Not Just Ordinary News
Archive for May, 2009
North Korea Holds Nuclear Test Again
May 25th
According to North Korea press agency’s statement, North Korea holds nuclear test today (May 25). They said that this test was held as an improvement of their self protection system.
“This nuclear test was go on safely, in the higher level of explosion power, and better technological power. The result was satisfying to improve science and nuclear weapon and also to improve nuclear technology”, says North Korea Press Agency, KCNA.
South Korea president Lee Myung Bak says that he will investigate this report and will immediately holds national security emergency meeting. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Taro Aso says that Japan will form ad-hoc team to investigate this nuclear test and how they will immediately react.
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North Korea Nuclear Test Influence The Market
May 25th
Stock prices and South Korea’s currency (Won) slightly fall on Monday (May 25) following the announcement of nuclear test hold by North Korea. This condition arises dread on investors who have asset in Asian market. These investors already had a lot of hope in economic recovery.
Gasoline prices swing higher before holiday
May 24th
NEW YORK—Retail gasoline prices continued to climb Friday ahead of the Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of America’s summer driving season.
The national average pump price increased nearly 3 cents overnight to $2.391 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Gasoline prices ticked higher every day this month.
Gas prices surged higher though a crude rally appears to have stalled.
Benchmark crude for July delivery rose 62 cents to settle at $61.67 a barrel in light, pre-holiday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices increased 85 cents to settle at $60.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Refiners have been turning less oil into gas with millions of people driving less in the recession. That is one of the reasons there is a divergence in price between oil and gas.
Gas is 32.9 cents a gallon more expensive than last month, but it’s still $1.44 a gallon cheaper than a year ago when fears of an oil shortage sent energy prices soaring.
In the lower-48 states, gas prices ranged from an average of $2.20 a gallon in Arizona to $2.62 a gallon in California. Gas in Florida cost an average of $2.40 a gallon, while in Nevada it cost average $2.36 a gallon to fill up.
Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, said the national average probably won’t go much higher than $2.40 a gallon.
“In the last five years or so,” Lynch said, “there’s a tendency for the price to peak out at or before the start of driving season.”
Crude prices have held around $60, partly due to the falling value of the dollar. Crude is priced in dollars, so it becomes cheaper on international markets when the dollar falls.
The dollar fell Friday to a four-month low against the euro. By midday, it was trading at $1.3979. The dollar bought 94.67 yen, down from 99 yen two weeks ago.
Oil supplies have been in flux recently. OPEC countries have boosted exports by an estimated 200,000 barrels a day in the four weeks to June 6, according to tanker tracker Oil Movements.
Analyst Addison Armstrong also noted that Nigerian crude production dwindled to half the country’s total capacity in April amid renewed fighting with militants who want to remove all oil workers from the region.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline for June delivery rose 4.11 cents to settle at $1.8408 a gallon and heating oil added less than a penny to settle at $1.538 a gallon. Natural gas for June delivery dropped 8.8 cents to settle at $3.515 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.
Source: Boston.com
Apple Is Working on a Tablet, Not a Netbook
May 24th
Apple will wait until next year to enter the netbook market, and then will unveil not a knock-off, but a tablet-like device priced between $500 and $700, a Wall Street analyst said today.
Gene Munster, a senior analyst for Piper Jaffray, ticked off significant amounts of admittedly circumstantial evidence to back up his thinking on Apple’s move into the lower-priced market.
“Between indications from our component contacts in Asia, recent patents relating to multi-touch sensitivity for more complex computing devices, comments from Tim Cook on the April 22 conference call, and Apple’s acquisition of P.A. Semi along with other recent chip-related hires, it is increasingly clear that Apple is investing more in its mobile computing franchise,” said Munster in a note delivered to clients this week.
Contrary to other analysts, including Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research, who believe Apple will react to pricing pressure by unveiling a device priced between the lowest-end MacBook ($999) and the upper-end iPod Touch ($399) this year, Munster is betting that Apple will wait until the first half of 2010.
As Munster sees it, Apple’s answer to netbooks — the smaller, lighter and most of all, cheaper notebooks that run Windows and Linux — will be a tablet sporting a 7-to-10-inch screen that runs a Mac OS X-like operating system optimized for multi-touch. The time it takes to develop that operating system — and wrap up negotiations with mobile carriers, who Apple may be talking with about iPhone-like subsidies for the new device — make any debut this year unlikely.
“We are anticipating a new category of Apple products with an operating system more robust than the iPhone’s but optimized for multi-touch, unlike Mac OS X,” said Munster in his research note. “Such a product line would be a sort of hybrid between the iPhone and the Mac, requiring a new operating system.”
Source: www.pcworld.com
Company Recalls 96,000 Pounds of Beef
May 24th
COAL VALLEY, Ill. (AP) – A northwestern Illinois meatpacker is recalling nearly 96,000 pounds of its ground beef products because they may be contaminated with E. coli.
Officials say a recall was initiated after three people fell sick from E. coli in the Cleveland area, and that related illnesses have been reported in Pennsylvania and Illinois.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that meat from Valley Meats LLC of Coal Valley was linked to the Ohio infections.
The USDA said the beef was produced in March and distributed in 10-pound to 40-pound packages, sold under brand names including Grillmaster, J&B, Thick ‘N Savory, 3S, Klub and Ultimate.
Republicans turn on Dick Cheney over Barack Obama attack
May 24th
In his audacious attack on a sitting president last week, Mr Cheney declared that America was less safe from terrorism after Mr Obama’s decision to abandon violent interrogation methods and close Guantanamo.
But once the cheering had died down on talk radio and cable television, discordant voices emerged from the Right to challenge Mr Cheney’s defence of the Bush-era legacy.
“Yeah, I disagree with Dick Cheney,” said Tom Ridge, who was appointed by the Bush-Cheney administration to set up and run the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on America.
Mr Ridge spoke out after back-to-back “dueling” speeches on national security by Mr Obama and Mr Cheney on Thursday. He took issue with much of what Mr Obama had to say, but particularly disliked Mr Cheney’s response.
“It’s just the whole notion of a Republican vice president giving a speech after the incumbent Democratic president,” Mr Ridge told CNN. “It’s gotta go beyond the politics of either party.”
Mr Cheney’s daughter, Liz, is his most high-profile supporter. On television – where she has made 12 appearances in recent days – she hinted at a fear of prosecution, just as her father did in his speech.
“I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January,” said Miss Cheney. “But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.”
More heavyweight criticism of her father was still to come. Despite his bitter election defeat at Mr Obama’s hands, the Republican senator, John McCain, flatly rejected Mr Cheney’s support for interrogation techniques condemned as torture by the Red Cross.
“When you have a majority of Americans, 70-something per cent, saying we shouldn’t torture, then I’m not sure it helps for the vice president to go out and continue to espouse that position,” Mr McCain said.
He went on to say that Mr Cheney “believes that waterboarding doesn’t fall under the Geneva Conventions and that it’s not a form of torture. But, you know, it goes back to the Spanish Inquisition.”
But David Winston, the prominent strategist and pollster who works closely with the congressional Republican leadership, said that Mr Cheney had earned “a lot of credibility” and put Mr Obama on the defensive.
“From a political standpoint, I think Cheney wins on points,” said Rich Galen an adviser to Newt Gingrich the former Speaker of the House. Disarray and poor leadership in the Republican Party had given the former Vice President an opening. “It’s either Cheney or who else. There’s no who else, so you take Cheney.”
Pat Buchanan, a former presidential candidate and adviser to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, praised Mr Cheney’s remarks as “candid” and “accurate”.
Source: News.Google.com
SF needs just one inning for 5-1 win over Seattle
May 24th
SEATTLE – Juan Uribe got the big hit San Francisco had been missing, a two-out bases clearing double in a five-run eighth inning, and Matt Cain tossed his first complete game this season in the Giants’ 5-1 win over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.
On a maddening streak of failing to come up with a clutch hit, Uribe gave the Giants just that. With two outs and the bases loaded, Uribe lined a 1-0 pitch from Seattle reliever Mark Lowe (0-2) to the wall in right-center field, scoring all three runners just when it appeared the Giants were destined for another low-scoring loss.
Source: News.Yahoo.com
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
May 24th
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an upcoming 2009 fantasy-adventure film based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the sixth film in the popular Harry Potterfilms series. It is directed by David Yates, the director of the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. David Heyman and David Barron are producing the film, and Steve Kloves, screenwriter of the first four films (but not the fifth), has returned as screenwriter for this film. Filming began on 24 September 2007, and the film was originally planned for a UK and North American release on 21 November 2008, but on 14 August 2008, it was announced that the release date for the film was to be delayed to 17 July 2009, but this date was later changed to 15 July 2009. Like the previous film, the sixth film will be simultaneously released in regular cinemas and IMAX 3-D, however in the latter, rumours suggest that under 25 minutes of the film will be in 3D.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
May 24th
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” hits theaters June 24, but comic book readers know that they’ve never had to wait for a fix of stories involving the popular giant robots. Along with the regular stable of “Transformers” series and one-shots they put on shelves each month, IDW Publishing will also be offering up the official comic book adaptation of the much-anticipated “Transformers” sequel — with an exclusive cover that will debut at BotCon 2009, the annual celebration of all things Transformers.
Featuring an image by artist Don Figueroa, the BotCon-exclusive issue will kick off IDW’s adaptation of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and be available at the publisher’s booth. IDW has promised that many other creators from their popular line of “Transformers” comics will also be available at the event, which is being held May 28-31 in Pasadena, CA.
Marx vs. Pfeffer
May 24th
Long time ago, Karl Marx ever suggested a thesis explain that labors and capitalists will be forever in clash. Labors seek for higher salaries. On the other side, capitalist seek for higher profit margin. For guarantee the level of profit margin, capitalist often tried to decrease the salary as low as possible.
It is logical, because they include salary in operational costs, and therefore, lower cost allocated is better.
There are so many follower of Karl Marx. They call them self Marxist or Communist. Those kinds of people are rejecting free market, possibly because the nature of free market itself that keep getting more efficient, time after time. Every corporation or companies are trying to get slimmer in operational process, and get fatter in capital. Many persons who concern to labor thereby confront the free market.
Many years later, several scientists, researchers and practitioners of Human resource (labor) management who support free market, include its capitalism. Now, we used to call them HR professional.
Those HR professional seems to suggest solution that we can minimize or even erase the clash between labor and capitalist, as long as capitalists do not regard labors as an operational cost anymore, instead they have to regard them as an assets. This can be achieved if there is initiative from both sides of interests, the bosses and the workers. From the side of bosses, they have to change the paradigm about their employees. On the other side, employees must change their paradigm from simply doer worker to knowledge worker.
This is also logical. If there are more than one company sell product that functionally equal towards community’s needs, why one company tend to be more successful than others?
If there are many products that functionally equal to community, why communities tend to chose one product instead of others?
Why one product is sold, while the others aren’t?
What was the different?
What was the success factor?
Whatever answer you suggest, whether its marketing division, technology, lobbying, or any other factors, all of them lead to one major factor: the worker. Because they are the one who do the work, right?
It is easy to agree with this modern view of worker management. Workers are asset, not simply tools that need operational cost. But, whether you like it or not, class clash do happens. When global economy face crisis (like these days in initial 2009), what is the first action taken by companies? Fire their workers! If you yourself face such an economic crisis like that and you have to sell something, would you sell your asset in the first move? If I myself have a car & a house, and, for a reason of economic crisis have to sell something, I would sell my car first, and try to keep my house mine. I’d try to keep my asset, even though I have to sell any property I regard as tool (such as car).
So, we can see here that many decisions made by US companies to fire their employees are clarifying the thesis of Marx, instead, that says worker cost are operational cost, not asset maintenance cost.
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