquarters; conversation there never progressed beyond "Hello," "How old are you?" and "What should we do here?" Now I was in a room that looked like a high-school science lab. It was a rough scene. A guy shaped like a bobble-headed baby was punching and kicking the female avatars, and another dude kept blowing things up. "So, have you guys been following Obama's overseas trip?" I ventured, to break the ice. "Didn't catch it," one woman said. Then the baby dropped a huge anvil on me, and that was that.

Digital worlds have won a great deal of press attention—the Sims Online made the cover of Time when it launched in 2002, and there have been perhaps billions of news stories about Second Life. Despite all this hubbub, none of these virtual worlds has managed to gain mainstream appeal. The Sims Online never took off; Electronic Arts, its parent company, plans to shut it down at the end of this month.

Google's new service, which launched in early July, looks like it will fit perfectly in a field littered with failures. Lively is still rough, but even in a more complete form, it seems unlikely to take virtual worlds mainstream. The service is freighted with technical problems: I've had trouble using it for more than an hour without seeing it crash, and even when it works, it's terribly slow (also, it runs only on Windows machines). But tech difficulties are the least of Lively's troubles. Its oppressive dreariness is more worrisome.


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Imagine an amusement park that lacks any rides, games, entertainers, and junk food. That's Lively: The place looks fun, and you're sure to spend a few minutes exploring its pretty 3-D landscapes, but then what? Your only option is to talk to people—and that's where the trouble begins. Google's avatar-designing tools are not yet as sophisticated as those in other online worlds, so everyone in Lively looks pretty similar. You find yourself repeating the same questions to every avatar: How old are you? Where do you live? Oh, that's interesting, and what do you do? Fascinating, tell me more.

Some people may find this a thrilling use of their time; I kept switching back to my e-mail, hoping I'd received some interesting spam. And I wasn't alone. Like prisoners in solitary, everyone here keeps lamenting that they've got nothing to do. It's no wonder people turn to violence. Among the actions Lively allows you to perform on others are body-slam, kick, kung fu, punch, slap, and squash. True, there's also kiss and hug, but boredom doesn't inspire generosity of spirit. Lifting another avatar and throwing him to the ground produces a thrilling animated sequence, and for an instant, at least, you're having fun.

It's entirely possible that in my trips to Lively, I simply visited the wrong places. Unlike Second Life, Lively isn't technically a virtual world—it's more like a virtual apartment complex, a common architecture that connects a group of unrelated "rooms." In Second Life, you're allowed to interact with pretty much everyone else who's using the software. In Lively, your conversations are limited to the other people nearby; anyone else using the software is as good as dead to you.

Google's setup is a clever attempt to widen Lively's appeal. Because different groups of people can hang out in different rooms, Lively could become all things to all people: The jocks can party in one room while the nerds study in another, neither troubling the other. Lively works through a Web interface, and each room can be "embedded" on a Web site as easily as a YouTube clip. Google imagines that sites will use Lively to add a three-dimensional chat space to their existing communities. Lefty politicos might hang out in a Lively room embedded on Daily Kos, say, while those on the right congregate in a room on Red State. Perhaps in those niche-interest rooms, conversation would flow more easily than in rooms on Lively's most-popular list. There's always the chance, though, that a griefer will stop in and drop anvils on everyone.

Virtual worlds haven't yet taken off for the simple reason that talking to strangers in a 3-D space is not for everyone. Multiplayer games like World of Warcraft have a built-in advantage here; if people get sick of each other, they can always just play the game. Purely social worlds like Second Life, places that lack any obvious elements of gameplay, are known to have a large "churn rate"—the vast majority of people who try them out don't take up permanent residence.

Second Life, which garnered tremendous enthusiasm when worldwide brands and political campaigns began advertising in it, has had little luck getting users to stick around. Only 500,000 people regularly log in, and when you land there, it's easy to see why. The service seems to offer nothing more than the chance to do what you normally do on the Internet—IM, e-mail, buy stuff—through a harder-to-use interface. The people who take to this tend to be those comfortable with typed banter, people interested in the aesthetics of online space, people looking for cybersex. The one positive note: Second Life has been held up as a bastion for disabled people, who use it as a way to fantasize about life in other bodies.

For the rest of us, virtual worlds can seem pointless. The other day I was in a crowded Lively room, surrounded by avatars who were dancing, punching, screaming, and laughing. "Nothing to do here, I don't think I'll come back," one guy announced to the room. Finally, I'd made a real connection.
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Twitter anti-spam efforts go overboard

Re-Posted from Jennifer Leggio
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote yesterday that its fight against spam is an “ongoing battle” but his team has taken big steps in stopping the unwanted follows from bots. According to Stone, Twitter’s already implemented a serious action plan:

To combat aggressive following directly we have recently imposed new limits on following—spammy accounts following too many users have been drastically curbed. Those that existed prior to this new limit await review. Our administrative tools for finding and dealing with spam grow more sophisticated as we learn more.

Unfortunately, in doing so three companies who use Twitter to engage with their customers have been limited in their ability to add new followers. Comcast, Jet Blue and Pandora have all confirmed that as of yesterday they were unable to follow folks who have followed them — a swift kick to their customer engagement outreach. The companies aren’t even going around trying to add random new users. These are users who have reached out to them.

I just learned this is hitting individuals as well. Last night Chris Brogan (who follows just under 11,000 — a reciprocated amount) told me that he was, indeed, able to add followers. But as of this morning he cannot. Around midnight last night I heard from Robert Scoble (who follows about 20,000 people — also a reciprocated amount) that he can still follow but I haven’t yet heard back about whether or not he can still do so today.

Frank Eliason of Comcast, who runs the company’s Twitter feed, said when he first found out he could not follow-back customers he immediately contacted Twitter support. What he received was a lackluster reply.

“The first response was to delete followers,” Eliason said. “The second response was it may take a few days but they will look into it.”

So both Comcast and Pandora began deleting followers and in Pandora’s case, only after deleting about 600 followers was the company able to follow new fans who were already following them.

“I do want to be completely respectful in how I use Twitter, so if anyone thinks I’m being too spammy, I’m open to changing how I communicate with Pandora fans on Twitter,” said Lucia Willow, community manager for Pandora.

But these companies, nor individuals, should have to go to these great lengths. None have been flagged for spamming and all have a principle to follow customers who have engaged directly with them or who discuss their companies. As more and more companies turn to Twitter for customer loyalty and customer engagement, it is critical that they, at the very least, be able to follow back the folks who follow them. While Twitter’s stability issues are improving this new battle-gone-awry with spammers might be the next thing to make users look to other services for customer engagement through microblogging.

It appears, according to the Twitter blog, that the service is stabbing at spammers based on a ratio of followers to followees. This works, but it creates issues like the above — something that security experts might call a “false positive” — and it’s nowhere near refined enough.

“Rather than looking at the ratio of followers to following, which could artificially deflate because of people unfollowing a user, Twitter should look into the probability of a user being reciprocated on a following notice to a given individual within a limited period of time” said Adam J. O’Donnell, Ph.D., director of emerging technology at Cloudmark.

“It is computationally cheap to perform that ratio computation, and probably why Twitter decided to do that first,” O’Donnell said. “It’s a great first step but it definitely needs some fine-tuning. Spam is a continuous battle and you need to have many mechanisms to prevent abuse, including this kind of throttling and blacklisting on behavior on a social network.”

While Twitter was not reachable for comment, it said on its blog that its measures may not be as sophisticated as required and the service will continue to grow.

Part of our work will be to keep iterating and evolving our approach to spam so we can provide a good experience on Twitter.

In the meantime, what can companies, community managers and individuals do to not lose reader or customer loyalty?

Whether or not you can immediately follow folks back, engage with them directly. Keep your notification emails handy and reach out to those folks through “@” messages until you can add them directly.
Keep your communications active with your existing Twitter follower base and engage in conversations versus using your feed to merely push information (which could inadvertently get you categorized as a spammer).
If you’ve been forced to unfollow people to keep your account from getting completely blacklisted, communicate honestly to your customers and fans, and let them know that this move was due to Twitter’s current spam policies and not due to your lack of interest in engaging with them. Let them know you WILL be back.
Keep a log of which customers you’ve had to unfollow and re-follow them immediately after Twitter updates its spam procedures.
[Update 7/22/2008: 11:44 a.m. - Receiving word from folks who follow as few as 50 people that they are being capped as well. This does not appear to be a volume issue.

Microsoft’s Google envy is its Vietnam.

Is Microsoft fighting an unwinnable war with its online business and search obsession?

It’s a valid question and one that needs to be asked. At some point you have to wonder if Microsoft’s Google envy is its Vietnam. As Mary Jo Foley noted Microsoft’s answer to its online woes is to spend, spend, spend. You have to wonder at the returns. Some analysts have dismissed these online investment worries because the Microsoft’s broader business is doing fine. But if these online results become a drag just when Microsoft should be at its peak product and earnings cycle it’s an issue.

It’s not like Microsoft just discovered the Web. It has been there all along. It had its epiphany to squash Netscape more than a decade ago. Its properties aren’t half bad. And Microsoft is a top 5 player on the Web in terms of traffic. Good luck turning a profit though. Microsoft is an afterthought in search. Display advertising is hurting the software giant’s online revenue. And Microsoft is hell-bent on conquering a market it knows little about–advertising. Of course, Microsoft wants to know more about advertising and has been acquiring accordingly, but where are those returns?

After Microsoft released its fourth quarter results the online unit stood out for all the wrong reasons. The online services business lost $1.23 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30. I quipped that it’s no wonder that Microsoft is so hot for Yahoo. Something has to save this online business.

And what’s startling about that figure is that Microsoft only lost $732 million in 2007. Microsoft’s online services business was actually profitable in 2005.



Now you can argue that the collapse of Microsoft’s narrowband dial-up service was the issue, but even so operating income is headed in the wrong direction. What’s the explanation? Microsoft is investing in the future. Microsoft will continue to spend heavily on search. Execs told investors it will compete in search–even if it has to pay people for their queries.

But all that spending may not add up to much. Unless Microsoft buys AOL or Yahoo its online business isn’t likely to turn a profit in the current fiscal year. Why? The online business is headed for a dry spell. What does that mean for Microsoft, which has an online business that wasn’t profitable even during good times?

Indeed, Microsoft is already seeing a slowdown. It noted that “monetization lagged” because of “tightening advertising budgets combined with a more competitive display pricing environment.” Sure Microsoft is investing in more premium online content, but that’s also more expensive.

CFO Chris Liddell made it clear the online services business is in investment mode. On a conference call he said:

The online services business has a totally different dynamic and is in a period of significant investment. We do not make these investments lightly, as the loss in this division will be a drag on an otherwise exceptionally good performance. Translation: Microsoft’s online business will lose money in fiscal 2009 too.

However, we believe that the additional investments of several hundreds of millions of dollars is worth the short-term cost, given the opportunity to participate in a market where the opportunity is measured in the tens of billions of dollars.

Liddell also talked about improving social networking assets across all delivery vehicles–PC, phone and Web. Microsoft also plans to “invigorate our MSN portal experience” and blow two-thirds of its online investing dollars on improving search.

When asked how Microsoft will compete with Google on search with or without Yahoo, Liddell said:

In the search area, clearly that’s the one where, relatively speaking, we are the most behind and that’s why we’re taking a different approach, which again I mentioned in the prepared remarks where we are focusing in particular on the areas of search where there’s a strong commercial intent, our verticals like retail, travel, real estate, local. We’re looking at different approaches where we might potentially take a disruptive and innovative business model, for example, Cashback, and then looking at winning distribution deals.

Now in the short-term, that isn’t going to make the division profitable and I think clearly from our guidance, that’s not the case. So as I said in the remarks, if you look at the operating margin structure of the company, you really have to look at the three distinct businesses. We feel good about the margin structure for our core businesses in particular growing double-digit revenue on. Entertainment and devices will be broadly flat but online is going to be negative

In other words, Microsoft’s online business is the appendage that’s going to dilute good gains in its core businesses in fiscal 2009. Microsoft wouldn’t address fiscal 2010 or 2011 or make any projections about when the online business would be profitable.

Bottom line: Microsoft’s online war will continue with no end in sight.

If the battle with Apple is open source’s Vietnam

The real enemy of open source remains what it has always been.

Not Apple Inc. The copyright industries.

Music companies. Movie companies. TV companies. Radio companies. Book companies. Magazine companies. Newspaper companies. (Often, now, the same company.)

Media has feared the Web since the day it was spun. The DMCA and No Electronic Theft Act were aimed at the Internet.

Turned out they were aimed at open source as well. Open source is a child of the Internet.

The copyright industries have demanded for a decade that before their content is released it must carry a Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. The other media treat this as a given, as obvious, as a necessity.

Of course it’s nothing of the sort. The success of Apple’s iTunes proved that the insistance on a DRM was counter-productive. Rather than assuring that people pay for each song, clip or pageview, it cemented Apple’s control of the music channel.

Despite a rush away from DRM by the music industry, it’s too late. Meanwhile, the video industries are demanding the same treatment. So you have Viacom’s suit against Google and the MPAA’s attempts to bankrupt BitTorrent users.

This has split the community. FOSS advocates refuse to accept the need for DRMs, so media won’t play on FOSS boxes. Open source companies give in reluctantly. The result is that Linux is a virtual content-free zone.

This is changing, slowly, but now resistance comes from the Linux user side of the divide. Many Linux users obey the FOSS imperative and resist DRMs. Right or wrong is not the question here. It’s just the reality.

Apple has used that reality to its advantage.

Apple embraces DRMs, and any other restrictions the copyright industries want. This is at the heart of its power. Its alliance with the copyright industries has brought Apple from the brink of irrelevance to dominance of the handheld Internet and gadget markets in this decade.

But don’t forget who gave Apple that power. If the battle with Apple is open source’s Vietnam, just remember it’s the copyright industries who began this Cold War.

Google earnings fall short

Google’s second quarter earnings missed Wall Street estimates and executives moved to allay concerns about the company’s ability to weather a dicey ad environment.

The search giant on Thursday reported net income of $1.25 billion, or $3.92 a share, on revenue of $5.37 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs (statement). Excluding charges, Google reported second quarter earnings of $4.63 a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of $4.74 on revenue of $5.37 billion. A picture is worth 1,000 words:

Aside from an earnings miss a sequential decline in paid clicks couldn’t have helped. However, let’s put this in perspective. Most companies would kill for this quarterly performance.

On the company’s conference call, executives said they were pleased with the quarter and reiterated that Google wasn’t seeing big macroeconomic issues. The most notable item on the call was Google’s analysis of economic conditions.

“We’re very well positioned in a slowdown especially if it gets worse,” said CEO Eric Schmidt, who added there would be “a flight to quality” if the economy tanked.

Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, talked about “a Wal-Mart effect” where consumers looking to save a few dollars will research and buy more goods online. Presumably these folks would use Google to save a few bucks.

Color me skeptical. Anyone that lived through the dot-com bust has heard these lines before and no company is immune if there’s a recession. Nevertheless, I’d agree Google is better positioned than its peers.

Among the early highlights:

As usual, CEO Eric Schmidt said Google was pleased with “what we think are good results.” He also talked up Google’s deal with Yahoo and reiterating that the two remain fierce competitors.
On DoubleClick, Schmidt noted that integration was underway and the team is together to carry display ad forward.
Varian said that the company was seeing positive trends across its verticals even in ones–financial services and automotive that have been getting pummeled. The message: ROI based ads will be last to get cut.
Executives didn’t offer any real color on DoubleClick’s performance other than noting that the unit was doing well. Memo to Google: It would sure be nice to see a display ad breakout next go round.
By the numbers (revenue includes TAC):

Operating income was $1.58 billion, up from $1.55 billion in the first quarter.
Traffic acquisition costs were $1.47 billion.
Google site revenue was $3.53 billion, up 42 percent from a year ago, but up 4 percent from the first quarter. Partner sites (AdSense) was $1.66 billion, up 22 percent from a year ago, but down from the first quarter. International revenue was 52 percent of the total compared to 48 percent from a year ago.
Paid clicks were up 19 percent, but down 1 percent from the first quarter.
Google had 19,604 full-time employees as of June 30.
Capital expenditures were $698 million, most of which was spent on IT.
According to Citi analyst Mark Mahaney’s cheat sheet, Google’s results generally fell into the neutral to negative category.

Run for WWF and Help Fight Climate Change

Run for WWF and Help Fight Climate Change
Sign up to run the Nike+ Human Race and help WWF fight climate change. Friends and family can sponsor your participation as you train for the 10K and run on August 31. Once you register, you can use the Nike+ pledge tool to raise money for WWF with every mile you run. Sign up today at nikeplus.com.

Unmanned flights give peek at melting ice

Unmanned flights give peek at melting ice
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Aircraft flying over Greenland will offer a view of the melting Greenland Ice Sheet and its potential for raising the global sea level, U.S. scientists said.

The two unmanned Manta planes will help scientists determine whether the ice sheet's melt rate will accelerate, Betsy Weatherhead of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory said in a news release.

A view of the region from 500-1,000 feet above the ice can provide fine-scale measurements of the water and surface of the glaciers, said Weatherhead, a scientist for the Arctic test bed of NOAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. The Mantas can provide that view, cruising at low altitudes over little-known terrain without endangering humans.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is shrinking at a rate of 40-50 cubic miles annually, a pace that's accelerating, NOAA said. Better observations could help explain the role of short-lived surface lakes and why the edges of the ice sheet are melting so fast.

"We're concerned that as temperatures rise, more heat will cause more melting, more melting will create bigger lakes, and the rate of ice loss will accelerate," said NOAA's John Adler, the project manager.

The unmanned flights will last three weeks.

Intel rolls out Centrino 2 processor

Intel on Tuesday launched its Centrino 2 processor with integrated graphics for notebooks. This chip platform, formerly known as Montevina, was delayed by a few weeks due to technical and certification problems.

The news comes as Intel preps its second quarter earnings, which will be closely watched. Intel is expected to report earnings of 25 cents a share after market close and the results should be on target. Why? Most of Intel’s sales come from abroad–it is fairly insulated from the U.S. economy. Nevertheless, profit margins will be under the microscope to see if AMD is putting up a pricing fight.

Intel had planned to roll out Centrino 2 about the same time AMD unveiled its Puma platform for notebook PCs. AMD, however, was out first with its chip and integrated graphics–a rare win for Intel’s primary rival.

In the meantime, the Centrino 2 lineup includes dual-core processors–including one running at 3.06 GHz–with plans to unveil eight processors in 90 days. That batch will include the first mobile quad-core chips. Intel plans to have a lineup of 14 new processors to power laptops. The first installment of the Centrino 2 rollout includes five dual core processors.

Intel’s big pitch with the Centrino 2 is better performance, improved battery life, faster Wi-Fi and WiMax in the future. Intel expects nearly 250 systems built on the Centrino 2 platform.

Among the details:

The processors come with a faster 1066MHz front side bus and up to 6MB of L2 cache;
Three versions of the first five operate at 25 watts;
Processor components can idle to save power;
Wi-Fi data rates up to 450 Mbps.
Intel said Centrino 2 laptops will hit the market later this month and into August.