Monday, December 5, 2011

Romney says Attorney General Holder should quit (AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is calling on President Barack Obama's attorney general to resign because of the flawed law enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling major arms trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

Romney tells reporters after a rally in New Hampshire that Eric Holder has misled Congress and has "brought shame" on the Justice Department through his handling of Operation Fast and Furious.

Operation Fast and Furious involved more than 2,000 weapons purchased by straw buyers at Phoenix-area gun stores. Nearly 700 of those guns have been recovered ? 276 in Mexico and 389 in the United States, according to ATF data as of Oct. 20.

Controversy erupted over the intitiative after two assault rifles turned up at an Arizona shootout where border agent Brian Terry was killed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_el_pr/us_romney_attorney_general

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Farms, stores brighten stalled NYC building lots (AP)

NEW YORK ? A remnant of the Great Recession is hiding behind a paint-splattered wall in Chinatown, in an empty lot where a building was supposed to rise into the sky.

The plywood barely conceals the mess behind it: a pile of cement blocks and tangled metal and empty bottles of beer. It is, in short, exactly the sort of place that draws the ire of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

"There's a lot of bad things that happen in stalled construction sites," says Stringer, whose office issued a report earlier this year cataloguing the more than 600 stalled sites that are scattered throughout New York City. "Especially if everybody sort of ignores the site and lets it grow in a very unpleasing way."

Instead of allowing these lots to become eyesores, some developers are coming up with creative ways to use them temporarily until construction can begin. Grow vegetables in milk crates? Sure. Sell doughnuts out of a shipping container? In New York City, where open space is a precious commodity, just about anything goes.

In a lot near the East River, an urban farm sprouted last summer on the spot where the construction of a life science park is in limbo. At roughly 15,000 square feet, it's a patch of green in the shadow of the tower next door.

"We thought, we have this bald site here, this plot of land in the middle of New York," said Scarlet Shore, executive director of corporate strategy for Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. "Why don't we figure out how to make it productive?"

The original design for the project called for two towers that would house office space for commercial life science companies. Work began on both towers in 2007, and the East Tower was completed. But after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, Alexandria, the developer, decided to halt construction on the West Tower. Now the company is taking a wait-and-see approach amid continued economic uncertainty.

Soon the place was a maze of milk crates lined with landscaping fabric and soil. Riverpark Farm, which officially opened on Sept. 13, isn't just a bright spot for neighborhood residents in need of greenery. It also supplies fresh produce for Riverpark restaurant, which is located next door in the East Tower.

Zach Pickens, the farm manager, likes to watch people do a double-take when they walk along the low wooden wall that separates the farm from the street.

"They'll look in the first window and they'll be like, `Oh my gosh, there's plants growing in there,'" he said.

The crops are being covered in plastic as colder weather moves in, but the farm will continue to grow vegetables like spinach, carrots and beets.

The developer charges no rent for the farm project. It's unclear when construction will begin on the West Tower, but when that does happen, the goal is to transport the moveable farm to a new location.

Developers say the beauty of these sites lies in their easy portability. And it doesn't get much more portable than the shops at downtown Brooklyn's DeKalb Market, which have been fashioned out of giant, colorful shipping containers of the variety carried on cargo ships. The market is situated on a city-owned plot of land that will eventually become a massive mixed-use retail development.

The containers have been transformed into tiny stores that can only squeeze in a few customers at a time, and they're selling everything from wool hats to antique mirrors to hot dogs. The vendors pay rent to Urban Space, a specialty retail market developer that manages the market.

"In the beginning it was very confusing for people, because they didn't understand whether they were coming to a construction site or whether they were coming to get food," said Vincent Taylor, manager of Cuzin's Duzin, a doughnut shop at the market. "It's probably the coolest place we've ever worked out of."

In order to spur more creative development, Stringer wants the city to create new zoning laws that would loosen the current restrictions at construction sites and help developers finance new projects. The fact that these sites are only temporary creates a host of legal hurdles for developers, he says.

Stringer wants to emulate cities that have led the way in transforming stalled construction sites. In Seattle, city officials are actively working with developers and neighborhoods to adopt new public projects.

The city is also trying to make use of the sites in other ways, such as a program introduced by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn that turns them into affordable housing units.

"The bottom line is that even as the economy improves, we're still going to be stuck with some stalled development that doesn't actually work with the community," Stringer said.

Carlos Little, a landscape architect and artist, is running his art studio and a gallery space in a stalled construction site on Leroy Street near the West Side Highway. The building is set to be demolished to make way for a residential building on the lot and a parking lot next door.

Little says it's a mutually beneficial situation, since he is able to keep an eye on the building and notify the owner when there's a burst pipe or a fire hazard. And in turn, he says, the building has become his muse ? a pedestal of sorts for his artwork. He even uses materials from the building itself in his sculptures.

"The point is about today," he said. "Today I'm right here and I can deal with the fact that tomorrow it can go away. It helps maintain the creative cycle of creating something and destroying something."

___

Associated Press writer Karen Zraick contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_re_us/us_stalled_construction_nyc

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Expelled Iran diplomats leave Britain (Reuters)

TEHRAN/LONDON (Reuters) ? All Iranian diplomats left Britain on Friday, expelled in response to protesters storming the British embassy in Tehran, hardening a confrontation between Tehran and the West over its nuclear program.

In Iran, crowds chanted "Death to Britain" at Tehran University, and a militia linked to the storming of the embassy prepared to greet the returning diplomats as heroes. A hardline cleric denounced the U.N. Security Council and European Union for backing Britain following the embassy storming.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remained silent, perhaps reflecting unease within the faction-riven leadership about an incident likely to deepen Iran's international isolation.

Protesters stormed two British diplomatic compounds on Tuesday, smashing windows, torching a car and burning the British flag in protest against new sanctions imposed by London.

The incident followed accusations from Washington of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador and a report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog suggesting Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, all contributing to increased diplomatic isolation for Tehran in recent months.

"I can confirm that, earlier this afternoon, all diplomatic staff of the Iranian Embassy in London took off from Heathrow airport," a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

After the embassy storming, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that Britain was closing its embassy in Tehran, ordered the closure of the Iranian embassy in London and gave all Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave Britain.

Hague said the assault could not have happened without the consent of Iranian authorities.

The Iranian diplomats slipped away quietly. The green, white and red Iranian flag still flew over the Iranian embassy in west London that was the scene of a dramatic six-day siege in 1980 when gunmen seized 21 hostages, two of whom they killed.

Across the street, a dozen protesters opposed to Iran's government chanted "Free Iran" and urged "terrorists" to go home. A few police officers stood guard.

Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons but Iran insists its program is peaceful.

Diplomacy has come to a boil after a report in November by the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency suggested Iran has worked on a nuclear bomb program. The United States and Israel have not ruled out military strikes.

REMORSE

Britain's Ambassador to Iran, Dominick Chilcott, said hardliners in the Iranian establishment may have thought confrontation would rally Iranians, but miscalculated how strong the response to the embassy storming would be.

"They probably didn't expect us to send home the Iranian embassy in London and, reading between the lines, you can see in the way they have responded to that move, some remorse in having provoked it," Chilcott told the BBC.

The closure of the embassies, by cutting off a channel of communication between Britain and Iran, complicates the search for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute.

"Having this tension between Iran and Europe will make those negotiations a lot harder," said Adam Hug, policy director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a London think-tank. "It does make the risk of conflict slightly more plausible."

France, Germany and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Tehran for consultations as a protest against the storming of the British compounds.

The EU added 180 Iranian people and entities to its sanctions list on Thursday and laid out plans for a possible embargo on Iranian oil, the lifeblood of the Iranian economy.

The United Nations Security Council said it "condemned in the strongest terms" the attack, although veto-wielder Russia made clear it saw no need for more sanctions.

ROTTEN ROPE

In Tehran, cleric Ahmad Khatami denounced the EU and Security Council to worshippers who chanted "Death to Britain."

"If you have just a bit of wisdom, you won't tie your rope to the rotten rope of Britain," he said.

Increasing tensions with the world's fifth biggest oil exporter pushed up global oil prices despite concerns of an economic downturn in the West. Brent crude rose towards $110 a barrel on Friday from a Thursday close of $108.99.

Iran's culture ministry banned foreign media from covering anti-British pro-government protests in Tehran, especially rallies "in front of the British Embassy and the Qolhak compound unless authorized in advance," the ministry said in a statement.

Witnesses reported a heavy presence of police at Ferdowsi square, where the British embassy is located.

"Life is normal in the area but there are many police officers in the area," said a witness who asked not to be named.

The 135-year-old embassy residence was severely damaged in the onslaught. The ornate building at the centre of the complex has changed little since it hosted a dinner between Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Britain's Winston Churchill during the 1943 Tehran conference.

One Western diplomat who visited it on Thursday said priceless oil paintings had been slashed and protesters had cut out the face of a portrait of Queen Victoria. There were no reports of harm to staff.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday that 11 hardline protesters detained for storming the British compounds had been released.

Iranian diplomats expelled from London were due to arrive in Tehran in the early hours of Saturday and the hardline Basij militia said it would have a welcoming committee for them at the International Imam Khomeini Airport outside the capital.

Iran's Foreign Ministry expressed regret over the embassy invasion, which it said was a spontaneous overflowing of anger during a peaceful protest by students. Britain says there must have been at least tacit approval by the ruling establishment.

The Iranian reformist website Sahamnews issued a statement by a group of students at the Islamic Azad university condemning the attack and saying the conservative hardliners did not represent the view of most young Iranians.

"Misusing the name of student is something we cannot easily let pass. There is no connection between what these people did and the honorable and sensible Iranian students," it said.

Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, a long-time rival to Ahmadinejad, condemned the U.N. Security Council reaction to the embassy storming as "hasty" and "devious."

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Peter Graff and Jon Hemming)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/wl_nm/us_iran_britain

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Twitter is Big for Business | Social Media Today

(Or why businesses need to harness the power of Twitter because their competitors are already doing it)?

Twitter is big business.

I don?t mean that Twitter is doing well and that the company is making money ? it is. What I mean is that Twitter is big for businesses. Businesses have clocked on to Twitter in a big way. A lot of them still don?t really know how it works, but they?re doing it anyway.

Why is this happening? Could it just be a passing fad that will seem ridiculous in a few years? time? Definitely not ? quite the opposite in fact. In a few years, those companies that aren?t using Twitter will seem like dinosaurs. I think it will make companies? current attempts to use Facebook to attract business look old fashioned.

The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, anyone can follow a company (or an individual) on Twitter without having to ?Like? them, which is how Facebook works. Secondly, and this is the magic ingredient of Twitter, anyone can send a direct message to anyone they follow on Twitter, and the recipient will receive it. No personal assistants will intervene to screen the incoming message (unless, perhaps, it?s Barack Obama). The individual you send the message to will read it. They may not always respond, but they?ll read it. (Getting people to respond is an art in itself and I?ll cover that skill in a subsequent article). For now I just want to stress the fact that Twitter is personal ? you contact someone, they receive the message. They want to receive the message because they?re opted in to do so.

Twitter is like e-mail but 100 times better. People don?t give their e-mails out to just anyone. But if someone decides to join Twitter, they are saying to the world, ?I?m here, contact me!?

What all this means for business is an open, global forum for discussion, idea-sharing, pitching, questioning, brainstorming and, if you?re subtle about it, selling. After all, we are in business to make money. No-one is going to devote time and energy to something that doesn?t bring in some kind of return. This is where things get a bit ?unscientific?. If there was a sure-fire way to measure ROI from using Twitter, everyone would be using it. Whoever comes up with such a method is sure to make billions. Not millions, but billions ? the stakes are that high. In the meantime, though, we have to satisfy ourselves with something a bit less concrete. There are no Excel spreadsheets here for the accountants to look at and say, ?OK, Twitter brought in X amount of business, let?s take on some more social media experts.? It just doesn?t work like that.

So how does it work? To be perfectly honest, I don?t think anyone really knows, but it works. There is a new phenomenon happening right in front of our very eyes. It?s not the birth of social media, it?s not Web 2.0 (remember that?) ? it?s something else. It?s a zeitgeist kind of thing. Everyone is doing it. OK, not everyone, but just about everyone that matters to YOU and your business is doing it. And if they?re not, they soon will be. And because everyone that matters is doing it, if you?re not doing it you?re being left behind. It?s as simple as that.

A new way of doing business is evolving, right here, right now. And it?s only going to accelerate. The ins and outs of Twitter: how to follow people, how to get followed, how to make contact with people ? these are all technicalities that anyone can learn in a few minutes (that?s another wonderful thing about Twitter ? it?s just so EASY). It?s the wider phenomenon that is important and that we need to understand. Businesses, business associations, business magazines, analysts, financial experts, CEOs (are they people?) are now using Twitter to communicate, share ideas and, basically, ?do business?.

How do we measure the outcome? It?s a pointless question. You may as well ask how we measure the impact of having a conversation at a business conference. Will we get a deal as a result? Maybe, maybe not, but we?re networking. And that?s all Twitter is ? it?s a new way to network where the entire world is at your disposal and is waiting to hear what you have to say.

The fact of the matter is that the potential, and influence, of Twitter is only just beginning to be realized. I believe we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

As Chris Bucholtz, editor-in-chief of the CRM Outsiders blog says: ?If your business has any kind of content it wishes to share with the world, Twitter?s virtually a necessity for getting it out there.?

And if you still aren?t convinced that Twitter can help your business, think about some of these facts:

  • 88 of the Fortune Top 100 companies now use Twitter daily.
  • 66 percent of questions asked on twitter have some commercial intent.
  • 80 percent of customer service tweets are negative or critical. It?s therefore essential to be able to respond to any criticism immediately.
  • 85 percent of companies are now using twitter as part of their recruitment process.
  • Twitter is now being used to predict the movement of stock markets

And some success stories:

  • When Cisco launched a new router, it decided to use only social media to market it. This allowed the company to effectively measure the results. ?The campaign was one of the top five most successful campaigns in the company?s history, and it saved the company a six figure sum.
  • Comcast started a ?Comcast Cares? Twitter customer service center and attracted 2,700 followers. Many were initially critics of the company but were converted to ardent fans.
  • Dell used Twitter to create ?Dell Outlet?, which generated US$3 million revenue in one year from Twitter postings.
  • JetBlue set up a Twitter account to have more direct relationships with customers and potential customers, to listen to their complaints, and to understand how to serve them better. They now have over 1.5 million followers.
  • Oracle added social networks to its existing communication channels and trained 25,000 partners while reducing costs, boosting satisfaction and increasing PR.
  • TeamTurboTax launched a Twitter campaign to answer questions during the key tax season and found its customers were 71% more likely to recommend TurboTax because of their interactions with the company through Twitter.

A final comment from Heather Whaling at Geben Communication: ?My company can trace ~75% of its business back to relationships that initially began on social media, and the *vast* majority of those relationships began on Twitter. That's a pretty compelling business case for me. And, it also helps me understand how to help clients generate business-related outcomes from their social media use. As I always say, time spent online has to be time well spent.?

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/damian-corbet/398265/twitter-big-business

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Friday, December 2, 2011

Now Facebook updates can be over 60,000 characters

Facebook

By Rosa Golijan

A Facebook status update could be up to 420 characters long in March 2009, 500 characters in July 2011, and 5,000 characters in September 2011.

But now? Now you can post status updates that are over 60,000 characters long, according to?Facebook's?Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik.?In case you're wondering how far over 60,000 you can go: The character limit is set at 63,206.

How'd Facebook come up with this ridiculously large, and unusual, character limit? Bob Baldwin, the software engineer who set the new number, explains:

Facebook

Don't worry if that flies over your head ??geeky calculations tend to require several cups of coffee and a bit of homework for most of us.

Live Poll

Should Facebook updates really be up to 63,206 characters long?

  • 169821

    Yes! I need all that space!

    10%

  • 169822

    63,206 characters? I need more!

    6%

  • 169823

    No! I don't want to see people write that much!

    44%

  • 169824

    Yes, but only if people are signed up for mandatory writing classes and grammar lessons.

    40%

VoteTotal Votes: 292

What you really should know is that this change means that you could theoretically post an entire novel in fewer than nine Facebook updates. (Assuming that the average novel is about 500,000 characters long.)?Alternatively, you could squeeze over 450 tweets, about 395 text messages, or one incredibly long rant into a single new text space.

No guarantees that your friends will read it though.

Related stories:

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9140900-now-facebook-updates-can-be-over-60000-characters

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'Jersey Shore' star Pauly D teams up with 50 Cent

Rapper and businessman Curtis Jackson, also known as 50 Cent, poses with Paul ?DJ Pauly D? DelVecchio from MTV's "Jersey Shore," at the G-Unit Offices, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 in New York. DelVecchio signed a record deal with 50 Cent's G-Note record label, which focuses on dance and pop music. (AP Photo/PictureGroup, Brad Barket)

Rapper and businessman Curtis Jackson, also known as 50 Cent, poses with Paul ?DJ Pauly D? DelVecchio from MTV's "Jersey Shore," at the G-Unit Offices, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 in New York. DelVecchio signed a record deal with 50 Cent's G-Note record label, which focuses on dance and pop music. (AP Photo/PictureGroup, Brad Barket)

(AP) ? He's talked about it, but now Pauly D is officially a member of 50 Cent's music group.

The "Jersey Shore" star officially signed to the rapper's G-Note label Thursday. The label focuses on dance and pop music ? a good fit for Pauly D, since he's known as a DJ as well as a reality star.

He's been working in music since he was 16 and parlayed his success on the MTV hit series into becoming an in-demand DJ. Pauly D even joined Britney Spears for a few dates on her recent "Femme Fatal" tour as an opening act.

A few months ago Pauly D confirmed that he and the rapper were working together.

50 Cent said Pauly D was a "great addition to G-Note and G-Unit family" and called him smart and creative.

____

Online:

http://www.g-noterecords.com/

____

Alicia Quarles is the AP's global entertainment editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/aliciaquarles

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-01-Music-50%20Cent-Pauly%20D/id-f575547910cb4d6fba5ee5a199ea867f

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