Article published on Dec 28, 2007
By Hannah Glover
A Washington State woman is suing Fidelity for not stopping her husband from stealing her identity and bilking her and their children out of nearly $350,000....
IN A CASE CLOSELY WATCHED by the blogosphere, a judge in New Jersey has ruled that the township of Manalapan isn't entitled to learn the identity of the anonymous blogger "daTruthSquad."
Judge Terence Flynn in Monmouth County late last week issued a two-page order quashing the town's subpoena against Blogspot owner Google in the case.
"We're grateful that Judge Flynn upheld the First Amendment rights of our client and recognized that anonymous speakers should not be intimidated into silence through the discovery process," Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Matt Zimmerman, who represents daTruthSquad, said in a statement.
The subpoena in the Manalapan matter was issued in the course of a malpractice lawsuit against former city attorney Stuart Moskowitz stemming from the township's 2005 purchase of contaminated land.
DaTruthSquad had written posts criticizing the township, prompting officials to speculate in court that daTruthSquad was Moskowitz's pseudonym. Moskowitz denied that allegation in court. The township then subpoenaed Google, demanding that the company disclose all information connected with daTruthSquad's blog, including drafts of posts, emails and other contact information.
The digital civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation got involved in the matter, arguing that the identity of the blogger was irrelevant to the malpractice case. "The townships seeks to improperly interfere with the First Amendment rights of a pseudonymous critic for reasons separate from any legitimate need for discovery," the group argued in its motion advocating that the court let daTruthSquad remain anonymous.
The case isn't the only time a court has ruled that bloggers are entitled to the same legal protections as writers whose criticism appears in more traditional media. Last year, an appellate court in California rejected an attempt by Apple Computer to learn the identity of sources who leaked information to bloggers. The appeals court in that state ruled that its shield law, protecting the identity of confidential sources, applied to material published by bloggers as well as the mainstream media.
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT of Labor (DOL)
has revised the “white-collar” exemptions
to the Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA) with the unoffi cial publication
on April 20, 2004 of new regulations
defi ning the executive, administrative,
and professional exemptions under the
federal wage-hour law. The revisions
address the criteria for determining
which employees are exempt from the
law’s minimum wage and overtime pay
provisions. The revised rules most likely
will be published in the Federal Register
on Friday, April 23, 2004. They will take
effect 120 days following
Film map
If you're looking for inspiration for something new to watch or simply just a bit of a film buff, then take a look at the Guardian's new film map - an innovative search mechanic. Enter any search criteria you want - genre, lead actors, year or country for example - into the search engine and it will throw up a map of all the films that best fit your criteria, and show you how they are interlinked. If you're a fan of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon concept, you'll have hours of fun.
Search the Film map here
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Locating Lawyers (including Corporate Counsel): A Brief Overview of Attorney Directories and a 50 State Survey of Online State Bar Directories
By Scott Russell, Published on November 24, 2007
[Please note this article updates Reference from Coast to Coast - Finding Lawyers - Directories, Web Sites & State Bar Sources — December 17, 2001, by Margi Heinen and Jan Bissett]
Obtaining background information on attorneys is a common question asked of law librarians. Yet as routine as it may sound it isn’t always as simple as going to Martindale Hubbell. While Martindale has long been a primary reference point for finding attorneys, some firms are opting-out of the directory and . . .
As announced by Robert Ambrogi, a new blog, EDD Update, was recently launched by “an esteemed group of e-discovery and legal technology experts,” which is a joint project of ALM’s own Law Technology News and Law.com Legal Technology. Ambrogi cites LTN editor Monica Bay and Law.com Technology editor Sean Doherty in their welcome message: "Our concept of this blog is to provide a venue where we can post breaking news, key verdicts and judicial rulings, articles from Law.com and LTN, vendor press releases, and more -- and most importantly, where our expert authors will offer their fine-honed analysis and comments." Check it out
LONDON (Reuters) - Australian pop star Kylie Minogue announced a European tour and promised the show would be "totally different" from previous performances.The 39-year-old, who released her new album "X" this week, starts in Paris on May 6 and crosses Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Northern Ireland before winding up at London's O2 Arena on July 27.
"The eclectic mix of sounds on 'X' is affording me an opportunity to explore and develop a new live show that will be fresh, exhilarating and innovative," Minogue said on her Web site www.kylie.com.
"After two celebratory tours, 'X' will be . . .
Go to The McKinsey Quarterly home page Visitor Edition 27 November 2007Welcome to the online journal of McKinsey & Company. This article is available to you free as a special bonus. Please register or log in to read this article.
Article at a glance:
The misguided practice of earnings guidance
Many executives believe that providing quarterly earnings guidance helps them to maintain an open channel of communication with investors in their companies and to increase the visibility of those companies while reducing the volatility of share prices and improving share valuations.
Our analysis finds that the practice offers few of the expected benefits and carries its own costs, particularly management time and an overemphasis on short-term performance.
Executives should consider whether providing quarterly earnings guidance is truly necessary—or whether other types of information would better serve the goals of companies and their shareholders.
This article includes the following exhibits:
Exhibit 1: Increasingly, companies are discontinuing guidance.
Exhibit 2: There appears to be no relation between guidance and valuation.
Exhibit 3: Offering guidance does not appear to affect total returns to shareholders.
Exhibit 4: Poor performance affects returns more than discontinuing guidance.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would decide whether the Constitution grants individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for private use, plunging the justices headlong into a divisive and long-running debate over how to interpret the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
The court accepted a case on the District of Columbia’s 31-year-old prohibition on the ownership of handguns. In adding the case to its calendar, for argument in March with a decision most likely in June, the court not only raised the temperature of its current term but also inevitably injected the issue of gun control into the presidential campaign.
The federal appeals court here, breaking with the great majority of federal courts to have examined the issue over the decades, ruled last March that the Second Amendment right was an individual one, not tied to service in a militia, and that the District of Columbia’s categorical ban on handguns was therefore unconstitutional. . . .
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by Laurie Petersen, Monday, Nov 5, 2007 6:00 AM ET
IN THE WAKE OF MOUNTING pre-launch news coverage, Google is expected to go public with its Google Phone plans this morning.
The Wall Street Journal reported that an official announcement will come on Monday about details of the phone. Additional reports say Google intends to make software available for different phone carriers that would open up more application development for mobile devices, including its own.
Sunday's New York Times carried a gushing profile by technology writer John Markoff of Andy Rubin, who is overseeing the Google phone and software efforts as director of mobile platforms. Markoff got extraordinary access to Rubin at home and work.
According to the story, Google plans to give away its software to handset makers and then use the Google Phone's openness for software developers and content distributors to design applications for it.
Rubin was creator of the Sidekick, one of the first smartphones to integrate the Web, instant messaging, mail and other PC applications.
Among the wireless carriers already said to be working with Google are Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless.
Google stock, whose price some analysts suggest may surpass $1,000, was trading at $711 after hours on Friday. Laurie Petersen is executive editor of MediaPost. Email her at laurie@mediapost.com
Google’s Strong Quarter Widens Gap With Rivals
By MIGUEL HELFT
The search giant’s surging third quarter profits showed that it was growing at twice the speed of the online advertising market, which itself is booming.
10-15-07 00:00 Age: 15 hrs
Measure To Shield Reporters' Secret Sources Likely To Pass
Category: Lexis Nexis - AC, PG News & Updates, Acc News & Updates, Main AC RSS Feed, AC - Whats New BY: USA TODAY
KATHY KIELY
WASHINGTON -- A House bill that would help reporters protect confidential sources will pass easily this week, supporters say, despite opposition from the Bush administration.
"I believe we'll have a strong bipartisan vote," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the bill's co-author.
The Justice Department sees the proposed reporters' shield law, as it is called, as an obstacle to law enforcement. It could "seriously impede our ability to investigate and prosecute national security matters," spokesman Peter Carr said last week.
Even so, the bill has attracted an unusual right-left coalition.
Liberal Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have joined conservative Republicans, such as Pence, to support the bill. Although no floor vote has yet been scheduled in the Senate, the chamber's Judiciary Committee this month approved its version of the shield bill by a 15-2 vote.
News organizations have been pushing for a federal law to protect reporters' sources since the Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the First Amendment gives journalists no right to refuse to name them. Backers say the House vote represents a major breakthrough. "It's kind of a 'pinch me' moment," Pence said.
It comes the same week that the Senate opens confirmation hearings for President Bush's nominee to be attorney general, Michael Mukasey. The former federal judge worked as a reporter for United Press International while he was in college and later represented The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News. On the bench, he ruled against forcing a TV reporter to provide outtakes of an interview to a defendant in a civil lawsuit.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, is hopeful Mukasey will soften the administration. "I would not expect him to come out and support this, but I would not see him making an effort to destroy it," she said.
The House bill would prohibit courts and federal prosecutors from forcing journalists to reveal sources except in cases where the information is vital to protecting national security or to prosecuting a crime and is not available by any other means. The bill defines journalists as those "regularly involved in newsgathering" and making "substantial income" from it, said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., the bill's other co-author. He said that would cover some, but not all, bloggers.
Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar shield laws. More than 50 news organizations, including Gannett, owner of USA TODAY, support a federal shield law. Sponsors say it will benefit more than the news media.
"The basic reason we're passing this is to protect the public's right to know," Boucher said. He argued that whistle-blowers will be discouraged from talking to reporters if they fear their identities might be disclosed.
Opponents argue that not all leaks involve people risking their jobs to expose wrongdoing. One recent case involved Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was accused of leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Libby was convicted of perjury, but Bush commuted his sentence.
"There's got to be accountability so people will think about it before they go out and hurt people," said Brian Sun, a lawyer who represented Wen Ho Lee. Lee, a scientist, won more than $1.6 million in a suit that alleged the government smeared him by leaking information that he was stealing U.S. nuclear secrets for China. The espionage charges against Lee were dropped.
Bush administration officials argue the bill could hurt their fight against terrorism. Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, a deputy director of national intelligence, said a shield law "would make it very difficult to enforce criminal laws involving the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
The Justice Department argues that the news media have plenty of protection. Federal prosecutors subpoena reporters "very rarely," Carr said. He said the department has sought reporters' confidential sources 19 times since 1991.
That figure does not, however, include subpoenas from special prosecutors and attorneys for private clients. By Dalglish's count, at least 40 reporters have been subpoenaed to turn over confidential information in the past three years, and courts tend to rule against the journalists.
Refusal to comply with the court has resulted in long jail sentences for some journalists. Joshua Wolf, a freelance videographer who refused to turn over tape of a protest to federal authorities, served 226 days.
Copyright 2007 Gannett Company, Inc.
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[Source: Symantec Corporation]
Cyber crime is turning into a professional business, according to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report. The report, which outlines activity from Jan. 1, 2007 through June 30, 2007, indicates phishing scammers are using more professional attack methods. More attackers are being driven by fortune, the report indicates, instead of fame. Rather than seeking out individual targets, the report indicates today’s cyber criminals are waiting for their victims to come to them with 61 percent of all vulnerabilities disclosed in Web applications. Using business-like practices, credit cards were the most commonly advertised commodity on underground economy servers, comprising 22 percent of all advertisements. In addition, with online gaming one of the most popular Internet activities, malicious code that attempted to steal account information for online games made up 5 percent of the top 50 malicious code samples.
Baltimore Business Journal - September 17, 2007
Subpoena Power
Aggressive discovery tactics with e-mail could mark you a 'busy body'
by Matthew A.S. Esworthy
Attorneys are often reminded that the subpoena is a powerful tool that must not be abused.
Yet litigators are also taught to leave no stone unturned. The latter imperative often trumps the former as some attorneys routinely issue broad "scorched earth" subpoenas for fear of missing critical evidence.
Such aggressive discovery tactics are common when the object of discovery is e-mail. A personal or business e-mail account offers a well-organized and voluminous trove of information about the account holder's activities. A diligent attorney may feel that the more e-mail he can access, the better prepared he will be.
In this electronic age, it has become common for attorneys to request that the adverse party produce any and all e-mail correspondence in their care, custody, or control relating to the litigation. Often this request leads to the familiar response that "there are no responsive documents."
So what is one to do? Some have decided to issue a subpoena duces tecum to the third-party custodian of the adverse party's e-mail accounts (i.e., Yahoo! or Google), essentially circumventing the account holder.
From the subpoenaing attorney's perspective, this is bad fortune disguised as good, as a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit illustrates. The case of Theofel v. Farey-Jones is a compelling and little-noticed warning against issuing such subpoenas to third-party e-mail service providers.
The tale of woe arose from actions taken by counsel in a separate lawsuit between Alwyn Farey-Jones and the officers of a company called Integrated Capital Associates Inc. (ICA). During the discovery process, Farey-Jones's attorney subpoenaed the company's Internet service provider, Netgate, requesting all e-mails ever sent or received by anyone at ICA.
After raising an informal objection, Netgate eventually provided access to 339 e-mail messages, the majority of which were private, personal, and unrelated to the litigation.
Farey-Jones and his attorney read the correspondence without notifying opposing counsel. When ICA learned of this, it asked the court to quash the subpoena and sanction Farey-Jones.
The magistrate judge did so, faulting Farey-Jones for issuing a "massively overbroad" and "patently unlawful" subpoena that violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which insist that attorneys "take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense" on those they subpoena. The magistrate judge hit Farey-Jones and his attorney with more than $9,000 in sanctions.
The punishment did not end there. The ICA employees whose e-mail had been compromised filed a civil lawsuit against Farey-Jones and his attorney, claiming they had violated three federal statutes: the Stored Communications Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the Wiretap Act.
The District Court dismissed the claims, but the Ninth Circuit reversed with regard to the first two of these three laws, paying special attention to the Stored Communications Act.
Why should Farey-Jones and his lawyer be civilly liable for reviewing e-mail produced only after receiving Netgate's permission to do so? The operative word under the Stored Communications Act is authorization, specifically the authorization of the individual who uses the e-mail account, and not that of the third-party custodian.
Theofel considers this question in light of the common law of trespass. Just as a "busy body" who gains access to a house by posing as a meter reader is a trespasser, so too are Farey-Jones and his attorney liable for gaining access to protected e-mail with an improper subpoena.
"The subpoena's falsity transformed the access from a bona fide state-sanctioned inspection into private snooping," the court wrote.
Interestingly, Netgate is protected in this instance by a safe harbor provision in the Stored Communications Act that exempts third-party service providers from liability. An employer that turns over employee correspondence from the company's e-mail system would likewise be protected.
The subpoenaing attorney, however, is fully exposed. Theofel cautions lawyers preparing to subpoena a third-party for an account-holder's e-mail; once you serve the subpoena, you are rolling the dice, not only for yourself, but for your client.
Inasmuch, this particular subpoena is best left unserved.
Matthew A.S. Esworthy, a trial attorney at Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, can be reached at mase@shapirosher.com.
Knowledge Networks pays $300,000 to settle internal copyright complaint
Firm's marketing group distributed press packets to employees containing newspaper and magazine articles under copyright
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
August 16, 2007
Analyst firm Knowledge Networks has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a complaint that it distributed news articles to its employees without permission of the copyright owners, a trade group announced Thursday.
The Knowledge Networks settlement is the first under the Software & Information Industry Association's Corporate Content Anti-Piracy Program, launched in October.
Knowledge Networks' marketing group had been distributing press packets to some employees on a regular basis, the SIIA said. Those packets contained articles under copyright and owned by SIIA members such as the Associated Press, United Press International, and publishing company Reed Elsevier, the trade group said.
SIIA litigation counsel Scott Bain called Knowledge Networks a "reputable company that made a very costly mistake." One of SIIA's goals for the settlement is to deter copyright infringement and educate other companies about the need for compliance programs, he said. . . .
Worker's Permit
Brian Wingfield, 08.28.07, 6:00 AM ET
Most people want to make sure their doctors and lawyers have the proper credentials to work, but should the same be expected of fortune tellers and florists?
Regulators in some states think so. If you want to read palms in Maryland or sell flower arrangements in Louisiana, you'll need a license to do it.
Funny? It would be if it wasn't increasingly commonplace. A new study by the Reason Foundation, a free-market-oriented think-tank based in Los Angeles, finds the range of professions requiring government is exploding. In the 1950s, less than 5% of the workforce needed a license to work. Today, that figure is more than 20%.
"The real motivation behind most occupational licensing regulations is one of special interest, not the public interest," the report says. "By banding together and convincing governments to impose new or stricter licensing laws, existing practitioners (who typically are exempted from the new laws through grandfather clauses) can raise the cost of doing business for potential competitors."
If so, the apiary industry in Maine is doing quite well--beekeepers in that state are required to obtain government licensing, the report says. So do casket sellers in Oklahoma, jai alai players in Rhode Island, reptile catchers in Michigan and rainmakers--yes, tribal rainmakers--in Arizona.
The report, compiled using information from the Labor Department, state agencies, news articles and trade and professional associations, finds that California is the most regulated place to work, requiring licenses in at least 177 occupations. Missouri comes in at the bottom, regulating only 41 professions.
With the exception of California, employment in western states tends to be far less regulated than in the East and the Midwest. But even among adjacent states, licensing requirements tend to be very different. North Carolina regulates 107 professions; South Carolina just 60. In New Jersey, 114 jobs are licensed; in Pennsylvania, only 62.
According to Adam Summers, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation and the report's author, the reason for the difference in employment regulation from state to state can be attributed to "the success or strength of the business interests in that state."
In fact, Summers' study says that the boom in employment regulation has had several negative effects on business in local communities.
"Less competition for licensees means less pressure to offer higher quality or lower prices to attract business," the report says. "Thus, licensed businesses will be more inclined to pocket more of their profits." Other effects of too much regulation could be the creation of black markets among those who decide not to get licensed, sub-par work created by a lack of competition and an increase in the number of people who don't follow their dreams simply because they can't afford to get licensed.
Summers believes that all licensing laws should be abolished, letting the market create its own certification system, such as the product-review information offered by Consumer Reports, Amazon.com or CNET.
But has the increased licensing of professions really damaged job growth in various states? This doesn't seem to be the case, if the government's employment statistics are to be believed.
The most heavily regulated states--California (where 177 jobs require licenses), Connecticut (155), Maine (134), New Hampshire (130) and Arkansas (128)--have an average unemployment rate of 4.8%, according to the most recent government data.
At the other end of the scale, Missouri, which regulates just 41 jobs, Washington (53), Kansas (56), South Carolina (60) and Idaho (61), have a combined unemployment rate of 5.1%--not much of a difference from those that are heavily regulated.
But within an employment field, these numbers are different, says Morris Kleiner, a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota, who is an expert on occupational licensing.
"Within an occupation, the employment growth rate is approximately 20% higher in states that do not require licensing," he says, quoting from his 2006 book Licensing Occupations: Ensuring Quality or Restricting Competition?
According to the Reason Foundation report, at least 17 states license more than 100 job categories, and many states regulate the same type of work. For example, in every state, you need a license to be a barber, a hearing-aid fitter or a pest-control worker. And in most states, you need government permission to be an athletic trainer, a plumber or a mortician. But in only 15 do you need government permission to be a tattoo artist, and in only 13 is a license required to be a cab driver.
. . . But how was an agency like the CDC able to get in the gun-control business? Simply by propounding the erroneous notion that gun violence is a public-health issue and that crime is a disease, an epidemic-rather than a major facet of criminology. The public so deluded and the bureaucrats consequently empowered, public-health and CDC officials arrogated to themselves this new area of alleged expertise and espoused the preposterous but politically lucrative concept of guns and bullets as animated, virulent pathogens needing to be stamped out by limiting gun availability and ultimately confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. Hard to believe in a constitutional republic with a Bill of Rights and a Second Amendment! Let me cite the following statement by CDC official Dr. Patrick O'Carroll as quoted in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, February 3, 1989): "Bringing about gun control, which itself covers a variety of activities from registration to confiscation was not the specific reason for the [CDC] section's creation. However, the facts themselves tend to make some form of regulation seem desirable. The way we're going to do this is to systematically build a case that owning firearms causes death." . . .
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[Photo omitted] Ross McDonnell for The New York Times
Aidan Punch, a senior census statistician, looked through some of the files in Dublin compiled for Ireland’s most recent census.
By EAMON QUINN
Published: August 19, 2007
DUBLIN — Inside a north Dublin warehouse, 15,000 cardboard boxes containing the documents of Ireland’s most recent census rise on new shelving from the concrete floor. The sight is nondescript, but the collated and computer-scanned documents contain evidence that the Republic of Ireland is the fastest repopulating small country in the world.
Skip to next paragraph
Ross McDonnell for The New York Times
Immigration is swelling Ireland’s population. Pastor Lawrence Eferetin, a Nigerian immigrant, baptized a baby born in Dublin.
Findings from the April 2006 census, which are being published in a series of releases this summer, showed that in the four years since a previous survey, the Irish population swelled by 322,645, roughly split between immigrants and births. That lifted the total population to 4.2 million.
No European Union country has a younger population: statistically, the Irish have been barely aging at all, with the median age staying close to 33. The country will remain young for decades, say the experts, and escape the “graying” fate of the rest of Europe.
Further, demographers now predict that the population could rise to over five million in about a dozen years, and to six million within a generation. With a growing population in Northern Ireland, the island could match its largest population — more than eight million before the devastating 19th-century famine that prompted waves of emigration — by 2032.
Edgar Morgenroth, a member of a panel of experts who predict Irish population growth, said the famine started a diminishing of the population that lasted to the late 1960s. “It was only in the 1990s that our population stabilized and started to grow, rapidly,” he said. The population might reach the 19th-century level, but it will look very different.
The population changes have been uneven geographically. New houses stretch in a wide arc from north Dublin to the west of the city. But the city’s core, despite being replenished by an influx of immigrants, has lost residents to the suburbs and to once unimaginably distant commuting centers in the midlands. In the south, the city of Cork shrank while the county grew.
Some experts think the scale is beyond most citizens’ imaginations: in about half a generation, the population may grow by another Dublin, which has 1.1 million people in its greater metropolitan area.
“The worst is that we find ourselves without growing our services to cope with the numbers,” Mr. Morgenroth said. “The benign outlook is that we have tackled our services and, like Switzerland or Luxembourg, we have great wealth and a great quality of life. The smaller countries can do it right.”
Eunan King, an economist at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin, has long argued that a rising population — more workers and more consumers — will help sustain Ireland’s remarkable economic renaissance of the past dozen years.
The largest increases in immigration since 2002 have been from Poland, Lithuania and Nigeria. The latest census showed 63,276 Poles living permanently in Ireland, up from 2,124 four years earlier. In some small districts in Dublin, Limerick and Cork, the census showed, 52 percent of residents were non-Irish, said Aidan Punch, a senior census statistician.
Ireland permits all residents, not just Irish citizens, to cast ballots in local elections. That has helped immigrants win seats in local councils. The mayor of the midlands town of Portlaoise, Rotimi Adebari, is from Nigeria.
To encourage assimilation, the government recently named a minister for integration, Conor Lenihan. The department was organized, Mr. Lenihan said in an interview, to show Ireland’s commitment to share and develop its new wealth with new arrivals. “We have chosen a midpoint between the U.S. and Europe in terms of our economic success,” he said. “I think we can choose a midpoint in integration as well.”
Mr. Lenihan said his department would investigate ways to provide extensive language classes for adult immigrants and to increase training for unskilled local Irish workers.
But immigrants’ representatives say the government needs to do more.
“Ireland should be taking a lead in Europe,” said Jean-Pierre Eyanga Ekumeloko, a naturalized Irish citizen from Congo and a co-founder of Integrating Ireland, an independent support group for immigrants.
Mr. Ekumeloko said the Irish prime minister should lay out a plan for welcoming and integrating immigrants. He said many were working jobs for which they were overqualified. “A lot of things have changed in interactions between the Irish community and immigrants,” he said, adding that in the past he had heard racist remarks. “Things have changed very positively. Now Irish people know Africans.”
At a restaurant table in Lucan, in western Dublin, Dulce Huerta, a Mexican, and her husband, an Irishman named Lorcan Donnellan, cradled their 5-week-old child. They talked about the strains population growth was causing in their area, near the district of Lucan Esker, which according to the census numbers is the youngest spot in the country. More children under 4 live there than anywhere else in Ireland.
“The maternity hospital was packed and needed more staff,” Ms. Huerta said.
They fretted about how the huge housing estates under construction would add to local traffic. “The roads cannot cope already,” Mr. Donnellan said. “It’s going to get more choked.”
A new mother at a nearby table, Suzanne Leyden, an actuary, said the authorities seemed to have anticipated the growing needs by opening or expanding primary schools. “Secondary schools will be the next big challenge,” she said.
Derek Keating, a local councilor for the Lucan area, said: “The big picture is that we are playing catch-up all the time. There is a lack of infrastructure, in everything from schools to recreational activities.”
In the northern Dublin suburb of Swords, Gerard Kelly, a teacher for 25 years and now a principal, said his school would struggle to meet the demand for classroom seats when it opened in September. “Back in 2001 we had 21 children,” Mr. Kelly said. “Next September we will have 340. We have children from 40 countries.”
Although physicians remain the primary targets of drug company advertising, spending on direct-to-consumer advertising has increased more than threefold since the FDA first allowed such marketing 10 years ago, reports a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers gathered data from three market-research firms and the FDA to evaluate trends in DTC advertising from 1996 through 2005. Among the findings:
In 2005, drug companies spent a total of $29.9 billion on promotion, of which $4.2 billion went toward DTC advertising.
Spending on DTC advertising increased by about 14% each year from 2002 through 2005.
Of the 20 most heavily advertised drugs, 17 were marketed directly to consumers within 1 year of FDA approval.
During 2003 and 2004, nearly half the agency's promotion-related regulatory letters concerned direct-to-consumer ads.
NEJM
Intelius is Unveiling One of the Nation's First Cell Phone, Unlisted, and Non-Published Phone Number Directories
Komotv.com reports: The days of unlisted cell phone numbers may be coming to an end, and those who don't want their cell phone privacy invaded must act soon.
A Bellevue-based company named Intelius is unveiling one of the nation's first cell phone directories, which means people could get your number without you knowing.
Intelius created the online directory by searching through dozens of public and available records. Those searching the online database are charged $14.95 per search.
So if your number is not yet on the Do Not Call list, the best way to protect your cell phone privacy is to sign up. full story
Barrister 'beat wedding guest senseless'
By Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 2:43am BST 14/08/2007"Dunn then allegedly began waving his appendage about 'in the belief that it was amusing or causing entertainment.'"
A drunken barrister who was best man at a wedding exposed himself to the bridesmaids before launching a "savage" and "ferocious" attack on a fellow guest after being confronted over his behaviour, a court was told.
Christopher Dunn, 40, who had earlier given a "disgusting" best man’s speech at the country hotel reception so offended the women and children around him that David Baird-Dean felt compelled to drag him away by the scruff of the neck.
Mr Baird-Dean, who inadvertently burst the buttons on his adversary's dress shirt and waistcoat, initially warned the lawyer that his behaviour warranted police being called to the Harewood Hall Hotel, Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire.
advertisementBut he relented when Dunn went back to the table and offered his fellow guests an abject apology, a jury at Preston Crown Court was told.
Hours later, when the disturbance appeared to have dissipated, the lawyer allegedly squared up to Mr Baird-Dean, ushered him away to a sun terrace, and then launched a "savage" and "ferocious" attack upon him.
Richard Haworth, prosecuting, said that Dunn initially knocked his victim to the ground with two blows to the head.
He then knelt on his chest, pinned his arms to his sides, and punched him so violently and so frequently in the face that he lost consciousness.
He was trying to land yet more punches on his victim even as fellow guests dragged him away.
Mr Baird-Dean suffered such severe injuries that surgeons had to use metal plates and screws to reattach his upper jaw and both eye sockets to his skull.
The force used was comparable to that suffered in a high-speed car crash or inflicted in an attack with a baseball bat, Mr Haworth said.
The court heard how on July 1 last year Dunn had been invited to be one of two best men at a ceremony to reaffirm the wedding vows of Rosalind and Russell Poole 10 years after they were married.
It was a beautiful summer's day, and as the afternoon buffet wore on he moved to an outside table where most of the bridesmaids were sitting.
The group, many of whom were drinking pink champagne, started to talk about tattoos.
One guest noticed that Dunn had a tattoo which was partly visible through his dress shirt, and asked whether it depicted a white rose.
Mr Haworth told the jury: "The defendant replied 'I’ll show you a white rose'. At which point he unzipped his trousers and pulled out his penis."
Dunn then allegedly began waving his appendage about "in the belief that it was amusing or causing entertainment."
He had misjudged his audience, said Mr Haworth. All the guests who witnessed his performance took offence and Mr Baird-Dean moved in to remonstrate with him.
The 48-year-old mechanic was a few feet away when he heard his wife and two of the adult bridesmaids suddenly complaining that Dunn had exposed himself.
"I turned around and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were children at the table and I thought it was only right that I confront him about it.
"I moved quickly towards him and asked him to put it away. He didn’t react so I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
"I told him he was disgusting and that it was a wedding. I probably said quite a few other things. It just wasn’t something you would expect at a wedding, especially with him supposed to be the best man.
"He apologised to me, saying his child was ill, he'd had too much to drink, and that what he’d done wasn’t in his character.
"He said that because he was a barrister he couldn't bear the police being called.
"He asked whether if he apologised the police would not have to be called."
The guests duly accepted Dunn's apology and he and Mr Baird-Dean shook hands. However, as the evening wore on he began to boast to fellow guests about beating people up and "having scrapes with the law".
He claimed to have served with the SAS and on one occasion bitten a police dog while in Japan.
He became increasingly aggressive towards Mr Baird-Dean, blaming him for the fact that other guests were talking and laughing about him behind his back.
"He said he was going to get me later," Mr Baird-Dean told the jury.
"He said he was going to jump me."
When interviewed by police about the attack, Dunn claimed he had acted in self defence.
He had been "terrified" when Mr Baird-Dean began punching him, and responded by striking his assailant only four times.
Mr Haworth said the lawyer's account bore no resemblance to the Crown's case.
He alleged that he had sought to portray Mr Baird-Dean as the aggressor "because he realised the awful consequences of what he had done."
Dunn, of Morley, Leeds, denies a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
He has similarly pleaded not guilty to an alternative charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm.
The trial continues.
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“Right now I'm having a love affair with Amylin (NASDAQ: AMLN); frankly, you should be in love with it, too.” says Michael Shulman, editor of the industry-leading ChangeWave Biotech Investor.
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"The Wave Principle" is Ralph Nelson Elliott's discovery that social, or crowd, behavior trends and reverses in recognizable patterns. Using stock market data for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) as his main research tool, Elliott discovered that the ever-changing path of stock market prices reveals a structural design that in turn reflects a basic harmony found in nature. From this discovery, he developed a rational system of market analysis.
Under the Wave Principle, every market decision is both produced by meaningful information and produces meaningful information. Each transaction, while at once an effect, enters the fabric of the market and, by communicating transactional data to investors, joins the chain of causes of others' behavior. This feedback loop is governed by man's social nature, and since he has such a nature, the process generates forms. As the forms are repetitive, they have predictive value.
Elliott isolated thirteen "waves," or patterns of directional movement, that recur in markets and are repetitive in form, but are not necessarily repetitive in time or amplitude. He named, defined and illustrated the patterns. He then described how these structures link together to form larger versions of the same patterns, how those in turn are the building blocks for patterns of the next larger size, and so on. His descriptions constitute a set of empirically derived rules and guidelines for interpreting market action. The patterns that naturally occur under the Wave Principle are described here. . . .
Bear market signal: Coppock curve and killer
Thursday, 02 August 2007
When the Dow recently hit its record high, Jim Stack was not impressed. Rather, he warned, “We are moving to a full bear market defensive mode.”
Here’s the latest outlook from his InvesTech Market Analyst – uncannily written just before last week’s decline – in which he warns of a rare “killer wave” signal from the Coppock Curve, an 50-year old technical indicator that helped him exit the market in 2000.
“When the DJIA scores a new record high, yet there are twice as many stocks closing down for the day (as the number closing up), then something is wrong. Declining stocks overwhelmed advancing stocks by a 2:1 margin, an ominous divergence that has never occurred in the past 75 years of market history
“When the DJIA closes higher in 7 out of 8 days, but breadth is positive (advancing stocks outnumber declining stocks) on only 1 of those days, then something is wrong. That ‘wrong’ confirms that fewer stocks are participating and investors become more selective in stock purchases.
“Meanwhile, the housing outlook has gone from dismal to dire. To a slowing economy, this could be the catalyst that ultimately triggers the next recession. In fact, the starting point may even be backdated to this month.
“Outside the crumbling housing sector, there are a number of warning flags that we are carefully watching at this time. Our Monetary Model gauges both monetary climate as set by the Federal Reserve, as well as the monetary climate established by the bond market .
“Both are now back into the negative or bearish region. So even though bond yields have softened a bit in recent weeks, this is considered a hostile monetary climate for stocks. In short, this is when bear markets can –and often do– start.
“We also note the Coppock Curve which was developed 50 years ago by Edwin S. Coppock. This indicator has a remarkable track record when it comes to signaling the start of a new bull market for stocks.
"It has been described as a ‘barometer of the market’s emotional state.’ As such, it moves very slowly and methodically from one emotional extreme to another. Its historical value lies in signaling or confirming the best, low risk buying opportunities in history.
“However, the Coppock Guide has never been noted for timely sell signals. Except, that is, in a few cases. And that’s where the carnage comes in.
“In the late 1960s, a technician named Don Hahn observed that when a double-top occurs without the associated decline in the Coppock Curve, it identifies a bull market that hasn’t experienced any normal, healthy washouts or corrections. That’s a runaway bull market usually headed for disaster.
“This double-top pattern has occurred only 6 times in 80 years – with 4 of them accompanying the start of the most notorious bear markets of the Twentieth Century: 1929, 1969, 1973 and 2000. So there is a critical historical aspect to double-tops: They can result in nasty bears!
“Those resulting bear markets reveals why the double-top in the Coppock Guide has been nicknamed a ‘Killer Wave.’ The average decline (excluding the -86% loss in 1929) was almost -40%! And we now see that Coppock Curve has been developing a second peak (double top) over the past few months.
"This raises the odds that what lies ahead may be severe. At this point, the inherent danger that accompanies a double top or ‘killer wave’ in the Coppock Guide suggests that discipline and patience are warranted now, as we wait and watch this double-top formation play itself out.”
Over the past several years, regardless of the macro environment, the stock market focused on one thing during the first five weeks after the end of each quarter - earnings. Furthermore, each quarter over the past several years, earnings expectations and companies' actual results in comparison to these expectations marked the major turning points in the market.
Last quarter, if you recall, we started expressing our concern that this would change or, at least, there would be more disappointments, because of the spread of the subprime mortgage issues into the financials and other areas of the economy. However, other than some banks, there was little affect on stock prices.
At the start of this earnings season, we were seeing better economic conditions, improving consumer sentiment, and high expectations among analysts regarding this quarters earnings. Therefore, despite the higher volatility, new market highs in the face of weakening technicals - such as the advance/decline line, and extreme overbought conditions for nearly every stock on our internal list of companies most likely to beat expectations and/or raise guidance - we were confident the market would once again put all its other issues to the side and focus on earnings.
We were clearly wrong.
We take pride in being tuned into to as many different sources of quality information as possible and, what surprises us more than anything is that we heard no on else calling for the market sell off we saw last week - other than those that seem to always be calling for market sell offs. . . .
