Japanese court declares Samsung patent invalid in another spat with Apple

Weary of the neverending legal back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung yet? No, we're not either (that's a terrible lie), and the latest exciting development comes from a courtroom in Japan, where it was decided Samsung does not hold rights to certain data transmission tech it accused Apple of pinching. So, what are the repercussions? None, really -- the status quo remains unchanged, and Apple can continue selling the products Sammy wanted off the shelf. The Times of India notes that cases in the US and South Korea over the same patent have gone one a piece, meaning Apple is up 2-1 in this particular bout. But, when you've been battling for this long, you've bound to win some, and lose just as many.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung

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Source: Reuters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/28/apple-samsung-case-japan/

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Require bilingual skills? Document why - Business Management Daily

Many organizations serve ?customers who speak languages other than English, and thus they require em???ployees to have specific bilingual skills. If that describes your organization, make sure you can defend the language requirement.

As one employer recently learned, that may mean having to disclose other??wise confidential information in court, including client data.

Recent case: Donna was fired from her loan manager job with a California housing agency. The reason: poor performance and lack of Spanish-language skills, said the agency.

Donna, who is white, sued, claiming the real reason for her firing was a clear preference for Hispanic workers. She alleged that the language requirement was bogus.

As part of the lawsuit, Donna?s lawyers demanded access to the em??ployer?s loan documents showing the borrower?s ethnicity of its borrowers. The goal: prove Spanish language skills was not a legitimate job requirement.

The housing agency complained, but the court said it had to cough up the records. If the records showed few borrowers were His?panic, that might show that Donna really didn?t need to know much Spanish to do her job.

In the end, rather than turning over confidential loan documents, the em??ployer dropped the defense that Spanish skills were required. (Allen v. Neighborhood Housing Services Sili??con Valley, No. 12-1656, ND CA, 2012)

Final note: If your job an??nouncement lists language skills as a requirement, your HR files should document why the requirement is necessary.

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Q&A: Chances of a horse meat scandal in the US?

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The horse meat scandal that is hitting Europe has yet to spread to the United States, allowing American consumers to rest easier when buying ground beef or sitting down for a plate of meatballs at Ikea.

The United States has rigorous meat inspections and horse meat isn't readily available. So, while it's certainly possible that small amounts of hidden horse meat has made its way into the United States, it's unlikely to become a larger problem.

Some questions and answers about the problem:

Q: What's happening in Europe?

A: Horse meat has recently been found mixed into beef dishes sold across Europe, including in frozen supermarket meals. It also has been found in meals served at restaurants, schools and hospitals. Furniture giant Ikea this week withdrew its famous meatballs from stores in 21 European countries and in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Dominican Republic after Czech food inspectors found traces of horse meat in them. Stores in the United States and Canada weren't affected because they use a U.S. supplier.

Q: Is horse meat safe to eat?

A: What is at issue is fraudulent labeling, not a health risk. Horse meat is usually safe to eat, but it's generally not consumed in the United States, mostly for cultural and ethical reasons. However, it's considered a delicacy in some countries.

Q: Are horses even slaughtered in the U.S.?

A: Not right now. Three horse slaughter plants were shuttered five years ago after court action. Those plants produced meat that was mostly sold overseas.

Q: But horses are slaughtered in Mexico and Canada. Companies could import that meat and use it as a cheap substitute for beef, right?

A: Probably not. No horse meat is imported to the United States, so it would be hard for U.S. companies to obtain it in large quantities.

Q: What is the U.S. government doing to make sure Americans don't face the problem?

A: U.S. food safety law requires meat inspectors to be present for a slaughterhouse to operate and those inspectors are present for many steps of the process. They can shut down the plants if they think something illegal is going on. The federal oversight also requires meat to be easily traceable to the plant where the animals were slaughtered.

Q: What about imports?

A: Only certain countries and companies can export meat to the United States, and the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service inspects products at the border and will test them if something appears to be amiss. According to the department, other checks include annual evaluations of the countries that export meat to the U.S. to make sure their food safety standards are those in the United States and on-site audits at least once every three years in every country that exports meat, poultry or egg products to the United States.

Q: What about packaged goods and processed foods from Europe or other regions that may include meat as an ingredient? Could those include horse meat?

A: That is one possible loophole. The Agriculture Department won't say if it has additional checks on packaged or processed imports ? European foods sold at specialty stores, for example. It is probably impossible for the government to test all those things at the border.

Q: Are large retailers conducting tests to make sure that horse meat hasn't made its way into their products?

A: Unclear. Most U.S. retailers don't have a lot of interest in wading into the European horse meat scandal. The Associated Press contacted Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger, Costco, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and other food industry representatives this week to ask what they are doing to ensure their products don't have horse meat. None of the companies responded. Steven Guterman, chief executive officer of InstantLabs, a company that makes DNA tests that could detect horse meat, says his company has received orders for the tests from Europe but not from the United States since the scandal broke.

Q: So how can I be sure there's no horse meat in the product these large food companies are selling?

A: According to George Dunaif of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the nation's largest food companies, the industry takes a lot of steps to ensure the integrity of products. Suppliers must provide certificates showing that the products they are selling are labeled correctly and companies can demand certain standards. It's also illegal to sell misbranded food, and most brands depend on consumer trust for survival. A scandal like the one in Europe can ruin companies.

Q: What about fast-food restaurants that sell huge volumes of beef?

A: Burger King says it has conducted unannounced audits of all of its suppliers globally, including in the United States, to ensure their meat is 100 percent beef. The company says most of its U.S. restaurants use domestic suppliers but some of the meat is from Australia and New Zealand, and that meat has been DNA tested for horse meat. McDonald's said in a statement that the company "only works with a select group of approved beef suppliers that adhere to our stringent standards."

Q: Should I be worried?

A: No. There just isn't enough horse meat in the U.S. for it to make sense for meatpackers to illegally mix it in, and U.S. meat inspections in plants and checks at the border would most likely catch any large-scale scams.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-28-US-US-Horse-Meat/id-57730cd2461641af8e7b47c7836a0dce

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Utah Travel Headlines: Utah Properties on the Forbes Travel Guide ...

Forbes Travel Guide has released this
list of the best hotels, restaurants, spas and destinations in
the US and around the world. Below we list Utah properties that made the coveted list. Forbes said this about the rankings:

Forbes Travel Guide has delivered the travel industry's most comprehensive ratings and reviews of hotels, restaurants and spas since1958. Forbes Travel Guide's team of professional inspectors anonymously evaluates properties on over 500 service criteria. Forbes Travel Guide is the global rating standard providing guests with the insight to make better-informed and more consistent travel and leisure decisions.

Forbes 5-Star Award Winners

Forbes 4-Star Award Winners

Hotels:

• Amangiri (Lake Powell)

• Montage Deer Valley

• Waldorf Astoria Park City

• The Grand America Hotel (Salt Lake City)

• The St. Regis Deer Valley

• Sorrel River Ranch Resort & Spa (Moab)

Restaurants:

• Apex (Deer Valley)

• Riverhorse on Main (Park City)

• SLOPES by Talisker (Park City)

• Glitretind Restaurant (Deer Valley)

Spas:

Forbes Recommended:

Forbes Recommended Destinations:

Source: http://www.travelheadlines.utah.com/2013/02/utah-properties-on-forbes-travel-guide.html

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Brighten Up Your Living Space With These Handy Home ...

Making a pond on your property can be a home improvement project that will beautify the outside of your home. Not only can it make a great place to put a picnic table, but you can enjoy nature and even fish out of your pond, provided you make it big enough.

Solar panels are a fantastic way to reduce your energy costs. By placing panels strategically on your roof, you can turn the power of the sun into a regular source of free energy. If you create more power than you need, your local electric company will buy the excess energy from you.

If a contractor appears at your door and offers his services to you, be wary. Some companies like roofers or fence builders are known to use this tactic, but you should still do your research before you decide to hire them. Check the BBB, online reviews, and all supplied references.

Keep your closet free of clutter by organizing your shoes. Keep boots and shoes that you don?t wear often in a large plastic box, or in the original boxes you got when you purchased them. Only leave out the shoes that you wear at least twice a week. Doing this will allow your closet space to be organized, and your shoes to be neatly displayed.

If you are interested in saving money on heating and cooling bills in your home one of the first steps you should take are stopping up drafts. It is said that up to 40% of the energy lost in your home is because of air leakages. Start with the doors of your home.

If you would like to enjoy your deck in the night time hours, there are different types of lighting you can take a look at. Recessed lights, post lights and solar lights, are all alternatives when shopping. Find out what will work best for you and what will last in your climate.

The two rooms in your home that repel or attract the most home buyers are the kitchen and the bathrooms. This is why it is very important for you to keep both of these rooms updated. Buyers love extra bathrooms and updated kitchens, so keep that in mind when planning to do any home improvement.

When renovating a kitchen or bathroom, avoid using linoleum. The foremost reason for this is that linoleum has dropped out of vogue and can make your new renovation seem dated. Tile has a much better appearance, can be used in any situation where you might choose linoleum, and can even have radiant heat grids installed underneath for the extra touch of heated floors.

Some people hear the words home improvement and automatically think disaster, but this doesn?t necessarily have to be the case. You are going to hit snags in most home improvement projects, so if you are attempting to tackle the plumbing, you might want to leave that to the professionals, to avoid a major home improvement blunder. A good rule of thumb is if your not sure ask.

Have space available for the trash. Renovation projects always involve lots of debris and if you do not have a special place for it, it will add up quickly. Planning in advance, by getting a dumpster or other debris storage area, will help to prevent any headaches that may come with removal.

So you?ve figured out by now that home improvement doesn?t have to be that complicated. Mastering some basic information makes it easy to get started on just about any project, no matter how simple or complicated. Just remember what you?ve learned from this article and soon, your home will be looking better than ever.

Learn more on removal companies in or business removal companies.

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Source: http://www.dromomaniacs.com/brighten-up-your-living-space-with-these-handy-home-improvement-tips/

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World's postal services struggle with lower demand

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, postman John Lahmert delivers mail in rural Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, postman John Lahmert delivers mail in rural Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 15. 2013, postman John Lahmert loads his truck with mail in Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, Sandra Vidulich is thrilled about her new leather boots delivered by postman John Lahmert in rural Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

In this photo taken on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, semi-retired farmer Barry Georgeson collects his mail from postman John Lahmert in rural Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

In this photo taken Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, postman John Lahmert greets a customer from his delivery truck, in rural Otaki, New Zealand. New Zealand is considering cutting letter deliveries from six days a week to three as global demand for postal services dwindles. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)

OTAKI, New Zealand (AP) ? Sandra Vidulich is so excited about the leather boots she ordered through Amazon that she rips open the box in front of the postman and tries them on.

"I looove them," she declares, as the driveway at her tree-lined home in rural New Zealand briefly becomes a catwalk. "They're cool."

For now, a boom in Internet shopping is helping keep alive moribund postal services across the developed world. But the core of their business ? letters ? is declining precipitously, and data from many countries indicate that parcels alone won't be enough to save them. The once-proud postal services that helped build modern society are scaling back operations, risking further declines.

The United Kingdom is preparing to wash its hands of mail deliveries entirely by selling the Royal Mail, which traces its roots back nearly 500 years to the reign of King Henry VIII.

The U.S. Postal Service sparked uproar this month when it announced plans to stop delivering letters on Saturdays. New Zealand is considering more drastic cuts: three days of deliveries per week instead of six.

It's only in the past few years that postal services have truly felt the pinch of the Internet. Revenues at the USPS, which delivers about 40 percent of the world's mail, peaked in 2007 at $75 billion.

But the decline since then has been rapid. USPS revenue in 2012 fell to $65 billion, and its losses were $15.9 billion. It handled 160 billion pieces of mail that year, down from 212 billion in 2007. And it had slashed its workforce by 156,000, or 23 percent.

Elsewhere, the news is just as grim. La Poste in France estimates that by 2015, it will be delivering 30 percent fewer letters than it did in 2008. Japan last year delivered 13 percent fewer letters than it did four years earlier. In Denmark, the postal service said letter volumes dropped 12 percent in a single year.

The Universal Postal Union, which reports to the United Nations, estimates that letter volumes worldwide dropped by nearly 4 percent in 2011 and at an even faster clip in developed nations. Developed countries closed 5 percent of their post offices in 2011 alone.

And while Internet shopping continues to grow, postal services that once profited from their monopoly on letters find themselves competing for parcels against private companies like FedEx.

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he doesn't believe the service can ever regain the revenue from packages it has lost from letters. He said axing Saturday mail deliveries, while keeping six-day-a-week package deliveries, will save the service about $2 billion a year.

Donahoe said he thinks ending Saturday letter deliveries will keep the USPS a solid proposition for years to come.

"People still go to their mailbox every day and they wait for their mail to come," he said. "It's part of American life."

And it has been since the beginning. The postal service's role was defined in the Constitution, and Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general. The short-lived Pony Express achieved an enduring place in American folklore. Even the modern system of highways and airline travel grew from pioneering routes developed by the postal service.

"It's easy to forget how central this institution was to commerce, public life, social affairs," said Richard John, a Columbia University professor who has written a book on the postal service. "It was once very, very important. Of course, that was then and this is now."

Even now, however, much depends on the post office. According to the Envelope Manufacturers Association, the postal service is at the core of a trillion-dollar mailing industry in the U.S. that employs more than 8 million people.

And for delivering a paper letter cheaply, there is simply no alternative. If rural residents were ever charged the actual cost of mail rather than the subsidized standard rate, John said, the costs would be prohibitive.

The value of the mail goes beyond money in many places, including rural New Zealand. The postal carrier serves as a focal point for the community.

John Lahmert, the postman who delivered the boots, has been delivering mail to farms around the North Island town of Otaki for 18 years. The 72-year-old independent contractor seems to know everybody on his route and doesn't mind stopping for a chat.

Noeline Saunders greets him at the gate, wondering if her citrus trees have arrived. Not yet, Lahmert tells her. Barry Georgeson, a semi-retired farmer, calls out a greeting and wanders down to pick up his letters.

"We don't like change," Georgeson said when asked about the possibility of mail coming just three times a week. But he said he could learn to live with it.

Many seemed resigned to a reduced service.

"I think people can genuinely understand that the world is changing," said New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. "And while some people are still very reliant on the mail, for a lot of people that's a fraction of the way they receive information."

About 7 in 10 Americans said they'd favor axing Saturday deliveries if it allowed the post office to deal with billions of dollars in debt, according to a poll by The New York Times and CBS News.

Some countries, including Australia, Canada and Sweden, have already cut deliveries to five days a week. Others are tinkering with partial privatizations.

Exactly what Britons might expect under a privatized service remains unclear. Some speculate it could mean cutbacks.

Royal Mail's Chief Executive Moya Greene declined to comment for this story: "We're simply not doing interviews about the planned sale," spokesman Mish Tullar wrote in an email.

In policy documents, the UK government said six-day-a-week deliveries and standardized letter prices remain vital but that private investors will provide more financial stability than "unpredictable" taxpayer funding.

While letter volumes are falling in developed nations, the reverse is true in some developing countries. In China, mail deliveries are up 56 percent since 2007, driven by a more than fourfold increase in premium express mail, according to figures from China Post.

Yet people in China are accustomed to having their mail show up late or disappear altogether. As Internet use increases in the developing world, mail may never become as essential as it has been elsewhere.

Not everybody is ready to give up on letters. Reader's Digest sends out about 500,000 pieces of mail each week to people in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia as it tries to entice them to buy its merchandise.

"A lot of players are going for a digital strategy, and fewer are doing the direct-mail approach," said Walter Beyleveldt, managing director for the Asia Pacific region. "Because of that, the mailbox will get emptier. It will potentially become an exciting place to go and look."

New Zealanders, however, may be looking there half as often as early as next year, if proposed changes to the New Zealand Post's charter are approved.

The government is accepting public comments until mid-March. A quarter of those received so far were mailed in, a rate considered unusually high.

The other 75 percent? Email.

___

Joe McDonald in Beijing, Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Cassandra Vinograd in London, Pauline Jelinek in Washington and Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report. AP researchers Yu Bing and Monika Mathur also contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-26-Dwindling%20Deliveries/id-6ef4b0e0f03d403fa51c725871eff821

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First lady's anti-obesity campaign prompts change

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Wal-Mart is putting special labels on some store-brand products to help shoppers quickly spot healthier items. Millions of schoolchildren are helping themselves to vegetables from salad bars in their lunchrooms, while kids' meals at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass of low-fat milk.

The changes put in place by the food industry are in response to the campaign against childhood obesity that Michelle Obama began waging three years ago. More changes are in store.

Influencing policy posed more of a challenge for the first lady, and not everyone welcomed her effort, criticizing it as a case of unwanted government intrusion.

Still, nutrition advocates and others give her credit for using her clout to help bring a range of interests to the table. They hope the increased awareness she has generated through speeches, her garden and her physical exploits will translate into further reductions in childhood obesity rates long after she leaves the White House.

About one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese, which puts them at increased risk for any number of life-threatening illnesses, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

While there is evidence of modest declines in childhood obesity rates in some parts of the country, the changes are due largely to steps taken before the first lady launched "Let's Move" in February 2010.

With the program entering its fourth year, Mrs. Obama heads out Wednesday on a two-day promotional tour with stops in Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri. She has been talking up the program on daytime and late-night TV shows, on the radio and in public service announcements with Big Bird. She also plans discussions next week on Google and Twitter.

"We're starting to see some shifts in the trend lines and the data where we're starting to show some improvement," the first lady told SiriusXM host B. Smith in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "We've been spending a lot of time educating and re-educating families and kids on how to eat, what to eat, how much exercise to get and how to do it in a way that doesn't completely disrupt someone's life."

Larry Soler, president and chief executive of the Partnership for a Healthier America, said Mrs. Obama has "been the leader in making the case for the time is now in childhood obesity and everyone has a role to play in overcoming the problem." The nonpartisan, nonprofit partnership was created as part of "Let's Move" to work with the private sector and to hold companies accountable for changes they promised to make.

Conservatives accused Mrs. Obama of going too far and dictating what people should ? and shouldn't ? eat after she played a major behind-the-scenes role in the passage in 2010 of a child nutrition law that required schools to make foods healthier. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, once brought cookies to a school and called the first lady's efforts a "nanny state run amok."

Other leaders in the effort, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have felt the backlash, too. Last fall, Bloomberg helped enact the nation's first rule barring restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands from selling soda and other high-calorie drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.

Despite the criticism, broad public support exists for some of the changes the first lady and the mayor are advocating, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

More than eight in 10 of those surveyed, 84 percent, support requiring more physical activity in schools, and 83 percent favor government providing people with nutritional guidelines and information about diet and exercise. Seventy percent favor having restaurants put calorie counts on menus, and 75 percent consider overweightness and obesity a serious problem in this country, according to the Nov. 21-Dec. 14 survey by telephone of 1,011 adults.

Food industry representatives say Mrs. Obama has influenced their own efforts.

Mary Sophos of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's largest food companies, including General Mills and Kellogg's, said an industry effort to label the fronts of food packages with nutritional content gained momentum after Mrs. Obama, a mother of two, attended one of their meetings in 2010 and encouraged them to do more.

"She's not trying to point fingers," Sophos said. "She's trying to get people to focus on solutions."

A move by the companies signaling willingness to work with Mrs. Obama appears to have paid off as the Obama administration eased off some of the fights it appeared ready to pick four years ago.

The Food and Drug Administration has stalled its push to mandate labeling on the front of food packages, saying it is monitoring the industry's own effort. A rule that would require calorie counts on menus has been delayed as the FDA tries to figure out whom to apply it to. Supermarkets, movie theaters and other retailers have been lobbying to be exempted.

The industry also appears to have successfully warded off a move by the Federal Trade Commission to put in place voluntary guidelines for advertising junk food to kids. Directed by Congress, the guidelines would have discouraged the marketing of certain foods that didn't meet government-devised nutritional requirements. The administration released draft guidelines in 2011 but didn't follow up after the industry said they went too far and angry House Republicans summoned an agency official to Capitol Hill to defend them.

Besides labeling its store brands, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, also pledged to cut sodium and added sugars by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, by 2015, and remove industrially produced trans fats.

Leslie Dach, an executive vice president, said sodium in packaged bread has been cut by 13 percent, and added sugar in refrigerated flavored milk, popular among kids, has been cut by more than 17 percent. He said Wal-Mart shoppers have told the company that eating healthier is important to them. Giving customers what they want is also good for business.

New York reported a 5.5 percent decline in obesity rates in kindergarteners through eighth-graders between the 2006-07 and 2010-11 school years, according a report last fall by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which studies health policy. In Philadelphia, the decline was 4.7 percent among students in grades K-12 between the 2006-07 and 2009-10 school years, the foundation said.

Declines also were reported in California and in Mississippi, where Mrs. Obama stops Wednesday.

In Philadelphia, an organization called the Food Trust has worked since 1992 to help corner stores offer fresh foods, connect schools with local farms, bring supermarkets to underserved areas and ensure that farmers' markets accept food stamps, according to Robert Wood Johnson.

New York City requires chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus. Licensed day care centers also must offer daily physical activity, limit the amount of time children spend in front of TV and computer screens, and set nutrition standards.

Both cities also made changes to improve the quality of foods and beverages available to students in public schools.

___

Online:

Let's Move: http://www.letsmove.gov

___

Follow Darlene Superville and Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap and http://www.twitter.com/mcjalonick

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-27-Michelle%20Obama/id-f458882bef7147f78987cb585db37037

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Playstation 4 Games Warn of PS-Style Surveillance

The debut of the PlayStation 4 in New York City Wednesday (Feb. 20) was as remarkable for what it showed as for what it didn't show: Sony unveiled a raft of beautiful, incredibly realistic new games, but not the console itself. The device, perhaps in a straight-from-the-lab rough appearance, was somewhere offstage, driving the giant projectors that broadcast previews of upcoming games around the Hammerstein Ballroom.

Out-of-site-yet-everywhere seems to be the overall metaphor of the PlayStation 4 (PS4), as Sony described it. The PS4 (which Sony plans to sell by year's end) is not so much a machine as a network ? with games delivered from the cloud, games that can follow you as you move from the PS4 to a mobile device, and the ability to post video clips of your adventures or even broadcast entire games online.

"We're making it so your friends can look over your shoulder virtually and interact with you as you play," said David Perry, co-founder of Gaikai, a company that Sony bought to build its cloud-gaming network.

But not only friends will be watching. Sony will. "The PlayStation network will get to know you by understanding your personal preferences and the preferences of your community and turn this knowledge into useful information that will enhance your gameplay," Perry said.

Every important technology has good and bad uses. Some of the upcoming games that Sony showcased for the PS4 explore, perhaps unwittingly, the darker side of omnipresent, omniscient networks similar to what Sony is building.

Suckerpunch's new game "inFAMOUS: Second Son" explores the surveillance state. "Right now, there are 4.2 million security cameras distributed all around Great Britain. That's one camera for every 14 citizens," said game director Nate Fox, in a dramatic introduction to the game. "It is hard to put your finger on what that sense of security is worth, but it is easy to say what it costs ? our freedom."

Like Great Britain, the PS4 will also have a vast network of cameras ? not one for every 14 citizens, but one for every console owner. At the presentation, Marc Cerny, head of the PlayStation hardware platform, showed a photo of a depth-sensing stereo camera for the PS4, designed to track the new Dualshock controller as it moves.

The danger in "Second Son" is that some individuals have developed super-human powers (a la "Heroes") that make them living weapons. They carry no traditional weapons and show no physical signs of danger ? rendering all the modern surveillance tech impotent.

But what if new security technology could go beyond the physical? What if it could read people's intentions and predict their next moves?

What if it were like the PS4?

Sony believes that PlayStation owners simply give off so much data as they interact intensively with the console, other devices and the network that it can know what its users intend to do.

"People haven't' changed, but now everybody's broadcasting. And once you've seen it, all of it, how do you look away?"

That's not a quote from a Sony or game-company executive. It's from the lead character in the upcoming Ubisoft game "Watch Dogs." It follows a vigilante character with access to all that information. As he walks through Chicago, message windows pop up, showing details about the people he passes. Marcus Rhodes, a 43-year-old Iraq War veteran, is unemployed. Sandy Higgins, a grade-school teacher, recently won a child-custody battle and has a 30 percent chance of being a crime victim. [See also:?Is Your Cellphone Under Surveillance?]

In the clip, the vigilante uses the knowledge to find a woman in danger and to track her attacker in a chase through the city. But as the police then pursue him, the game shows how much data the protagonist himself is giving off.

It's rather unlikely that the PlayStation 4 was designed to be a mass surveillance device, a Trojan Horse of a game console designed to slip spooks into the living room. Far likelier, Sony just wants the games to be more involving and better targeted for the customers, so they will buy and play more games.

"If we know enough about you to predict the next game you'll purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go before you even click the button," Marc Cerny said.

But still, the PS4 will collect a lot of information. That itself, in the right imagination, could be fodder for a good dystopian video game.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.?Follow Sean Captain @seancaptain

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/playstation-4-games-warn-ps-style-surveillance-135426994.html

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Marriage group will 'take out' GOPers who support same-sex unions (Star Tribune)

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Tips On Just How To Be Efficient When Improving Your House ...

Performing home improvement does not must be a difficult task. Enhancing your home can be enjoyable and simple, and make your home environment a whole lot more enjoyable. Make-over the areas you like and make them into areas you love. Follow the guidelines below and you will be able to turn your home into your dream home.

Set electrical wire connectors on your tubes of caulking! Those little plastic covers that are included with the tubes often get missing! A commonly had alternative that works of the same quality or a lot better than the original top can be an electrical wire connection. Special colors can be even used by you for special forms of tubes.

An low priced method to give your kitchen a new search without spending thousands on new cabinets would be to give them a facelift. Install new hard ware and recondition them with oil to make them seem new. With respect to the substance of the units, you may be able to paint them too.

To save on energy prices, consider putting a number of small fluorescent lighting fixtures under your cabinetry. On the surface that is ideal for preparing food or illuminating a richly colored counter top or ornamental back dash region these lights eat up less power than your overhead light and can cast a great light.

Try changing the house figures outside your house for many easy home improvement. If the house numbers on your house are old, buy some new ones. Try trying to find contemporary house figures made from stainless, aluminum, or brass. Fit them with the final in your exterior light fixtures for greater curb appeal.

In regards to do-it-yourself, make sure to get prices from at minimum three different contractors. This is crucial as may the grade of work, because prices may differ considerably. Get yourself a good experience for the specialist by sitting yourself down with her or him and discussing your whole approach.

After some initial use, your kitchen cabinets can start to get rid of their appeal. You can shine up kitchen cabinetry by using car wax. Use some car feel liberally to a towel and wash your units down in a circular motion. This will make your units resemble they are new and shiny.

When it?s time for you to make improvements to your residence, engage the services of a reliable general contractor. Look around and make careful comparisons. A competent and sincere, general contractor, can complete home developments professionally. A contractor can also perform do-it-yourself work cheaper than you can control, by carrying it out yourself.

When signing a contract with a contractor doing home improvements, search for a place of business for that contractor. A clear sign that something is not around level with your builder is once they just give you a phone number for a contact and not a stone and mortar building address. It?s super easy for them to just change figures and start shop elsewhere If a problem occurs.

In regards to home improvement, consider putting solar power panels to your house. You may think it is to become a wise investment in comparison to the increasing costs of energy, while the upfront cost may be big. This will save on your monthly electric bills, because the most of your energy will come from the energy you?re saving. This is a great, natural treatment for running your house.

When cracks come in your interior walls or your ceilings, keep these things examined with a building professional as soon as possible. They can reveal greater, far more serious causes, while the most likely cause of such breaks is just a simple failure in the finished floor. You do not want to blithely paint over a break and just forget about it when it is actually showing base negotiation!

Raise the security of your home by adding motion detecting floodlights on the exterior of your house. These lights are ideal for domiciles with large front yards or those situated on dark streets. Mount these lights near your garage or shed. These lights will illuminate the area and decrease the threat of break-ins.

Take the time to look for inspiration in magazines, color swatches and whatever else that you can find, before you begin your next do it yourself project. It is important to plan ahead so that you don?t get stuck trying to do a lot of when it?s time for you to begin your project. This may make the entire process a whole lot more comforting for you personally.

Several things jazz up a residence such as for instance a well-maintained flower bed. Before you undertake a significant remodel, nevertheless, research your options. Find out which flowers are best suited to your home?s climate, soil type, and shaded places. This may ensure that you don?t spend your time or money by planting roses that aren?t appropriate.

Fit your fire extinguisher to the space where it?s being used. Along with could be the same old red but fire extinguishers are considered based on function. School B?s are best suited for the home but Class A?s would probably work well in the remaining portion of the house.

You don?t already have one and if you have a sizable backyard, it could be good for develop a deck before putting your property on the market. potential house buyers look at as an important entertaining space for family and friends a deck to hang out in in is because.

Do not place a television in your kitchen, If you should be creating the building of your dwelling. More time will be then spent by you in the kitchen, if you love television. This can put you in a position where you are convinced more, with the plethora of food around you.

As you can see, do-it-yourself can be quite simple. With the recommendations above, you can accomplish the task of turning your home into your private sanctuary, a place you are proud to call home. What?re you looking forward to? Go ahead and start that home improvement project you?ve been considering. cheap nautical cabinet hardware

In: Aparitii editoriale | | Link ????? 7 vizualizari

Source: http://culturapopulara.ro/?p=25593

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Home improvements pay off at tax time - The Salt Lake Tribune

Some federal tax credits from some energy-efficient home improvements and other energy saving measures have been extended. Websites offer detailed information for homeowners and builders. Here?s a sampling:

Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute ? Spotlights specific federal tax credit amounts for changes made to residential HVAC, water heaters, home gas and oil, at http://bit.ly/UflvvX.

Alliance to Save Energy ? Offers background and details on energy-efficient tax credits for 2012, at http://bit.ly/UUowk0.

Energy Star ? Click on "Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency" near the bottom of the page to learn about different tax credits, at http://www.energystar.gov.

U.S. Department of Energy ? Provides energy saving tax credits for various programs under "Savings" section, at http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm.

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Reader comments on sltrib.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Salt Lake Tribune. We will delete comments containing obscenities, personal attacks and inappropriate or offensive remarks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. If you see an objectionable comment, click the red "Flag" link below it.
See more about comments here.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/55832826-79/energy-tax-credits-http.html.csp

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94% Zero Dark Thirty

All Critics (234) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (219) | Rotten (15)

What's striking is the absence of triumphalism -- Bigelow doesn't shy away from showing the victims shot down in cold blood in the compound -- and we come away with the overwhelming sense that this has been a grim, dark episode in our history.

Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.

No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.

While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.

From the very first scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action.

A timely and important reminder of the agonizing human price of zealotry.

An exhilarating and compelling historical document worthy of praise.

Bigelow's latest proves a rewarding piece of filmmaking, one that, in its best moments at least, is as gripping and as troubling as anything the director's ever made.

Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal shape history -- those breaks, big and small, that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden -- into one of the finest fact-based thrillers since "All the President's Men."

Purely as cinematic exercise, Zero Dark Thirty is an exhilarating piece of work. But, beyond its for-the-times subject matter, the work does not linger whatsoever.

Zero Dark Thirty is interesting as opposed to enjoyable, intriguing as opposed to entertaining, and certainly less memorable than The Hurt Locker.

It's quite remarkable how Bigelow and Boal managed to take 12 years of information (including a conclusion that everyone knows) and packaged it into a coherent, intimate and intense movie.

We know the ending, yet remain mesmerized by familiar details, filmed with a harrowing sense of urgency. It's as close to being in the White House situation room that night, watching a closed-circuit broadcast, as anyone could expect.

The second half of the film IS the film.

Whereas Locker was less about war than what it is to have a death wish, ZDT is less about the suspenseful true-life search for Osama bin Laden than the red tape one woman must wade through to prove that a mean old bastard is living in suburban Pakistan.

Bigelow's great achievement is stripping down the action from the exaggerated theatrics in movies and television shows so the missions feel no less exciting and immediate.

One of the finest movies of the year is a thriller about the tracking and, finally, slaying of Osama bin Laden.

There is no Team America-style, flag-waving bravado behind this story - it is quite the opposite.

Bigelow has created the best film of 2012.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is less a celebration how terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was found and killed than an engrossing examination of why it took a decade to deal with him.

Following on from the great acclaim of The Hurt Locker, Bigalow's shaky cam and tough talking characters once again take us to the dark side of modern warfare.

In the absence of cinematic grandeur and didacticism, we're left as empty and as lost as Chastain's agent as she boards a symbolically empty plane for an uncertain future. Just what are we to think of the so-called War on Terror?

The viewer needs to stay sharp to stay on top of the details of the labyrinthine search, but Bigelow tackles the complex story with the same muscular urgency and incisive intelligence that won her an Oscar for The Hurt Locker.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zero_dark_thirty/

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Huawei reveals 'fastest smartphone in the world'

This undated product image provided by Huawei, shows the Chinese company's new flagship model that it calls "the fastest smartphone in the world."The company said Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012, the device supports faster download speeds than other phones, but today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds. (AP Photo/Huawei)

This undated product image provided by Huawei, shows the Chinese company's new flagship model that it calls "the fastest smartphone in the world."The company said Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012, the device supports faster download speeds than other phones, but today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds. (AP Photo/Huawei)

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product "the fastest smartphone in the world" and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand.

Parts of the presentation of the phone at a press conference Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that the company has some way to go in polishing its pitch for a global audience.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group said the new phone can be programmed to display more than 100 different "themes," or looks. This is important because "ladies like flowers, colorful things," Yu said.

Yu also said Huawei is learning from Apple how to make Google's Android software easier to use, a lawsuit-friendly utterance considering that Apple is on a global campaign to sue makers of Android phones for copying from the iPhone.

The new phone, the Ascend P2, will have a 4.7 inch screen. Yu said it will be available in the April to June time frame for about $525 without a contract. It's the "fastest" because it supports faster download speeds than other phones. However, today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds.

Huawei Technologies Ltd. was the world's third largest seller of smartphones, after Samsung and Apple, in the fourth quarter of last year, according to research firm IDC. That's despite selling very few phones in the U.S., where the big phone companies mostly ignore it. It has a much better position in Europe, where cellphone companies have embraced its network equipment, and France's Orange is committed to selling the phone.

In the U.S., a congressional panel recommended in October that phone carriers avoid doing business with Huawei or its smaller Chinese rival, ZTE Corp., for fear that its network equipment could contain "back doors" that enable access to communications from outside. The Chinese government rejected the report as false and an effort to block Chinese companies from the U.S. market.

Meanwhile, a report by a private U.S. cybersecurity firm concluded recently that a special unit of China's military is responsible for sustained cyberespionage against U.S. companies and government agencies. China has denied involvement in the attacks in which massive amounts of data and corporate trade secrets, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were stolen.

"It has not been an easy journey for us," Huawei's global brand director, Amy Lou, said Sunday of the company's quest to become globally recognized and trusted. She called the company "a great consumer brand in the making."

The world's largest cellphone trade show, Mobile World Congress, opens Monday in Barcelona.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-24-EU-TEC-Wireless-Show-Huawei/id-f2f99fd9c2224e69a28030917ba5ca74

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Use a Nut and Bolt Drawer to Store Loose Board Game Pieces

Board game pieces, especially from complicated role-playing games, can be tough to keep track of. A nut and bolt drawer is a great tool to keep everything in one place.

David Caolo at Unclutterer suggests keeping the drawer wherever you store your board games. The see-through bins are ideal for segmenting and identifying small pieces, and you won't risk different pieces from the same game getting mixed up like they might in the original box. You can even pull individual trays out to use as token holders while you play.

With this system in place, you could get rid of your game boxes entirely, and even use the boards as pieces of functional art. Hit up the source link below for more great board game storage ideas.

Store and Organize Board Games | Unclutterer

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/3j06bXI74wU/use-a-nut-and-bolt-drawer-to-store-loose-board-game-pieces

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John Lackey on his spring debut: ?I missed playing baseball?

A relaxed and happy John Lackey after Saturday's spring debut. (Mike Petraglia/WEEI.com)

FORT MYERS, Fla. ? John Lackey is a changed man.

After allowing one run on one hit, one strikeout, one walk and one hit batter in his spring debut Saturday, the 34-year-old right-hander admitted to being his age, laughed about his 20-pitch outing and expressed appreciation for feeling no pain in his elbow for the first time since signing with the Red Sox before the 2010 season.

?I?ve lied, for sure, about that,? Lackey said when asked if he hid arm pain from the Red Sox in the first three seasons with the team. ?There?s definitely some pain. There were a few times when I said there wasn?t but it?s been a few years, for sure.?

Despite loading the bases with none out on the first 10 pitches he threw, he was enjoying the experience all the while on the JetBlue mound.

?I did,? he said. ?I kind of took a second before I went out on the mound and reflected on the bench on the past year and a half. It?s been a lot of work and have to thank a lot of trainers, a lot of people that helped me get back to this point. I was excited to be back out there.

?[I was] excited. It was fun. I missed playing baseball for sure. It was good to be back out there. The arm felt fine. I didn?t feel any pain in the elbow. Just keep moving forward.?

Lackey allowed one run, one hit, one walk, struck out a batter and hit a batter in a 20-pitch first inning of work, his only inning of the day.

?Results stuff I really wasn?t real concerned about today,? he said. ?Just glad to be back out there and get things going in that direction. Next time out we?ll get to working on a few other things.?

What did his manager think?

?The ball got out of his hand as we expected today,? John Farrell said. ?It?s a big step, and it?s one over the last 16 months, he was on his program, and at times, he probably felt like he was the only one going through it. And today was the first step for his building block for spring training and getting back to being a regular member of this rotation.

?I think there was a lot of anticipation on a number of people?s part, and mostly John?s. But now, he?s able to get into his five-day rotation, normal sides, normal turns through the schedule. But a good first step for him.?

Farrell said the plan is to increase to two innings for his next outing, likely in five days against the Pirates in Bradenton, and increase by one inning in each subsequent start.

?That?s the plan,? Farrell said. ?He?ll build with each consecutive outing, an inning at a time.?

Lackey admitted he had some nerves taking the mound.

?There?s definitely some for sure,? Lackey said. ?It got better as I got a little bit more tired. The ball started coming down a little bit but first couple of hitters, I was up in the zone. I was just going to throw all fastballs today just trying to build arm strength. I think I tried one changeup, that?s it. The rest of them were all fastballs. It?s a little different than throwing on the side for sure.?

Lackey said he wasn?t worried about velocity in the first game of the spring, a game in which he threw no breaking balls.

?The first game after Tommy John? No. I was just trying to hit the glove in the air today. The plan was one inning all along. I look forward to the next time for sure,? Lackey said.

Source: http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2013/02/23/john-lackey-on-his-spring-debut-i-missed-playing-baseball/

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NRA Uses Justice Department Memo To Accuse Obama On Guns

WASHINGTON -- The National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue in ads that the Obama administration believes its gun control plans won't work unless the government seizes firearms and requires national gun registration ? ideas the White House has not proposed and does not support.

The NRA's assertion and its obtaining of the memo in the first place underscore the no-holds-barred battle under way as Washington's fight over gun restrictions heats up.

The memo, under the name of one of the Justice Department's leading crime researchers, critiques the effectiveness of gun control proposals, including some of President Barack Obama's. A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on "requiring gun registration," and says gun buybacks would not be effective "unless massive and coupled with a ban."

The administration has not proposed gun registration, buybacks or banning all firearms. But gun registration and ownership curbs are hot-button issues for the NRA and other gun-rights groups, which strenuously oppose the ideas.

Justice Department and White House officials declined to provide much information about the memo or answer questions about it on the record.

The memo has the look of a preliminary document and calls itself "a cursory summary" and assessment of gun curb initiatives. The administration has not release it officially.

But the NRA has posted the memo on one of its websites and cites it in advertising aimed at whipping up opposition to Obama's efforts to contain gun violence. The ad says the paper shows that the administration "believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation" and thinks universal background checks "won't work without requiring national gun registration" ? ideas the president has not proposed or expressed support for.

"Still think President Obama's proposals sound reasonable?" Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief Washington lobbyist, says in the ad.

Last month, White House spokesman Jay Carney said none of Obama's proposals "would take away a gun from a single law-abiding American." Other administration officials have said their plans would not result in gun seizures or a national gun registry.

A Justice Department official who would only discuss the issue on condition of anonymity said the NRA ad misrepresents Obama's gun proposals and that the administration has never backed a gun registry or gun confiscation.

While the memo's analysis of gun curb proposals presents no new findings, it is unusual for a federal agency document to surface that raises questions about a president's plans during debate on a high-profile issue such as restricting firearms.

Obama wants to ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines exceeding 10 rounds that are produced in the future. He wants universal background checks for nearly all gun purchases. Today, checks are only mandatory on sales by federally licensed gun dealers, not transactions at gun shows or other private sales.

His plan also includes tougher federal laws against gun trafficking and straw purchases, which occur when a person legally buys a firearm but sells it to a criminal or someone else barred from owning a weapon.

Interest in the gun issue has intensified since the December shootings in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 first-graders and six staffers at an elementary school. The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee plans to write legislation addressing some of Obama's proposals in the next week or two.

The NRA's Cox declined to say how his organization obtained the memo.

He said the commercial is running online in 15 states, including many Republican-leaning states where Democrats will defend Senate seats next year, such as Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia. There are also ads in papers in five states.

The memo was written under the name of Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department's research arm. It is dated Jan. 4, nearly two weeks before Obama announced his plan for restricting guns, and Ridgeway's first day as acting chief.

Justice Department officials said Ridgeway was not granting interviews. He came to the institute last July from the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institution where he studied criminal justice issues, and has a Ph.D. in statistics.

The memo says straw purchases and gun thefts are the largest sources of firearms used in crimes, and that such transactions "would most likely become larger if background checks at gun shows and private sellers were addressed."

Gun control supporters said the NRA ad and the Justice memo don't mention that the current federal background check system blocked gun sales to 2.1 million criminals and others barred from owning guns between 1994, when the checks began, and 2010. Also ignored is that Obama has proposed cracking down on straw purchases to prevent a growth in illegal transactions, they said.

Advocates of restricting guns also said the memo omitted mention of several studies that affirm the effectiveness of firearms curbs. These include a 2010 police group analysis showing more than one-third of police departments found increased criminal use of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines since the 2004 expiration of the ban on those items.

"It doesn't appear to be a serious discussion of gun violence prevention policy, never mind an expression of administration policy," said Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

The memo says that out of 11,000 annual gun homicides, an average of 35 deaths yearly are from mass shootings, defined as those with four or more victims.

"Policies that address the larger firearm homicide issue will have a far greater impact even if they do not address the particular issues of mass shootings," it says.

It says there were an estimated 1.5 million assault weapons before the 10-year ban on those firearms began in 1994, so their sheer number would weaken a new ban exempting existing weapons. Such guns accounted for just 2 percent to 8 percent of crimes before the 1994 ban, so eliminating assault weapons "would not have a large impact on gun homicides," the memo said.

Recent data on the assault weapons ban impact is scarce because since the 1990s, Congress has blocked most federal research on the effect that firearms have on public health. As part of the gun restrictions Obama proposed last month, he ordered federal scientific agencies to research gun violence.

___

Online:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence

National Rifle Association: http://home.nra.org

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/23/nra-justice-department-memo_n_2749553.html

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San Bernardino hire has twice declared bankruptcy

Tim Reid , Reuters ? ? ? 1 hr.

LOS ANGELES - The bankrupt city of San Bernardino has hired a new city manager who, according to court filings, has twice declared personal bankruptcy and was recently ousted from the board of a small community's water company after being sued by shareholders.

The city council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to hire Allen J. Parker, 71, as its city manager on an annual salary of almost $222,000. He replaces an interim city manager who resigned last month because, according to friends, she was exasperated by the city's internal divisions.

The interim city manager, Andrea Travis-Miller, could not be reached for comment.

Pat Morris, the mayor of the city in California, praised Parker's "wealth of city management experience" and expressed "great confidence" in his ability to oversee the city's affairs. Parker, who began working in the job on Wednesday, will be crucial in guiding the city of 210,000 people through municipal bankruptcy, in a case that could set a national precedent for Wall Street bondholders and pension funds in future municipal bankruptcies.

The mayor and council members knew about both of Parker's personal bankruptcies -- the first in 1991 and the second in 2011 -- and the litigation surrounding his water board tenure before they interviewed him, according to the mayor's chief of staff. They discussed both issues with him when they interviewed Parker last Friday. They say the issues were no impediment: the council interviewed two final candidates but voted unanimously to hire him.

The California newspaper The Press-Enterprise reported on Thursday that Parker filed in 2011 for personal bankruptcy. In comments to the paper, Parker said that his bankruptcy and his ability to handle the city's fiscal problems were "apples and oranges."

Calls and emails to Parker asking about his bankruptcy filings and his tenure on the water board went unanswered. An email to Parker asking if his wife Sara, with whom he jointly filed for bankruptcy in the 2011 petition, would comment also did not elicit a response.

The bankruptcy of San Bernardino, a city 65 miles east of Los Angeles, is a national test case as to whether the pensions of government workers take precedence over other payments in a municipal bankruptcy -- a high stakes issue for pension plans and their beneficiaries, and for the Wall Street bondholders who lend money to governments.

City managers are central to any city's quest to seek bankruptcy protection, because they have a pivotal role in answering questions from creditors and the court. The judge overseeing San Bernardino's case must still rule on whether the city is eligible for bankruptcy before the case proceeds.

Legal dispute
A 2009 lawsuit brought by a shareholder in the Banning Heights Mutual Water Company, where Parker was a director and then president of the board between 2004 and 2010, resulted in Parker being voted off the board in February 2010 after a court-ordered special election.

Banning Heights is a tiny unincorporated community 85 miles east of Los Angeles. The water company was formed in 1913 to provide water and today it serves about 250 residents.

Despite its small size, the water rights and land upon which the community sits are worth millions of dollars, according to John McClendon, the water board's general counsel. At one point under Parker's tenure on the water board, an entity called The Tahiti Group had placed $7 million in an escrow account to purchase the company, according to correspondence attached to court filings.

Court filings in the 2009 lawsuit, and a subsequent separate lawsuit brought by the water company allege that Parker, along with others, used their position on the board to try to sell the water company, against the wishes of shareholders.

Parker and others were also accused of withholding information from shareholders, according to those court filings. The shareholder sued in 2009 because he said Parker and others ignored the results of previous shareholder elections when they were voted off the board. Parker is not a defendant in the second lawsuit which is still active.

According to one court filing by the water company dated September 20, 2010, when shareholders gained access to the water company's office after Parker and others were voted off the board, computers were missing, hard drives had been wiped and bags of shredded documents sat on the floor.

In a deposition dated November 9, 2010 relating to the 2009 lawsuit, Parker said he never shredded documents and did not believe anyone "during our regime" on the water board shredded any documents.

After a judge ruled against Parker and others in the 2009 lawsuit and ordered a special shareholder election, they were voted off the board by shareholders in February 2010.

Background check
According to his resume, which does not mention Banning Heights Water Company, Parker has long experience as a local manager in several other California cities such as East Palo Alto, Half Moon Bay, Seal Beach and Compton.

Jim Morris, the son and chief of staff to Pat Morris, San Bernardino's mayor, said the city had done its own thorough background check on Parker before he was interviewed by the council, last Friday. His bankruptcies, and the Banning Heights Mutual Water Company litigation, were known about by the time the interview took place, Morris said.

"We talked to the attorneys involved, and pulled the court filings. These were disputes over election results," Morris said. He said the Banning Heights litigation did not involve serious issues, and that such disputes occur on small entities such as the water board all the time.

Morris said there was no reason why Parker should have included his tenure on the water board on his resume. "He wasn't employed by the water board," Morris said. "His resume was an employment resume. If someone was a member of their local homeowners' association you wouldn't expect that to be on their resume."

Parker filed for personal bankruptcy in 1991 in San Mateo, Calif., according to court records. No further details were available. In February 2011, he filed for bankruptcy with his wife, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California.

According to the 2011 bankruptcy filing, Parker and his wife listed among their debts two home mortgages with unsecured balances of $267,500, as well as bank and credit card debt of $137,252.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/bankrupt-san-bernardino-picks-twice-bankrupt-manager-1C8499972

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