General Medical Council launches new disciplinary inquiry into Freddy Patel and extends ban to 31 December Pathologist Dr Freddy Patel’s suspension from the UK medical register, in part for a botched postmortem that delayed a 2002 murder investigation , has been extended pending a new disciplinary inquiry. Patel was the pathologist who conducted the initial postmortem on newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who died during the G20 protests in London in April 2009. The profession’s regulatory body, the General Medical Council (GMC), was not able to confirm whether this was the subject of an allegation that might lead to Patel’s latest appearance before a fitness-to-practise panel. Patel was suspended in March this year for at least four months for “irresponsible” reports on a postmortem in 2002, which delayed a murder investigation, as well as dishonesty and failing to redress previous shortcomings. James Meikle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bad: Getting arrested on suspicion of DUI. Worse: Getting arrested on suspicion of DUI at 10:30 in the morning. That’s what happened yesterday to Samantha Ronson, DJ and Lindsay Lohan ex extraordinaire. Ronson was pulled over on her way home from Las Vegas, where she DJed Sunday night, when…
Continue reading …Report: data centers accounted for just 1 to 1.5 percent of electricity use last year, Google claims less than 1 percent of that
August 2, 2011 No Comment
You’d think, watching companies like Apple break ground on sprawling data centers, that the number of servers powering our untethered lives was on the rise. In a different decade, you might have been right. But not this one. According to a study prepared at the request of The New York Times , the number of servers in use has declined “significantly” since 2005. That’s mostly because of the financial crisis of 2008, says lead researcher Jonathan G. Koomey of Stanford University, but we also can’t discount the effect of more efficient technologies. What’s more, he says, servers worldwide consume less energy than you might have guessed: they accounted for somewhere between 1 and 1.5 percent of global electricity use in 2010. And while Google, the king of cloud computing, has been cagey about revealing just how many servers house its treasure trove of data, the company said that of that 1 to 1.5 percent, it accounted for less than 1 percent — meaning, just a hundredth of a percent of all the electricity consumed last year. All told, data centers’ energy consumption has risen 56 percent since 2005 — a far cry from the EPAs 2007 prediction that this figure would double by 2010, with annual costs ballooning to $7.4 billion. Then again, this slower-than-expected growth could well be temporary. Though Koomey can’t specify to what extent the financial crisis and technological advancements are to blame, he insists, broadly speaking, that we’re primarily seeing fallout from the economic slowdown — a stay of execution, of sorts, for those of us rooting for energy conservation. Report: data centers accounted for just 1 to 1.5 percent of electricity use last year, Google claims less than 1 percent of that originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …As nasty as the debt ceiling fight was, it was just a warm-up for the 2012 presidential election, which is shaping up to be a major referendum on the size, role, and philosophy of government, reports the Washington Post . “This had nothing to do with the debt ceiling,” said a…
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AustinReed955 says: http://t.co/0dFyHy3 1 more reason to enjoy some vino @ the RTO this week. Free tix all morning long!
Continue reading …What’s Stopping You?: Shatter the 9 Most Common Myths Keeping You from Starting Your Own Business
August 2, 2011 No Comment
Type: Book Title: What’s Stopping You?: Shatter the 9 Most Common Myths Keeping You from Starting Your Own Business See all customer reviews Product Description: “This book dispels the myths surrounding the process of starting a business, and gives hope and encouragement to people who would like to give it a try.” – Tim Berry , Founder and CEO, Palo Alto Software Creators of the World’s Most Popular “Bruce Barringer and Duane Ireland’s new book, What’s Stopping You? is an insightful and thought-provoking examination of nine common myths that discourage individuals from starting new businesses. … This book is much-needed and long overdue…. The value of What’s Stopping You? is that it effectively debunks the false premises that too often preclude acts of business start up. What’s Stopping You? is an encouraging, instructive, and eloquently written book that would be a valuable addition to any aspiring entrepreneur’s bookshelf.” Jeffrey G. Covin , Samuel and Pauline Glaubinger Professor of Entrepreneurship, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana “Over the years I have observed many seemingly great business opportunities never get off the ground. Quite often, what holds these aspiring entrepreneurs back are common misconceptions about the difficulties and risks of starting a new business. In What’s Stopping You?, Professors Barringer and Ireland systematically break down the myths that hold many entrepreneurs back from pursuing their dreams.” Jeffrey R. Cornwall , The Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee “Barringer and Ireland simultaneously demystify start-up misconceptions and empower readers to explore their own opportunity with renewed passion. Many prospective entrepreneurs feel trapped by myths, the authors carefully detail the myth’s fallacies and encourage the reader to see beyond start-up stereotypes. Future and experienced entrepreneurs have much to learn from What’s Stopping You? ” Sarah Schupp , Founder/CEO, University Parent Media, Boulder, Colorado “Creating your own business from scratch can be a mental, emotional, and financial roller coaster ride. Bruce Barringer and Duane Ireland’s book provides a ‘voice of reason’ and helps give you the confidence to realize you can do it. They recognize that starting a business is hard work, but that it is attainable–and that you should celebrate your accomplishments every step of the way.” Jan Stephenson Kelly , Cofounder/CEO, Spark Craft Studios, Cambridge, MA Business Plan Software Follow Your Dream! Start Your Own Winning Business—Now! •Get past the myths that keep you from making the leap •Gain the practical skills and confidence you need to succeed •Quickly evaluate business ideas and pick a winner •Launch your company and watch it grow and profit Build the business you’ve always dreamed of! Take control of your future and achieve the breakthrough success that’s only possible when you’re working for yourself. You can do it–and this book will show you how. Forget the myths that have been standing in your way. You don’t need to be rich. You don’t need extensive business experience. You don’t need to be a genius. You don’t need a revolutionary product or service. You can handle the risk, the competition, and the challenges. The proof’s on every page of this book: case studies of “ordinary” people building great businesses and practical techniques you can use, too–every step of the way! Features: ISBN13: 9780132444576 Condition: New Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold! See the details
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A new super-PAC supporting Texas Governor Rick Perry’s hopeful presidential bid is releasing a statewide ad campaign in Iowa hailing Perry as the “better option” for president. The group Jobs for Iowa reportedly told Politico that it has spent just under $40,000 for two week’s of air time on Fox News Channel in the state. According to reports, the group is speculated to have the financial backing… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Blaze Discovery Date : 02/08/2011 03:00 Number of articles : 4
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The 83-year-old ousted president faces charges of corruption and unlawful killing which could carry the death penalty Egypt’s faltering revolution will reach a defining moment on Wednesday morning when toppled president Hosni Mubarak goes on trial to face charges of corruption and unlawful killing. Just over six months after the start of an uprising that would eventually overthrow his regime, ending 30 years of autocratic rule and sending shockwaves across the region, the 83-year-old is scheduled to appear in the dock in white prison overalls and will stand behind the bars of a specially constructed metal cage – although there are some doubts whether he will actually appear. His much-anticipated downfall is to be screened live on Egyptian state television, attracting tens of millions of viewers. For most, it will be a scene that only last year seemed utterly unimaginable. “Egypt’s many problems cannot be solved by one appearance of Mubarak in a courtroom,” said Soheir Basma, a middle-aged Cairo woman who will be tuning in for the trial. “But people must see justice being done, and maybe the sight of that happening to Mubarak will inspire us to carry on fighting for our own rights, the rights he denied us for so long.” Yet as the final preparations are made to ferry the ailing former leader from his hospital bed in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to the temporary courthouse – a police academy that once bore his name, in the sandy outskirts of the capital – few Egyptians are under the illusion that this trial will be a panacea for the multiple problems their country is facing. Earlier this week military forces stormed Tahrir Square, where a protest against army generals – the country’s de facto rulers since Mubarak was ousted in February – had been under way since early last month. Using tactics reminiscent of Mubarak’s security services, soldiers and riot police beat demonstrators and dragged several off into military detention. Revolutionary youth groups have called for daily marches to condemn the violence. As Egypt lurches towards parliamentary elections in November, when the armed forces have promised to return to their barracks, many are sceptical that the military top brass will succeed in holding Mubarak to account. “It’s crucially important that Mubarak gets a fair hearing, because this needs to be the trial that breaks the cycle of impunity which characterised his 30 years in power,” said Heba Morayef, of Human Rights Watch. “Mubarak’s Egypt was all about police being above the law, so if this trial proceeds in accordance with due process, then it’s not only very politically significant but it also sets a precedent regarding accountability in this country, and changes the balance of power between government security services and the rule of law.” However, there is uncertainty over whether Mubarak will appear or not, with some reports suggesting that even if he does enter the dock, the trial will be swiftly adjourned – a potentially welcome compromise for the ruling generals, who are facing intense public pressure to see the prosecution through but fear that politically explosive revelations may leak out when Mubarak takes the stand, implicating the army top brass. Mubarak is to be flown by military helicopter to an airstrip close to the police academy, before being driven the final 500 metres by ambulance. His co-defendants – his sons Alaa and Gamal, former interior minister Habib El-Adly, and six other senior regime officials – will be transported from Tora prison by armoured vehicles. Up to 8,000 soldiers and police officers are being deployed to secure the trial. In the streets of Cairo on Tuesday, conversations were full of the impending legal drama. “He’s definitely guilty, and a quick verdict would be really good for the country as it would bring all the protests to an end and get things moving again,” said Ahmed Yusuf, a 26-year-old student of commerce at Ain Shams university. “Mubarak didn’t care about us. He took no interest in his people – and that’s why he never noticed that we were rising up to defeat him. I’m going to be very happy tomorrow.” Others sounded a different tone. “To be honest, I was detached from the regime – I never received anything good from it, and I never felt particularly oppressed by it,” said Karim Hadi, a garage worker who has a college degree in factory management but has been unable to find a job in his chosen field. “I see Mubarak like any other traitor or common criminal, and I hope he gets what he deserves.” Mubarak could face the death penalty if convicted. But even a guilty verdict may not be enough to quell much of the popular anger stemming from his reign, particularly as the “unlawful killing” charges refer only to the 18-day uprising this year – and to none of the alleged brutality that proceeded it. “My biggest regret is that Mubarak will never face trial for the 30 years of police brutality, systematic torture and forced disappearances carried out under his rule,” said Morayef. “His legacy is such a destructive one because he institutionalised abuse, and it will take us generations to overcome that.” Hosni Mubarak Egypt Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
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Social media site boosted by DST Global’s $400m, as value doubles since December and daily traffic triples in a year Twitter, the microblogging website that lets users tweet messages of 140 characters or less, is now worth $8bn (£4.9bn). The firm’s new price tag comes after a $400m investment in the loss-making venture from serial social media investor DST Global. Twitter is now nominally worth about the same as rating agency Moody’s, which had revenues of $1.2bn in the first six months of 2011 and is nearly as valuable as Marks & Spencer. The huge valuation reflects high expectations for the company. Confirming the investment, Twitter also announced that its users now send 200m tweets a day, up from 65m a year ago. “One year ago, there were approximately 150,000 registered Twitter apps. Now, there are more than one million that connect to Twitter. And our team has grown from 250 people to more than 600 in the past 12 months,” said the firm in a blog post. “We have the opportunity to expand Twitter’s reach with a significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors,” Twitter said. “We will use these resources to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international expansion.” The new funds are part of $800m Twitter wants to raise as it grooms its business for a potential initial public offering. DST Global, the investment fund led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, also owns stakes in Facebook, online gaming firm Zynga and discount firm Groupon, all of which have plans to go public. Twitter is believed to be using half the money to buy back shares from employees and backers. The rest of the money will be used to help the San Francisco-based company develop its service as it competes for advertising dollars with larger rivals such as Facebook. Twitter may bring in $150m in advertising this year, according to research firm eMarketer, three times what it made last year. The analyst estimates that Facebook brought in ad revenue of $1.86bn last year. Twitter’s valuation has soared along with its peers as investors chase after the world’s top social media companies. At $8bn Twitter’s valuation is more than double the valuation it received last December when Silicon Valley investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers made a $200m investment in the firm. The new money brings Twitter’s total investment to just over $1.16bn in four years. The company also needs cash to build its international business. Twitter has targeted London as its first major office outside the US and has appointed a UK head, Tony Wang, and a UK-based communications staff. Twitter’s new valuation comes as shares in social media companies now going public are attracting frenzied buying. Shares in LinkedIn, the business-based social media firm, skyrocketed more than 80% in their first day of trading. They are trading at more than double their $45 opening price and the firm is valued at $9.5bn. But not all the new generation of social media firms have fared so well. Pandora, an online music company, priced its shares at $16 apiece and experienced a big bounce up on its first day but is now trading at around $13. Renren, often called China’s Facebook, soared 28.6% on its first day of trading in May, closing at $18 a share, well above its $14 opening price and raising $740m. The shares have subsequently slumped to about $10 as investors worry about lack of profits and the Chinese market. Twitter Social networking Investing Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …‘Shock Doctrine’ IMF Economists Are Pushing The Same Remedies In The UK That Didn’t Work Here. Why?
August 2, 2011 No CommentThis caught my eye because it’s really quite crazy . Last year, the International Monetary Fund pushed the UK quite aggressively for an austerity budget — and now they’re warning that the UK austerity budget has resulted in just 0.2 per cent growth in the second quarter of the year, following two quarters of poor growth . Gee, you don’t suppose unemployment, wage cuts and the additional costs incurred by public program cuts resulted in people having less money to spend, causing a demand problem? So what strategy do they recommend if growth doesn’t improve? Come on, you already know: tax cuts and more quantitative easing. You know, the same things that didn’t work here! It’s not really science with these people; it’s fundamentalist religious dogma, like the conviction that Adam and Eve co-existed with dinosaurs — that, and disaster capitalism: In a comprehensive analysis of the state of the British economy, the economic watchdog said that, between them, families would have £35 billion less disposable income due to the Government’s attempts to tackle the deficit. In addition, a fall in the value of houses would wipe off more than a tenth of their “tangible” wealth in real terms by 2016, the IMF said in its report. The forecast for household finances came amid a growing political row about recent slow growth. George Osborne has come under pressure from David Cameron to come up with new ways to stimulate the economy. The IMF reiterated its support for the Government’s programme of cuts, which it said had “significantly reduced the risk” of a sovereign debt crisis. However, it warned that tax reductions might be necessary if the rate of economic growth did not improve. And although it said the Government had made the right decisions to tackle the deficit, the impact on households would be significant. As total disposable income last year was £974 billion, the IMF estimated that the cost would be roughly £35 billion annually – shared between Britain’s 26 million households. Alongside the squeeze on savings, it said near-static house prices until 2016 would knock 12 per cent off families’ “tangible” wealth in real terms as the value of property fell in comparison to home owners’ income. The damage to household finances would weigh on the recovery for years, it warned, as consumers had less money to spend on the high street. Due largely to the weakness of consumer spending, the IMF is predicting growth this year of 1.5 per cent — against official forecasts of 1.7 per cent. Despite its concerns, the IMF again threw its weight behind the Government’s austerity measures. “The weakness in growth and rise in inflation raises the question whether it is time to adjust macroeconomic policies. The answer is no,” it said. “Recovery from the financial crisis is under way, but is bumpy and incomplete … Fiscal headwinds will continue.” Vicky Redwood, senior UK economist at Capital Economics, the research consultants, said the analysis demonstrated that “households are in for a tough five years if not more”. “It’s payback time for the high spending of the past decade,” she said. “It’s going to be a prolonged period of nastiness for households.” You could spread that irony with a knife. Is it time to “adjust macroeconomic policies?” Let’s ask Paul Krugman, the man who quite literally wrote the book on macroeconomics – and also wrote about the planned austerity cuts for the UK back in October 2010 : The Nobel prizewinning American economist Paul Krugman launched a scathing attack today on chancellor George Osborne’s spending cuts, just as a prominent member of the Bank of England’s rate setting committee argued that the cuts paved the way for strong growth . Krugman believes the government is using the financial crisis of 2008 as a cover for advancing an ideological programme to downsize the welfare state, saying the plan “boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction” and has been sold to the public with an unprecedented and unwarranted degree of fear-mongering. The British plan, he wrote, appears to come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the US treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Great Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. “Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis”. As a result, the British government seems “determined to ignore the lessons of history”. But economist Andrew Sentance, who has gained notoriety as a member of the monetary policy committee for consistently voting for an interest-rate rise, said in the Sun: “Overall, I do not think the review will endanger our recovery. “In some areas, such as the health service and schools, spending will rise. To make room for this, spending is being cut back more heavily elsewhere. Taking public spending as a whole, it will still rise in cash terms over the next few years but slightly below inflation.”
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