WordPress.com parent company Automattic has acquired Simperium, the startup that runs a data syncing platform and is also well-known for Simplenote, the personal note-keeping app that's been described as "a lightweight version of Evernote."Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_wVygnQKFUk/
independent spirit awards 2012 oscar predictions jim jones tony stewart kurt busch kurt busch nba dunk contest 2012
Customers take photos while waiting on line to purchase the Apple iPhone 5 outside the Apple Fifth Avenue flagship store on the first morning it went on sale in September 2012
Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
On Wednesday afternoon, Apple announced that during the last three months of 2012, it earned more money than any other non-oil company has ever earned in a single quarter. (Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, and ExxonMobil have each topped Apple?s earnings one time.) What?s more, during all of 2012, Apple?s profits topped $41.7 billion, which is also a record for any firm outside the oil industry. (ExxonMobil earned a few billion more in 2006, 2007, and 2008.)
The superlatives didn?t end there. Apple sold nearly 48 million iPhones over the holidays. It didn?t specify how many of them were iPhone 5s, but it?s likely that most were the latest model, which would also be a record for the smartphone business?the iPhone 5?s closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy SIII, took seven months to sell just 40 million units. Then there?s the iPad: Apple sold 23 million in three months, which is about 50 percent more than it sold during the holidays last year, and also a record. No other company has ever come close to selling as many tablets in so short a time.
To sum up, the world?s most valuable company posted one of the most stunning quarterly earnings reports in corporate history. Sales of its most important products were through the roof. So investors were thrilled, right? Nope. Apple?s stock began to swoon in after-hours trading, and today it?s down 12 percent. Commentators are saying that Apple has ?hit a wall,? that it is ?slowing down,? that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Apple?s ?magic.?
All of that is totally bogus. It?s wrong in the specifics?if you dive into the details of Apple?s quarter, it?s hard to find a single sign that consumers are sick of its products?and it?s wrong with regard to the larger storyline. Rather than paint a picture of a company in decline, Apple?s earnings in 2012 show just the opposite. In a year of stiff competition, Apple managed to do something that none of its rivals could: make tons and tons of money by selling lots and lots of products at premium prices.
If I headed up any of Apple?s competitors, I would look at its quarterly earnings with a mix of dejection and awe. In 2012, Samsung, Apple?s most worthy rival, released dozens of phones across a range of prices and screen sizes, and it spent an order of magnitude more on marketing those devices. Even so, its flagship phone couldn?t even come close to outselling the iPhone, and its overall corporate profits didn?t match what Apple made from the iPhone alone. Apple?s dominance of the tablet business is even starker. This year several of Apple?s rivals put out great iPad competitors like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD that are selling at cost. And yet not only did iPad sales grow, they grew faster than the industry average. In other words, Apple?s rivals threw everything they could at the firm and still couldn?t dent its sales records. If that?s hitting a wall, every one of Apple?s rivals wishes it were lucky enough to hit that wall, too.
If Apple did so well, why is Wall Street shellacking it? There are a few small problems and one big worry. First, Apple didn?t sell as many products as Wall Street analysts had predicted. Analysts expected 50 million iPhone sales and 5 million Mac sales?about 2 million phones and 1 million Macs more than Apple reported selling. Second, its growth rate is slowing, especially its growth in profits. In the holiday quarter between 2010 and 2011, Apple?s profits almost doubled, and between 2011 and 2012 profits more than doubled. In the last year, though, profits were basically flat?yes, they were flat at near-record levels, but flat is flat. And that gets us to problem No. 3: Apple?s profitability is declining?for every dollar in sales during the holidays in 2012, Apple made less than it did during the holidays in 2011.
None of those problems, though, justifies the stock slide we?ve seen today. Let?s look at the small shortfall in sales: As CEO Tim Cook explained in a conference call with investors on Wednesday, one of the main reasons that Apple didn?t sell more iPhones, iPads, and Macs during the holidays is that it couldn?t make them fast enough. Throughout the holidays, supplies of the iPhone 5, iPhone 4, iPad Mini, and the company?s latest iMac were extremely tight. You couldn?t just go into a store and buy Apple?s newest products (as you could for any other phone, tablet, or PC on the market)?instead, the only way to get one was to order it days or weeks in advance of delivery.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=95d99615ed40249ffcd33227cd282f80
michael pineda charles taylor bruins boston bruins carl crawford mad cow disease rampart
Paul Bhatti (R) speaks as Irish journalist John Waters looks on. Photo by Nicholas Erickson, Courtesy of New York Encounter.
.- Paul Bhatti, Pakistan's Minister of Minority Affairs, called religious liberty a Christian value that can enhance life in the country and impart stability to society at large.
?With religious freedom societies are more likely to flourish, because people can express their deepest belief and highest ideas, so societies are more stable,? he said in a Jan. 19 interview with CNA.
?It's the wrong concept that religious freedom leads to instability, but actually it leads to more public order and more economic empowerment, so this is the Christian teaching.?
Christianity can also offer to Pakistani culture its emphasis on compassion and the works of mercy, Bhatti observed.
?John Paul II said that Christian teaching...should be some kind of assistance to the human being. We don't assist only (one) who is Christian, we have to assist a human being who is suffering, who needs your help, who should be honored and respected for his dignity, for this is the teaching of Christianity.?
?So if we follow the teaching of our Gospels, that will bring...the real message of freedom,? he noted.
Bhatti made his remarks at the New York Encounter, a three-day cultural festival in the city ? sponsored by the Catholic ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation ? which explored the theme of ?Experiencing Freedom.?
He discussed ?Freedom in Politics,? reflecting on his brother Shahbaz who was killed in 2011 for his support of Pakistani Christians and his opposition to the country's blasphemy laws, which are chiefly used to persecute non-Muslims.
After Shahbaz' death, Paul was appointed to his brother's post as Minister of National Harmony and Minority Affairs, again the only Christian in the Pakistani government. He said it was a ?challenge? to take on this position.
?I found myself in a situation, though it was very difficult to accept it, because before I was living a very routine, normal life,? he said. As minister of minority affairs Bhatti at times must travel with a security entourage and suffers threats to his life.
?But next to that, if you feel you can make some difference and change this culture or at least give your small contribution to this culture, which can grow and can extend on a wider basis in society, I think I must dedicate my life for this.?
He offered a hopeful vision for Pakistan, saying ?this is the encouragement I get from this kind of situation, and I feel there is space for change, there is a possibility that this culture can become a tolerant culture, we can bring harmony in this society, but we have to start from somewhere.?
On the current movement to have his brother Shahbaz canonized, Bhatti said he has ?no doubt he is a martyr, because his whole life was dedicated to the teaching of the bible and he was a strong believer of Our Lord Jesus Christ...we are getting help from him.?
?He never negotiated his faith, and he expressed his faith openly everywhere, even when he knew he could be killed. So in that context, I think he has all the possibilities? of being a saint, Bhatti said.
The Pakistani minister recounted going into his brother's room after his martyrdom and described it as ?very small? with ?a corner where he used to pray every morning, and there was only a simple carpet, a rosary, a statue, and a bible.?
?He believed so strongly that he laid down his life for his Christian principles and for Jesus Christ.?
Bhatti said his experience of freedom has been shaped by having lived in both Pakistan and in the western world. He is by training a surgeon, and studied in both Belgium and Italy.
?You appreciate the value of freedom when you see a country like Pakistan where freedom of expression and faith is violated, and people are living under oppression, so then you start realizing the value of freedom, what freedom means.?
He said it is important to promote freedom in Pakistan because without it, people can get involved in such problems as terrorism and sectarian violence.
Bhatti pointed to illiteracy and poverty, as well as ?instability in government and politics? as factors which contribute to a lack of freedom in such places as Pakistan.
?What I can do now is only the analysis, and the next step will be how to get that real kind of freedom which a human being must have, in a society where it is violated.?
In Pakistan, these violations come often from blasphemy laws, which strictly prohibit defamation of Muhammad and the Koran. The laws are often used to settle personal scores or to persecute minorities.
Bhatti was able to assist a Christian girl who in August was accused of blasphemy. Rimsha Masih is a 14-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was arrested Aug. 16 after she was accused of burning pages of the Koran.
It later emerged that an imam from her neighborhood planted pages of the Koran among burnt pages in Masih's bag.
Bhatti said that he was informed of the case soon after by local Christian families, because after such an accusation is made, mob violence will often flare up against minorities in the neighborhood.
?They had a clash between Muslims and Christians...they were wanting to get them out from that community, and they found this solution, blaming somebody, accusing them of blasphemy; this is a tool often used in Pakistan, some people use it for personal benefit, as it happened in this case.?
Bhatti said that as soon as he was told of the situation, he phoned ?all those involved in security? to ensure protection of Masih and local Christians, but ?they were not sure if they were able to control the mob.?
?I went to the mosques, I talked to the imams,? he said, asking them not to encourage violence against the local Christians.
?They understood and...it was quite amazing, the first time that they promised they would not do this, to support me.?
The Islamabad High Court dismissed the charges against Masih Nov. 20, and on Jan. 15 the Pakistani Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by her accuser.
Many hope that Masih's suit might lead to a relaxation of the blasphemy laws. ?I was lucky, and am honored to be part of this case,? Bhatti reflected.
Tags: Religious freedom, Pakistan
Ads by AdsLiveMedia.com
Source: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pakistani-official-society-flourishes-with-religious-freedom/
yom hashoah yolo liquidmetal gsa scandal kelis dick clark dies ibogaine
The sexual assault scandal at Lackland Air Force Base, the subject of a House hearing Wednesday, is prompting the service to grapple with the need for change. Here's an inside look at how the Air Force is going about it.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III (l.) and Air Force Gen. Edward Rice, Jr., testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, before a House Armed Services Committee hearing on sexual misconduct by basic training instructors at Lackland Air Force Base.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
EnlargeIn the days before Congress held Wednesday's hearing on the now-infamous sexual assaults at Lackland Air Force Base, senior Air Force officials and advisers met at the Pentagon to hash out just how to tackle the problem within the ranks.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Their discussion closely mirrored the questions that lawmakers raised during Wednesday's hearing, including, ?How could there have been such a systematic breakdown of leadership?? and ?Is the US military inadvertently creating an environment more conducive to sexual harassment??
On this point, the Air Force?s highest ranking officer, Gen. Mark Welsh III, was candid about what he sees as the keys to solving the problem.?
?Why, on what was undoubtedly the worst day of a victim?s life, did they not turn to us for help?? he asked.??We are missing something fundamental in human-to-human interaction that will allow them to feel safe enough to come to us and report and let us put our arms around them and help them through this horrible event in your life,? he added in his testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee.??That?s at the heart of the problem.??
At Lackland, the Air Force identified 59 victims of sexual assault and misconduct. In a wide-ranging investigation that involved ?at least 7,700 interviews by 550 investigators, the Air Force has begun disciplinary proceedings against 32 instructors, roughly 4 percent of the instructors who have served in basic military training over the past three years.
Combing through the last year of sexual assault statistics, US military officials found a statistic that particularly troubled them: Nearly one-third of victims who agreed to participate in the prosecutions of their alleged offenders changed their minds before the trials, and decided not to cooperate with the prosecution.
On a recent winter day in a classified meeting room deep in the Pentagon, representatives from the Air Force?s education programs, from basic training to ROTC, are trying to pinpoint how to make sure the newest members of the Air Force get the message that leadership actually wants to know if they have been hurt ? and that those preying on their fellow troops will be found and prosecuted with new tools that the force has not used in the past.
?It?s not just ?Don?t sexually assault people.? This is a piece of respect ? how do you weave that in? It?s about how you lead people, how you treat people," says Brig. Gen. Eden Murrie, director of Air Force Services, the meeting leader. ?That?s what we?re doing today. We?re looking at everything. Does it need to be radically changed? Do we just tweak it around the edges??
On dry erase boards and PowerPoint slides around the room are names of programs that the Air Force is using to try to impart the unacceptability of assault and disrespect to its troops.?They run the spectrum from ?Frank: The Undetected Rapist? to ?Street Smarts: You Deserve to be Here? to ?Sex Offenders, Service Members, and You: Leadership Beyond the Obvious.??
Conversation turns to ?hunting season? at the Air Force Academy, the time when underclassmen have completed their first year of schooling and are then allowed to date upperclassmen.?
?That would offer a really good opportunity for conversation: ?What do you think of that term?? Let?s talk about maybe why we don?t want that in our culture anymore,? says Anne Munch, an attorney and sexual assault prevention consultant for the Pentagon.
?That?s a really good idea,? says Murrie.
?And how does this idea coincide with the idea of being a wingman?? adds another meeting attendee. The Air Force has been emphasizing the notion of bystander intervention, the idea that when a fellow airman is being harassed, someone should step in and stop it.
?Or being a leader? You can?t be a hunter on a base, either,? says Murrie. ?How do you recognize the hunters that key in on new people on a base??
A few days later, at the House Armed Services Committee, these same questions came from lawmakers, who recounted stories of new Air Force recruits being directed to meet their trainers in laundry rooms and broom closets, where they were sexually assaulted and raped.
Welsh told lawmakers he is combing through programs to try to figure out what works, and what doesn?t.
He testified that he has asked staff to ?bring in something new? every week. ?Something we haven?t tried, some idea they found somewhere else from a member of Congress, from an advocacy group, from a university or another service that tried something that seemed to work at a certain base or a certain demographic group,? he said.
On Friday, the Air Force announced that it had conducted a sweep of more than 100 installations for pornography and other offensive materials, from videos and calendars to coffee mugs and song lyrics.?
?While these things may or may not directly relate to sexual assault, they certainly do create an environment more conducive to sexual harassment and unprofessional relationships, and I personally believe that both of those are leading indicators for sexual assault,? Walsh said Wednesday.
?We have to do everything possible to prevent this. We can?t accept this,? he added. ?It?s horrible, and we all know that.?
lunar eclipse alabama football florida lotto dancing with the stars sean taylor Lisa Robin Kelly Nexus 4
READING, Pa. (AP) ? Everyone knows soda can be bad for your teeth. Sometimes, it can apparently threaten the morning commute, too.
Police say two tractor-trailers collided on U.S. Route 422 outside Reading, Pa., around 12:40 a.m. Tuesday. The Reading Eagle reports (http://bit.ly/10mYCVv ) one of the trucks was carrying 2-liter bottles of soda.
Hundreds of gallons of sugary drink spilled onto the highway and froze in the frigid early morning temperatures. Those slick conditions from the crash ended up shutting down the roadway in Exeter Township for more than five hours.
Traffic was detoured until the road reopened shortly after 6 a.m.
___
Information from: Reading Eagle, http://www.readingeagle.com/
how i met your mother Jordan Pruitt real housewives of new jersey Kanye West sex tape emmys emmys torrey smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is likely to rely mostly on existing rules and on flexing executive power to execute its second-term environmental agenda, sidestepping Congress as it sets about radically reducing greenhouse gases generated by major polluters.
Just a day after President Barack Obama said in his inaugural address that for the United States not to respond to the threat of climate change would "betray our children and future generations," White House spokesman Jay Carney tamped down expectations for bold new moves.
Carney declined to define specific policies, suggesting the White House will expand its current strategy to regulate and reduce carbon emissions.
"The president will build on, when it comes to climate change, the progress that was achieved in his first term," Carney said at a press briefing.
More details on climate initiatives could come out of the president's State of the Union address on February 12.
Environmentalists have judged Obama as too timid in his first term, especially after a congressional stalemate ended legislative efforts.
The White House has pointed to its drafting of emissions standards for the construction of new power plants and, along with the auto industry, setting stringent fuel efficiency standards for new cars.
The United States is undergoing a boom in domestic energy production, from the oilfields of North Dakota to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that has unlocked massive gas reserves in several states. Taking strong environmental steps while still supporting aggressive drilling and exploration will be a balancing act.
Fracking is a mixed blessing, prompting local protests over concerns about possible water pollution but also lowering emissions by displacing coal at power plants.
CLEAN AIR CLOUT
Obama is expected to name an entirely new energy policy team in the next few weeks. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are departing. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is widely expected to leave soon.
Carol Browner, Obama's former White House climate and energy czar, said whoever steps in for Jackson and the others would be following a "path has already been charted by the president.
"I think it's an agenda that has been set under presidential leadership and I think that will continue," Browner said.
Climate analysts guess that the EPA could soon announce a move to use its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
By April the agency is expected to complete carbon emission standards for building new power plants that would effectively prevent any new coal-fired facilities from being built. Next would come a more controversial effort, setting standards for existing coal-fired plants, which account for 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases. The measure is sure to provoke industry lawsuits.
"The most likely area for the administration to pursue, in light of what the president said, would be using the New Source Performance Standard (NSPS) for existing power plants under the Clean Air Act," said Dina Kruger, a former director of the Climate Change Division at the EPA.
The NSPS is a program under the Clean Air Act that sets a limit on the rate at which a facility can emit using the best available emission controls.
The EPA is required to produce greenhouse gas standards for existing sources following a 2010 settlement with environmental groups and some states. It has not yet set a deadline.
Ed Whitfield, chair of the House subcommittee on energy and environment, told reporters that Republicans would not be able to curb legislatively any rules the EPA proposes.
"The reality is, I doubt the Senate would pass anything we would pass to repeal them," said the Kentucky representative. "I know there have been court challenges already and I expect that there will be more."
Recent court decisions that have touched on the legal basis for the EPA to regulate carbon have mostly come down in its favor.
David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate and Clean Air Program, said this could embolden the EPA as it tackles rules that may be more aggressive than those rolled out under Jackson.
"The agency has a very good batting record on the clean air side. Carbon and climate (regulations) have come through completely unscathed," he said.
Green groups and certain states may sue the EPA to force it to regulate carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions from other unregulated sources such as oil refineries and methane released by fracking.
While the agency is used to being sued by both green and industry groups, the number of cases is apt to increase.
"This is shaping up to be four years of litigation," Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Energy Institute, told Reuters this month.
Kruger said the EPA would be wise to prioritize just a handful of new rules to tackle as it faces a constrained budget in the coming years.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS AHEAD?
Browner, who was Clinton's EPA administrator, said Obama could use executive orders to direct vast federal agencies to adopt measures that could limit their own energy use, a significant reduction of emissions.
A 2009 executive order required federal agencies to develop and implement sustainable energy plans and review them annually to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water and waste.
The Department of Energy has issued 16 new or updated energy efficiency standards for home appliances, commercial buildings and industrial facilities that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5 billion tons - the equivalent of taking 1.4 billion cars off the road for a year - by 2030.
Agencies with heavy carbon footprints, such as the Department of Defense, have launched a number of initiatives, such as buying a fleet of electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy.
But market forces more than regulations could have the biggest impact on carbon emissions in the coming years, with cleaner natural gas from fracking continuing to displace coal as a source of electricity.
"When it comes to carbon, the market has actually done a lot of things that you would hope policy would do. I don't think you need a whole lot of policy to increase gas use (to replace coal) in power generation," said Nikos Tsafos, analyst at PFC Energy in Washington.
(Additional reporting by Tim Gardner, Ayesha Rascoe; editing by Ros Krasny and Prudence Crowther)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obamas-next-climate-steps-apt-temperate-034002789.html
bernard hopkins nfl draft grades devils dodgers rachel maddow gia la riots
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has joined CBS News as a contributor.
CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes say Rice "will use her insight and vast experience to explore issues facing America at home and abroad."
Rice served as secretary of state during President George W. Bush's second term. She was the first African-American woman to hold the post.
Rice was Bush's national security adviser during his first term and worked on the National Security Council under President George H.W. Bush.
Associated Pressdanielle fishel FedEx Gabriel Aubry halle berry cyber monday deals small business saturday small business saturday
