Daily Archives: September 21, 2012

Liberty Global Upgraded to Neutral

Posted: September 21, 2012 at 8:14 pm

We upgrade our recommendation on Liberty Global Inc. (LBTYA) to Neutral based on our view that the company is gradually establishing its strong foothold in the European cable MSO market. Though the companys second quarter of 2012 financial results fell below the Zacks Consensus Estimates, Liberty Global added a net 364,000 organic revenue generating units, up by a whopping 61% year over year. Despite the fact that the companys second quarter always remains seasonally weak, operating metrics appeared strong.

We believe the long-term business fundamental of the company is very intriguing, primarily due to strong demand for its digital cable TV service, faster broadband, and triple-play bundled offerings. Chellomedia, the international content division of Liberty Global, recently completed two vital deals.

Chellomedia has bought 13 movie channels of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Inc. in Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. It also acquired the remaining 50% stake of its MGM Latin America venture and the remaining 49% stake of its MGM Central Europe venture. The second deal was the extension of its existing relationship with CBS Corp. (CBS).

Liberty Global has recently launched a hybrid IP video gateway called Horizon TV in the Netherlands. This innovative IP gateway will combine cable operators video services with web-based content through an integrated cable modem. Horizon runs on Atom CE processor of Intel Corp. (INTC).

The new web-based hybrid modem includes an open software developer platform and application store. Furthermore, customers can share TV showing in multiple screens such as computers, Apple Inc. (AAPL) developed iPhones and iPads. Horizon TV also features an in-build application store for YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook. This service will be extended in Switzerland, Germany, and Ireland within the next 3-6 months.

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Liberty Global Upgraded to Neutral

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Liberty Interactive Corporation Announces Investor Meeting Webcast

Posted: at 8:14 pm

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Liberty Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: LINTA, LINTB, LVNTA, LVNTB) will webcast its annual Investor Meeting on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 with presentations beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET. During these presentations, observations may be made regarding the company's financial performance and outlook.

The presentation will be broadcast live via the Internet. All interested persons should visit the Liberty Interactive Corporation website at http://www.libertyinteractive.com/events to register for the webcast. An archive of the webcast will also be available on this website for 30 days.

About Liberty Interactive Corporation

Liberty Interactive Corporation operates and owns interests in a broad range of digital commerce businesses. Those interests are currently attributed to two tracking stock groups: Liberty Interactive Group and Liberty Ventures Group. The Liberty Interactive Group (Nasdaq: LINTA, LINTB) is primarily focused on digital commerce and consists of Liberty Interactive Corporations subsidiaries Backcountry.com, Bodybuilding.com, Celebrate Interactive (including Evite and Liberty Advertising), CommerceHub, MotoSport, Provide Commerce, QVC, Right Start, and Liberty Interactive Corporations interests in HSN and Lockerz. The Liberty Ventures Group (Nasdaq: LVNTA, LVNTB) consists of Liberty Interactive Corporations non-consolidated assets, including interests in AOL, Expedia, Interval Leisure Group, Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, Tree.com (Lending Tree), TripAdvisor and various green energy investments.

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Liberty Interactive Corporation Announces Investor Meeting Webcast

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Lady Gaga and roaring agenda of Illuminati

Posted: at 8:13 pm

LUCIFER. Talk not of Paradise or creation; but mark the show. -- Go, Mephistopheles, and fetch them in.

Faust, Marlowe

By Nicolas Bonnal

As Robert Reich, a former Bill Clinton's counselor said once, we are ruled by the symbols' manipulators; computer science just served this purpose. We are in the hands of the magi. And what characterizes an audience in front of a magus is that she stays eyes wide shut.

Take modern subculture: it makes no difference between Satanism and pop-culture, and it is mainly antichristian, as I observed recently. This is why we are now surrounded (one would say besieged) by signs of the beasts, weird numbers (11, 666) or parallels (33), sinister tattoos, gloomy colors and dark omens. What was yesterday reserved to an elite of so-called Illuminati is today shown everywhere, and available to anyone, including children (especially children!). But no force is such submitted to the mark of the beast, in modern economy, than the music business. The art of Pan and of Bacchus is where we find the most exclusive sympathy for the devil, to quote the famous Rolling Stones song, which was inspired by Russian masterwork the Master and Marguerite. Writes John Milton about his Hell:

Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball...

This is why I submitted myself to the video-clips of lady Gaga. I had never seen one before this fatidic date! My first surprise was the number of views: half a billion for a song like Bad Romance. The number was 150 million for Born This Way.

Half a billion! Can you imagine? Or can you imagine the number of views you would have for a Christian song? One thousand times less, one million times less... remember how hundreds of millions copies the wizard Potter sold worldwide...

And my second surprise was the show itself, even if I was somewhat prepared to face it. It could intimidate Satan himself and his pandemonium! Poor satanic majesties, they looked so old-fashioned at once! It remembered me the famous Faust by the great Christopher Marlowe, a poet murdered mysteriously in 1593, and who denounced modern man's fascination for magic, science, banks and tricks; for we know that we are now surrounded by ciphers, codes, enigmas, riddles. So wrote the Elizabethan poet:

Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters;

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Lady Gaga and roaring agenda of Illuminati

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CNU students say free speech was violated at campaign event – Video

Posted: at 8:12 pm

20-09-2012 17:06 CNU students say free speech was violated at campaign event

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NZ out of step on GE

Posted: at 10:17 am

The New Zealand Government needs to follow the lead of Austria and France who are taking action around their approval processes for genetic engineering (GE), the Green Party said today.

In response to a study finding that rats grew tumours and died after being fed GE Roundup ready corn, Austrias Minister for agriculture and the environment has asked the European Commission to review its approval processes. Frances Government have also ordered an investigation into the findings and are signalling that they may suspend imports of the corn.

"New Zealand needs to do the same but successive Governments seem too closely tied with the GE industry to be trusted to do so," Green Party genetic engineering spokesperson Steffan Browning said today.

"The National Government funded the recent biotech conference to the tune of $100,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment plus additional significant contributions from other departments; these are not the actions of a Government with their eyes open about GE.

"The New Zealand public want to know that the food approved for sale in this country is safe.

"Without changing the GE approval process and actually enforcing our labelling laws we cant be confident in that.

"We fought hard for proper labelling laws but they are not enforced, so New Zealanders cant actually show their opposition to GE through their purchasing.

"The fact is that this study shows we are right to be concerned and we need better approval processes that prove safety over the long term, instead of the short term feeding studies that decisions have been made on to date.

"This study has already started a strong discussion because people are really worried about the effects of these foods that have been approved to be in our stores now for a decade or longer.

"Of course this research is being described by some as controversial because there is big, big money involved in GE.

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NZ out of step on GE

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Legal hurdles threaten to slow FBI's 'Rapid DNA' revolution

Posted: at 10:16 am

It's history being made -- the FBI just this month took acceptance of its first-ever "Rapid DNA" equipment for near-instant DNA analysis in the field. But use of this DNA analysis-in-a-box, which can be carried around and connected to the Internet, may be slowed because current law never envisioned such analysis being done for law-enforcement purposes outside an accredited lab.

RELATED: FBI eager to embrace 'Rapid DNA' testing

That realization, brought to light at the Biometric Consortium Conference on Wednesday, cast a shadow on what's a shining moment for the biometrics industry and its partnership with the FBI. The FBI has spent years working to build Rapid DNA equipment according to careful designs for ruggedness, security and usefulness in generating individual DNA profile data that police stations could use to share and match against the FBI's existing DNA Index System (NDIS) database. Such Rapid DNA gear can take in a cotton swab of an individual's saliva or blood in the field and within about 90 minutes, automatically spit out a human DNA profile.

Dr. Thomas Callaghan , senior biometric scientist in the biometric analysis section of the FBI Laboratory, just this month took delivery on the first two working models of Rapid DNA machines, the RapidHit 200 made by integenX, and the ANDE box made by NetBio. "It really is a remarkable achievement," says Callaghan. He and many others in the biometrics field this week at the conference recognized the historic significance of the technology breakthrough presented by the first commercially-viable equipment for Rapid DNA.

The U.S. Army has started evaluation of two ANDE System boxes it got from NetBio, says Jeff Salyards, chief scientist at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Laboratory. He reports that the Rapid DNA technology supplied by ANDE appears to work effectively.

Richard Selden, CEO of NetBio, assures that the ANDE System boxes for DNA analysis have undergone military-standard testing for ruggedness. However, Salyards says more testing is needed, and cautioned military buyers, eager to use Rapid DNA equipment in the field, to show patience as more testing is done.

It also could be a while until Rapid DNA can be used for U.S. law enforcement purposes. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is teaming with the FBI to test the NetBio and IntegenX systems, as well as possibly others, for use with law enforcement, expects a full evaluation that includes new processes to be followed to connect to federal databases. Such an evaluation could take upwards of a year.

What's more, the DNA Identification Act of 1994 passed by Congress gave the FBI the authority to establish its DNA index system, but didn't envision that DNA information would be uploaded to the FBI database from a police station using Internet-connected Rapid DNA equipment. The law covers only accredited DNA labs in use today, not the mobile Rapid DNA equipment that can be operated by non-technical personnel anywhere, according to Clark Jaw, an auditor at the FBI Laboratory for the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). It appears there needs to be a change to the DNA Identification Act to accommodate use of the new technology, he says.

Other obstacles to achieve full-scale use in law enforcement include the need to build out CODIS software to accommodate Rapid DNA and create a quality-assurance process system. That all means Rapid DNA for law-enforcement purposes in the U.S. may take time. But the first Rapid DNA equipment is known to already be in use among secretive intelligence agencies.

"The ultimate goal is to have that technology available for law enforcement use at the police station," Jaw says, pointing out that one day law enforcement officials should be able to carry out real-time DNA-related searches using the Rapid DNA equipment to aid in fast investigation of crime suspects and crime scenes.

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Gary Johnson invigorates the Libertarian vote

Posted: at 10:15 am

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson spoke Thursday in Durham about the rise in libertarianism in todays political environment. Joining him at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University were libertarian gubernatorial candidates Barbara Howe and Brian Irving.

The Libertarian partys appearance follows on the heels of a 16 percent increase in registered Libertarian voters in the United States last month, according to Howe. She said that mostly Democrats and independents are converting to Libertarianism.

"Our country needs a new direction," Howe said. "It needs a third party to break through."

Howe conveyed her strong opinions on the passage of Amendment One, an anti-same sex marriage law, this previous May. Howe said shebelieves the passage of the amendment was a "slap on society." She said shewas so upset by the passage of this amendment that she shredded her marriage license in front of the Attorney General's office.

This is Howes third run for Governor of North Carolina, and to boost awareness of her campaign and the Libertarian party in general, she is organizing and participating in a 5K run in all 100 counties of North Carolina. She has already visited 84 counties and hosted what she said to be successful events. On Nov.4, the day before election day, Howe plans to end her tour in Wake County by completing a 5K in front of the Governor's Mansion.

The Libertarian party currently has three candidates running for the House. One of whom is Brian Irving, who gave a brief speech after Howe.

"Our country has been at war my entire life," Irving said.

He said he feels strongly abut bringing our troops home and supports an isolationist foreign policy.

"I am presenting a completely different view than twinkle-dumb and twinkle-dumber" Irving said.

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‘Shock of the News’ at National Gallery of Art a fascinating cross section of art, news

Posted: at 10:15 am

Curator Judith Brodie focuses on two seminal works in her excellent National Gallery of Art show, Shock of the News, which documents the stormy, obsessive, often dysfunctional and prodigiously productive relationship between art and newspapers over the past century. First is a classic screed by the Italian poet and provocateur Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, a manifesto of Futurism published in 1909 in the respectable Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. Second is Picassos 1912 collage Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass, which incorporated a fragment of another French newspaper, Le Journal, into an image that also uses a scrap of sheet music and a charcoal sketch to create a flat, schematic map of sensual diversions and cafe life.

Although newspapers had appeared in art before (Cezanne painted his father reading what looks like the Jackson Pollock Daily Herald in 1866), and art had appeared in newspapers with increasingly satisfying results since advances in printing late in the 19th century, the Picasso and Marinetti works announced a new relation between the two media. Picassos pasted-paper construction brought the newspaper as a material thing to the foreground of his picture, while Marinetti suggested new ways for artists to use the larger apparatus of the newspaper phenomenon, its mass appeal and its power to mold public opinion.

Thereafter, what might seem to be two very different wellsprings of inspiration pretty much merged. Focusing on the materiality of newspaper inevitably raised questions about what those little pieces of paper said, which dragged in the jangling, newsy world of politics and war and celebrity and everything else the newspaper promised its readers on a daily basis. And as artists developed a more conceptual approach to using newspapers publishing their own absurdist or self-aggrandizing broadsheets, analyzing and dissecting the hidden mythologies of the news business they often, and perhaps accidentally, made work that is alluring on a purely aesthetic and tactile level.

Shock of the News presents a fascinating cross section of the results, from an original copy of Marinettis testosterone-soaked manifesto (like something Walt Whitmans evil twin might have written had he grown up in a Prussian boarding school) to works done in the past five years, as the newspaper business hemorrhaged jobs, profits and confidence. Paul Sietsemas 2008 Modernist Struggle ink and enamel work, a meticulous trompe loeil rendering of two pieces of newspaper, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times (which includes the headline Modernists Struggle with Traditionalists Over Guns), feels autumnal and reflective, an honorific painting that gives the newspaper the same treatment as a Dutch still life or an old family portrait hanging above the mantel. The precision of his image, including the painstakingly realistic rendering of slight creases and curled corners, is wistful, perhaps loving, and the results are such an accurate rendering of banal objects that attention focuses on the small dissonance between use of the singular in Sietsemas title (Modernist Struggle) and the plural in the headline the artist paints (Modernists Struggle ...).

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