Why It Really Is Critical To Keep Your Anti Virus Program Up-to-date ...

Software program dedicated to laptop virus prevention is virtually a commodity today. It truly is quite often integrated in a trial package with new computers, and advertised by way of all well-liked channels, such as television and radio also as on the net. The stated purpose is to keep you secure from many threats that may well exist over the internet. Even so, individuals who are unsure about the technological side of computers as well as the web may not be specific as to irrespective of whether such software package is certainly important. It can be correct that there?s a great deal of scaremongering among the anti virus computer software vendors, and there is certainly a dearth of genuinely practical, educational material devoted to helping less technical customers understanding the actual dangers of running with no appropriate software. The intention of this short article will be to go some way towards correcting that problem, and also the very first step should be to clarify the crucial ideas behind personal computer threats and security.

The word virus was initially coined to describe a specific form of laptop or computer threat as an analogy with genuine viruses like the flu. The idea is the fact that it?s a piece of application which can copy itself between hosts. The defining behavior of a virus is the fact that it could possibly make a copy of itself on any personal computer it sees, whether or not through a nearby network or more than vast geographical distances online. You may notice that absolutely nothing right here is mentioned about what viruses do beyond copy themselves. That?s since the word is pretty vague, and doesn?t refer to any certain issue. The actual objective of a virus can be all sorts of things, from merely annoying or even benign intentions to extremely severe breaches of someone?s private or economic safety.

In some cases the function of virus protection software package is unclear given that numerous words, like malware and spyware, are thrown around with out any careful regard to their usage. It truly is understandable that a much less technical user will be confused by this. The factor to remember is that not all viruses are necessarily pretty dangerous (though most are, in practice) and not all harmful items are viruses.

Malware is definitely the general term made use of for something unpleasant and unwanted. Regardless of whether a piece of application just sits on your pc and throws ads at you or watches all of your keystrokes and remembers your passwords, the umbrella term is malware.

Inside the broad category of malware, there?s lots of subcategories, for instance spyware, adware, keyloggers, and bots. Spyware spies on your movements online and keeps track of them, typically then passing this information on to a third party. Adware performs the aforementioned behavior of giving you unwanted advertisements. Keyloggers can record every thing you kind, which includes sensitive individual information and facts.

The best personal computer virus prevention computer software can look after all these threats ? it can be far more than a simple anti virus remedy. Make sure you often look for application that advertises itself as getting useful against all of these items; these products are at times known as web security suites. In this day and age, it really is crucial that everyone has some form of virus protection computer software to be able to safeguard against malicious attacks on-line.

For your personal details, Improve The Basic Safety of The Computer Using The Most Desirable Antivirus Applications can provide you with more information on Find The Best Quality Antivirus Applications From Antivirus Product Reviews. Visit the link for additional information!

Related posts:

1. Why It Is Important To Maintain Your Anti Virus Application Up To Date To Help Keep Your Notebook Computer Safeguarded
2. Why It Is Important To Maintain Your Anti Virus Application Up To Date To Help Keep Your Notebook Computer Safeguarded
3. Why It Will Be Important To Help Keep Your Anti Virus Software Program Up To Date To Help Keep Your Desktop Computer Safeguarded
4. Why It Happens To Be Important To Help Keep Your Anti Virus Software Program Up To Date To Help Keep Your Desktop Computer Safeguarded
5. Why It Will Be Important To Help Keep Your Anti Virus Software Program Up To Date To Help Keep Your Desktop Computer Safeguarded

Source: http://mysixstringsblog.com/why-it-really-is-critical-to-keep-your-anti-virus-program-up-to-date-to-help-keep-your-machine-safeguarded/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-it-really-is-critical-to-keep-your-anti-virus-program-up-to-date-to-help-keep-your-machine-safeguarded

colbert super pac sloth birth control pill recall ground hog day florida primary results black history groundhogs day

Tabletop fault model reveals why some quakes result in faster shaking

Public release date: 31-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sarah Yang
scyang@berkeley.edu
510-643-7741
University of California - Berkeley

Berkeley The more time it takes for an earthquake fault to heal, the faster the shake it will produce when it finally ruptures, according to a new study by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted their work using a tabletop model of a quake fault.

"The high frequency waves of an earthquake the kind that produces the rapid jolts are not well understood because they are more difficult to measure and more difficult to model," said study lead author Gregory McLaskey, a former UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering. "But those high frequency waves are what matter most when it comes to bringing down buildings, roads and bridges, so it's important for us to understand them."

While the study, to be published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Nature and funded by the National Science Foundation, does nothing to bring scientists closer to predicting when the next big one will hit, the findings could help engineers better assess the vulnerabilities of buildings, bridges and other structures when a fault does rupture.

"The experiment in our lab allows us to consider how long a fault has healed and more accurately predict the type of shaking that would occur when it ruptures," said Steven Glaser, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering and principal investigator of the study. "That's important in improving building designs and developing plans to mitigate for possible damage."

To create a fault model, the researchers placed a Plexiglas slider block against a larger base plate and equipped the system with sensors. The design allowed the researchers to isolate the physical and mechanical factors, such as friction, that influence how the ground will shake when a fault ruptures.

It would be impossible to do such a detailed study on faults that lie several miles below the surface of the ground, the authors said. And current instruments are generally unable to accurately measure waves at frequencies higher than approximately 100 Hertz because they get absorbed by the earth.

"There are many people studying the properties of friction in the lab, and there are many others studying the ground motion of earthquakes in the field by measuring the waves generated when a fault ruptures," said McLaskey. "What this study does for the first time is link those two phenomena. It's the first clear comparison between real earthquakes and lab quakes."

Noting that fault surfaces are not smooth, the researchers roughened the surface of the Plexiglas used in the lab's model.

"It's like putting two mountain ranges together, and only the tallest peaks are touching," said McLaskey, who is now a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

As the sides "heal" and press together, the researchers found that individual contact points slip and transfer the resulting energy to other contact points.

"As the pressing continues and more contacts slip, the stress is transferred to other contact points in a chain reaction until even the strongest contacts fail, releasing the stored energy as an earthquake," said Glaser. "The longer the fault healed before rupture, the more rapidly the surface vibrated."

"It is elegant work," said seismologist John Vidale, a professor at the University of Washington who was not associated with the study. "The point that more healed faults can be more destructive is dismaying. It may not be enough to locate faults to assess danger, but rather knowing their history, which is often unknowable, that is key to fully assessing their threat."

Glaser and McLaskey teamed up with Amanda Thomas, a UC Berkeley graduate student in earth and planetary sciences, and Robert Nadeau, a research scientist at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, to confirm that their lab scenarios played out in the field. The researchers used records of repeating earthquakes along the San Andreas fault that Nadeau developed and maintained. The data were from Parkfield, Calif., an area which has experienced a series of magnitude 6.0 earthquakes two to three decades apart over the past 150 years.

Thomas and McLaskey explored the records of very small, otherwise identically repeating earthquakes at Parkfield to show that the quakes produced shaking patterns that changed depending on the time span since the last event, just as predicted by the lab experiments.

In the years after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Parkfield in 2004, the small repeating earthquakes recurred more frequently on the same fault patches.

"Immediately after the 2004 Parkfield earthquake, many nearby earthquakes that normally recurred months or years apart instead repeated once every few days before decaying back to their normal rates," said Thomas. "Measurements of the ground motion generated from each of the small earthquakes confirmed that the shaking is faster when the time from the last rupture increases. This provided an excellent opportunity to verify that ground motions observed on natural faults are similar to those observed in the laboratory, suggesting that a common underlying mechanism fault healing may be responsible for both."

Understanding how forcefully the ground will move when an earthquake hits has been one of the biggest challenges in earthquake science.

"What makes this study special is the combination of lab work and observations in the field," added Roland Burgmann, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary sciences who reviewed the study but did not participate in the research. "This study tells us something fundamental about how earthquake faults evolve. And the study suggests that, in fact, the lab setting is able to capture some of those processes correctly."

Glaser said the next steps in his lab involve measuring the seismic energy that comes from the movement of the individual contact points in the model fault to more precisely map the distribution of stress and how it changes in the run-up to a laboratory earthquake event.

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 31-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sarah Yang
scyang@berkeley.edu
510-643-7741
University of California - Berkeley

Berkeley The more time it takes for an earthquake fault to heal, the faster the shake it will produce when it finally ruptures, according to a new study by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted their work using a tabletop model of a quake fault.

"The high frequency waves of an earthquake the kind that produces the rapid jolts are not well understood because they are more difficult to measure and more difficult to model," said study lead author Gregory McLaskey, a former UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering. "But those high frequency waves are what matter most when it comes to bringing down buildings, roads and bridges, so it's important for us to understand them."

While the study, to be published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Nature and funded by the National Science Foundation, does nothing to bring scientists closer to predicting when the next big one will hit, the findings could help engineers better assess the vulnerabilities of buildings, bridges and other structures when a fault does rupture.

"The experiment in our lab allows us to consider how long a fault has healed and more accurately predict the type of shaking that would occur when it ruptures," said Steven Glaser, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering and principal investigator of the study. "That's important in improving building designs and developing plans to mitigate for possible damage."

To create a fault model, the researchers placed a Plexiglas slider block against a larger base plate and equipped the system with sensors. The design allowed the researchers to isolate the physical and mechanical factors, such as friction, that influence how the ground will shake when a fault ruptures.

It would be impossible to do such a detailed study on faults that lie several miles below the surface of the ground, the authors said. And current instruments are generally unable to accurately measure waves at frequencies higher than approximately 100 Hertz because they get absorbed by the earth.

"There are many people studying the properties of friction in the lab, and there are many others studying the ground motion of earthquakes in the field by measuring the waves generated when a fault ruptures," said McLaskey. "What this study does for the first time is link those two phenomena. It's the first clear comparison between real earthquakes and lab quakes."

Noting that fault surfaces are not smooth, the researchers roughened the surface of the Plexiglas used in the lab's model.

"It's like putting two mountain ranges together, and only the tallest peaks are touching," said McLaskey, who is now a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

As the sides "heal" and press together, the researchers found that individual contact points slip and transfer the resulting energy to other contact points.

"As the pressing continues and more contacts slip, the stress is transferred to other contact points in a chain reaction until even the strongest contacts fail, releasing the stored energy as an earthquake," said Glaser. "The longer the fault healed before rupture, the more rapidly the surface vibrated."

"It is elegant work," said seismologist John Vidale, a professor at the University of Washington who was not associated with the study. "The point that more healed faults can be more destructive is dismaying. It may not be enough to locate faults to assess danger, but rather knowing their history, which is often unknowable, that is key to fully assessing their threat."

Glaser and McLaskey teamed up with Amanda Thomas, a UC Berkeley graduate student in earth and planetary sciences, and Robert Nadeau, a research scientist at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, to confirm that their lab scenarios played out in the field. The researchers used records of repeating earthquakes along the San Andreas fault that Nadeau developed and maintained. The data were from Parkfield, Calif., an area which has experienced a series of magnitude 6.0 earthquakes two to three decades apart over the past 150 years.

Thomas and McLaskey explored the records of very small, otherwise identically repeating earthquakes at Parkfield to show that the quakes produced shaking patterns that changed depending on the time span since the last event, just as predicted by the lab experiments.

In the years after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Parkfield in 2004, the small repeating earthquakes recurred more frequently on the same fault patches.

"Immediately after the 2004 Parkfield earthquake, many nearby earthquakes that normally recurred months or years apart instead repeated once every few days before decaying back to their normal rates," said Thomas. "Measurements of the ground motion generated from each of the small earthquakes confirmed that the shaking is faster when the time from the last rupture increases. This provided an excellent opportunity to verify that ground motions observed on natural faults are similar to those observed in the laboratory, suggesting that a common underlying mechanism fault healing may be responsible for both."

Understanding how forcefully the ground will move when an earthquake hits has been one of the biggest challenges in earthquake science.

"What makes this study special is the combination of lab work and observations in the field," added Roland Burgmann, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary sciences who reviewed the study but did not participate in the research. "This study tells us something fundamental about how earthquake faults evolve. And the study suggests that, in fact, the lab setting is able to capture some of those processes correctly."

Glaser said the next steps in his lab involve measuring the seismic energy that comes from the movement of the individual contact points in the model fault to more precisely map the distribution of stress and how it changes in the run-up to a laboratory earthquake event.

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/uoc--tfm102512.php

d rose iman shumpert mayweather vs cotto shumpert hopkins hopkins dear john

Institutions for Higher and Quality Education in India Are ...

India is one of the best countries in the world that imparts quality education through its educational institutions spread throughout the country. Your education begins from school level and gradually it rises to high school and then reaches the graduation level. Every college, whether recognised by the Government or as a private institution, imparts quality education with a team of well educated qualified and expert teaching staff.

The universal language of education is English but there are state level schools and colleges that use their regional language as the medium of education. There are institutions that cater to students from all strata of society. One of them is rai university. It has its tentacles spread in a number of cities in India. The stream of education is wide; you can take up graduation courses that suit your aptitude.

Students not only from India but also from other countries come to study at rai university. There are other major institutions of higher education in India that specialize for technical medicine and business streams. Higher education is imparted not only in major cities but also in cities located in remote areas. An institution having more than decades of experience in higher education is the cmj university Meghalaya. Most of these education centers are recognised by the Government of India.

Practically every state in India is equipped with colleges to educate the youth in India. The graduation courses of CMJ University Meghalaya place prospective students in various industries and organisations in a competitive work force for a better future. India does not lack in medical colleges. One of the famous institutions that have its colleges spread over various states is the nims university with its head quarters in Jaipur. Students can study post graduation courses and even obtain their PhD?s at Nims University.

India has ample of education to impart to the entire world. The numbers of philosophers, scientists, educationists and qualified professionals that India produces have earned name and fame in every part of the world. People from remote villages crave for education and are provided the same by the Government of India free of cost. There are scholarships for students those who prove they are worthy of the same. One of such education centre is singhania university, Rajasthan which not only imparts education in academic courses but also sports.

Being educated at the Singhania University, Rajasthan will provide you the same benefit as you would gain at any other institution with international standards. Every graduation educational center in India provides education in various streams such as commerce, management, computer science environmental studies, engineering, science, archaeology studies, law, music etc.

The medical science of Ayurveda has earned a name for itself from many corners of the world. Aspirants come from various countries and all the cities in India to the manav bharti university for a graduation course in Ayurvedic medicine. It is a equipped with a qualify faculty in this field. And those who graduate from Manav Bharti University are awarded a certificate to practice this science.

Updates your info about rai university and cmj university, get also on nims university and singhania university to continue higher studies, see also details on manav bharati university and more.

About thinktankmukesh

i m author

Source: http://www.bestarticlepost.com/253454/institutions-for-higher-and-quality-education-in-india-are-recognised-globally?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=institutions-for-higher-and-quality-education-in-india-are-recognised-globally

lil wayne Mockingbird Lane Lena Dunham peyton manning sf giants gold rush gold rush

S.Africa keeps Iran crude imports at zero in Sept

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa suspended all imports of crude oil from Iran for a fourth month in September, data showed on Wednesday, as Pretoria continued to steer away from Iranian shipments because of European insurance sanctions.

In May, imports from Iran stood at 285,524 tonnes, but since June Africa's biggest economy has replaced shipments from Iran with crude from other suppliers, especially Saudi Arabia.

South Africa used to import a quarter of its crude from Iran but has come under Western pressure to cut the shipments as part of sanctions designed to halt Tehran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The major supplier in September was Saudi Arabia, with shipments from the Middle East country at 759,643 tonnes. Other crude imports originated in Angola, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, with shipments totalling 1.76 million tonnes.

Even though the United States granted South Africa an exemption from financial sanctions after cuts in Iranian imports, Pretoria is still facing problems because of European Union sanctions preventing insurance companies from underwriting Iranian shipments.

The EU has not granted any waivers, even though South Africa has been lobbying Brussels because of the impact on its fuel supplies.

Some South African refineries are designed to treat Iranian-type crude only, and refiners and the government have said the country will be hard-pressed to replace those supplies with other products indefinitely.

Any disruption to crude imports could hit fuel supplies in South Africa, which has suffered shortages in the last year because of strikes and refinery problems.

Refiners in South Africa include Shell, BP, Total, Chevron, petrochemicals group Sasol, and Engen, which is majority-owned by Malaysian state oil group Petronas .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africa-keeps-iran-crude-imports-zero-sept-120202643--finance.html

mexico city earthquake stand your ground law dancing with the stars season 14 david garrard bethenny frankel michael bay ninja turtles san antonio weather

Samsung Galaxy Note II (Sprint)

The Galaxy Note II for Sprint ($299.99 direct) is many things, but above all, it's the most?phone there is. It gives you more screen, more processor, and more OS than just about any other phone out there. It's also a significant improvement over the first Galaxy Note?, thanks to a faster quad-core processor and the Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" OS, not to mention a host of Samsung-developed note-taking software improvements. If you think other phones are too small, and prefer something big enough to double as a miniature tablet that (barely) fits in your pocket, the Galaxy Note II reigns supreme. It's the first recipient of our new Editors' Choice award for phablets (phones with screen sizes ranging from 5.0 to 6.9 inches). That said, Sprint's lack of LTE coverage continues to be a problem.

Editors' Note: The Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile versions of the Samsung Galaxy Note II are all very similar, so we're sharing a lot of material between our reviews. That said, we're testing each device separately, so read the review for your carrier of choice. The slideshow below is for the T-Mobile version, which is visually identical aside from the carrier name in the notification bar, and the logo on the plastic back panel.

Design and Screen
Visually, there's almost no difference between the various versions, aside from a Samsung logo (not Sprint, oddly enough) on the back panel instead of a carrier name.?The Galaxy Note II measures 5.95 by 3.17 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.34 ounces. That's roughly an inch taller and half an inch wider than even big smartphones with 4.5-inch and greater screens. It's just as thin as those, though, which helps a lot. It's made entirely of plastic with the exception of the glass screen. But unlike some other Samsung handsets, the Galaxy Note II looks and feels refined, thanks to the classy, faux-anodized silver finish and a smoked chrome accent ring around the sides. You can get one in either gray or white.

The star of the show is the 5.5-inch, 1,280-by-720-pixel, Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen. The aspect ratio is 16:9 this time, instead of 16:10 like the first Galaxy Note, which had a slightly higher 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. Either way, the new display is stunning. It's super-bright, with vivid colors and deep blacks, and viewing angles are uniformly excellent. I suppose you could argue that at 267ppi, pixel depth isn't quite as impressive as it is on smaller phones with the same 720p resolution. But rest assured: This screen looks fantastic.

As you can imagine, the screen is large enough for easy typing in both portrait and landscape modes. You even get an extra row of number keys, so you don't have to switch the keyboard mode to enter in digits.?There's a hardware Home button below the screen, flanked by Menu and Back capacitive touch buttons. A Wacom-designed stylus is tucked into a slot under the bottom right edge. The stylus supports 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity?four times what the stylus in the Galaxy Note supports.

Given its gargantuan size, the Galaxy Note II is difficult to use one-handed?except that, fortunately, Samsung has already thought of this. To that end, it provides a series of toggles in Settings > One-Handed Operation.?You can move the dial buttons to the left or right, for example, and position the keyboard and unlock pattern for easier access.

Connectivity and Voice Calls
The Galaxy Note II on Sprint is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) and 4G LTE device with 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands. I had no problem connecting to a 5GHz, WPA2-encrypted hotspot in the PCMag Lab. We're rating the Sprint version of the Galaxy Note II down half a point compared with the other carrier models, thanks to the lack of Sprint LTE coverage in most U.S. major cities. Without LTE, the phone works as a 3G device, but Sprint's 3G network is the slowest of the major U.S. carriers; download speeds struggled to break just 200Kbps, which puts it closer to 2G than 3G, and many attempts at reaching the Internet timed out altogether in our midtown Manhattan test location.

Voice calls sounded as good as I've ever heard on a cell phone, and essentially matched what I heard with the T-Mobile version, at least through the earpiece; it sounded full, warm, and loud, with no background hiss. I could move my ear quite a bit against the handset and still hear the other party easily, which wasn't possible with the?LG Intuition. Transmissions through the microphone were clear, although a little thinner-sounding than on other carriers. I tested the phone on an extremely noisy street, which the noise cancelling algorithms reduced to a low, steady drone (which was entirely absent in quieter environments).

Calls also sounded clear through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset. Pairing was simple; tap the Bluetooth icon in the notification bar and the phone immediately looks for new Bluetooth devices. The rear-mounted mono speakerphone sounded clear and loud, and should be fine for use outdoors. We expect good things out of the oversize 3100mAh battery; we're still testing battery life and will update this review as soon as we have a result.

Voice dialing deserves special mention. Samsung's S Voice lets you control the Note by voice. You can wake it up by saying Hi Galaxy, double-tapping the Home button, or by choosing your own phrase. You can also enable or disable handwriting mode, which activates when you pull the pen from the device. In addition to voice dialing?which worked fine over Bluetooth in my tests?you can also text, search contacts, navigate, schedule something on your calendar, add a task, start a music playlist, and update Twitter, all with your voice.

Hardware, OS, and Apps
Under the hood is a 1.6GHz quad-core A9 Samsung Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM. Android fans can rejoice, as the Galaxy Note II is the first Sprint handset to ship with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" out of the box. Benchmark results were at the top of the class almost entirely across the board; combine Jelly Bean with a quad-core processor and you get one fast phone. The exception was some gaming frame rate tests, the results of which lagged next to the Qualcomm-powered LG Optimus G, the only other quad-core phone available in America right now. But three separate Optimus G review units overheated repeatedly in our tests, and automatically dialed back the screen brightness to cool down, whereas the Galaxy Note II stayed cool to the touch, no matter how hard I made it work.

(Next page: Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ZUnYNCMFmyw/0,2817,2411414,00.asp

nfl schedule revolution rosh hashanah rosh hashanah boardwalk empire iOS 6 Release Date Canelo Alvarez

Obama Does Vegas With Katy Perry and Trip to Bellagio

LAS VEGAS - Pop star Katy Perry and 13,000 Nevadans rocked together for President Obama under the stars at a midnight ET rally here to close out the first day of Obama's whirlwind two-day campaign blitz.

Perry, wearing a skin-tight, white dress designed as a ballot, urged the crowd to vote for Obama - and vote early. She sang a full set of her hits, complete with back-up dancers, full concert lighting and a digital backdrop that showcased pictures of Obama and his slogan "Forward."

Obama hailed Perry has "just a wonderful young lady" and said at the top of his remarks that he had the honor of meeting her grandmother backstage - and that she got some of her lipstick on him.

"Fortunately somebody wiped it off before Michelle saw it," Obama said with a big grin.

Perry's grandmother, who is 91 years old, watched Obama's remarks from a chair in the middle of the concert stage as the singer stood nearby. ABC News asked her about the kiss backstage after the event and she said it was "wonderful."

The Vegas stop was the fourth of the day for Obama, who is on a 48-hour, 4500-mile campaign tour through eight states.

"We are pulling an all-nighter. No sleep. And if you're not gonna sleep, you might as well be in Vegas," Obama said.

After the event on his way to the airport, the president made an surprise visit to the Bellagio Hotel, where he greeted hundreds of hotel and casino workers crowded inside.

"Everyone here knows what it means to work hard," he told them. "You're what makes Las Vegas run. You're what makes the strip run."

"I need you guys to go out and vote now. Don't wait to vote," Obama added. "You gotta go cash in your chips now."

The president flies overnight - sleeping on Air Force One - to Tampa, Fla., where he holds an event Thursday morning.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-does-vegas-katy-perry-trip-bellagio-063107838--abc-news-politics.html

cowboys vs giants ndaa timberwolves weight watchers rawhide bigfoot sandra dee

Nasdaq reports lower third-quarter profit

{ttle}

{cptn}","template_name":"ss_thmb_play_ttle","i18n":{"end_of_gallery_header":"End of Gallery","end_of_gallery_next":"View Again"},"metadata":{"pagination":"{firstVisible} - {lastVisible} of {numItems}","ult":{"spaceid":"2023846968","sec":""}}},{"id": "hcm-carousel-173731463", "dataManager": C.dmgr, "mediator": C.mdtr, "group_name":"hcm-carousel-173731463", "track_item_selected":1,"tracking":{ "spaceid" : "2023846968", "events" : { "click" : { "any" : { "yui-carousel-prev" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"prev","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } }, "yui-carousel-next" : { "node" : "a", "data" : {"sec":"HCMOL on article right rail","slk":"next","itc":"1" }, "bubbles" : true, "test": function(params){ var carousel = params.obj.getCarousel(); var pages = carousel._pages; // no more pages, don't beacon again // if same page, don't beacon if(("_ult_current_page" in carousel) && carousel._ult_current_page==pages.cur) return false; // keep track of current position within this closure carousel._ult_current_page = pages.cur; return true; } } } } } } })); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {(function() { try{ if (Math.floor(Math.random()*10) == 1) { var loc = window.location, decoded = decodeURI(loc.pathname), encoded = encodeURI(decoded), uri = loc.protocol + "//" + loc.host + encoded + ((loc.search.length > 0) ? loc.search + '&' : '?') + "_cacheable=1", xmlhttp; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); else xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); xmlhttp.open("GET",uri,true); xmlhttp.send(); } }catch(e){} })(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings = '"projectId": "10001256862979", "documentName": "", "documentGroup": "", "ywaColo" : "vscale3", "spaceId" : "2023846968" ,"customFields" : { "12" : "classic", "13" : "story" }'; Y.Media.YWA.init(Y.namespace("Media").ywaSettings); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {if(document.onclick===YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.newClick){document.onclick=YAHOO.Media.PreventDefaultHandler.oldClick;} }); }); });

stock market news: Sure Fire Badminton Drills, Sports & Recreation

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://schubert-maurie.blogspot.com/2012/10/stock-market-news-sure-fire-badminton.html

chaka khan taylor swift safe and sound delilah nevis 2012 sports illustrated swimsuit same day flower delivery valentines day

Source: http://abkyom.posterous.com/stock-market-news-sure-fire-badminton-drills

the borgias shroud of turin warren sapp the masters i robot the big c the visitor

Source: http://joyridden-rydberg.blogspot.com/2012/10/stock-market-news-sure-fire-badminton.html

washington redskins north country brian mcknight sbux nfldraft asante samuel salton sea

Source: http://chrishellstause.dnfmoshenwg.com/113/stock-market-news-sure-fire-badminton-drills-sports-recreation/

meredith vieira prop 8 larry bird maria menounos proposition 8 ricky martin chauncey billups

Source: http://vvslaxman25.blogspot.com/2012/10/stock-market-news-sure-fire-badminton.html

maundy thursday fab melo google glasses kim kardashian and kanye west henrik stenson jobs act greg mortenson

The Other Three ?Must Buy Before the Election? Picks from Mark ...

Welcome! If you are new to Stock Gumshoe, grab a free membership here and join us to get our free newsletter alerts with new teaser answers and debunkings. Thanks!
Not new? Please log in at top right of this page

OK, so I was called away before we got through the rest of Mark Skousen?s ideas for profiting from the election (which he is convinced will bring a victory for Romney and stock market ebullience) ? so let?s jump right in and finish sniffing out those picks, shall we?

The first three were energy and dividend plays ? Seadrill, Enterprise Product Partners, and a business development company ? if you want to check out those and get the big picture intro, click on over to yesterday?s article here.

While you do that, we?re going to jump right in to picks four through six. Here?s the first batch of clues:

?BUY #4 ? Way More Money in Your Pocket!

?Let?s face it, eventually ? and probably sooner than most think ? interest rates are going to rise in the face of inevitable inflation cause by Obama-era spending and record debt.

?My next pick is a closed-ended fixed income fund currently yielding 6.7%. This no-load mutual fund invests primarily in senior, secured floating rate corporate loans. As short-term interest rates rise, the fund will increase its monthly income gradually. Thus, this prime-rate fund operates just the opposite of a long-term bond fund. When interest rates rise, long-term bond funds decline in price; but prime rate funds like this one increase.

?The fund invests in fixed income securities operating across diversified sectors in the United States, primarily invests in senior, secured floating rate loans. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the S&P/LSTA leveraged loan index.
Like all prime rate funds, this one is leveraged to maximize yield. Its 1.2% expense ratio is the lowest in the industry, and the 6.5% dividend yield is especially attractive.?

This one is almost certainly Eaton Vance Floating Rate Income Trust (EFT), a closed-end fund that does, indeed, invest in floating rate bank loans ? which effectively means they?re buying floating rate corporate loans from banks, not bonds (which sometimes also have adjustable rates) but actual bank loans that typically reset interest rates much more frequently, often every month.

And, to reinforce that, we can tell you that this is one closed end fund that Skousen has touted publicly in the past as well ? including in this article from earlier in the year. Still yields around 6.5%, and like most closed-end funds it uses leverage (meaning it borrows money to amplify its returns ? leverage ratio is about 36% at the moment, which is fairly typical) and charges a fairly high expense ratio, right around 1%. It also, unlike most closed-end funds, trades at a small premium at the moment (typically they trade at a discount, on average), so if you buy the fund now you?re paying three or four percent more than the asset is worth ? which is about half of a year?s expected dividend yield.

There are other funds which specialize in floating rate debt, both floating rate bonds and bank loans, and they?re fairly popular right now ? EFT is the top-rated closed-end fund in this category according to Morningstar, but there?s also now an ETF that tracks this theme as well (the Morningstar report on that ETF is here ? it?s a quick and useful read if you don?t understand bank loan funds).

Next?

?BUY# 5 ? What?s the One Thing People Want Most?

?When President Reagan turned the country around, consumer confidence quickly returned, and with it, consumer spending. I predict we?ll see a replay with a Romney win.

?Now ask yourself, what?s the one thing that you hear everyone talking about when it comes to sexy new gotta-have-it products?

?Answer: a head-spinning assortment of exotic mobile handheld devices! The whole world is tweeting and texting, Googling and GPSing. You can now watch movies of your choice on your internet-connected laptop, notebook, or smartphone. And it?s not just a U.S. phenomenon; smartphone penetration in India and China is twice per-capita what it is here. Believe it or not, in Asia, the Droid is outselling the Apple iPhone five to one!

?And there?s one chip company in particular that?s going to continue to profit from the demand for smartphones, notebooks, netbooks, servers, workstations, storage products, communications products, and other handheld devices.

?Business is already booming, but now is the time to invest before it gets even better? the company?s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio remains near a 10-year low. It?s a cash machine, with more than $15 billion in cash, compared to a total debt of $7.3 billion. It has a healthy balance sheet, with current assets 2.24 times higher than liabilities.?

Well, I?m not complaining ? but though those numbers are, again, a couple months old, this sounds an awful lot like Intel (INTC), which is most often described as the loser in the battle for exotic handheld mobile devices.

Which, as you probably have noticed, is why it?s trading for only 2X sales and 10X earnings ? or, to be more ridiculous, an Enterprise Value/EBITDA ratio of less than five. That cheapness, the high and growing dividend, and the fact that they?re the world?s best chipmaker is why I own the shares, but they are definitely taking a hit as mobile destroys the desktop. Or at least, that?s the narrative that Wall Street is running with ? I?d counter that with the fact that there will always be desktop and laptop computers and servers, all of which are dominated by Intel chips, and that anyone betting against Intel working their way into new businesses (as with their mobile chips, which are starting slow but showing some initial signs of progress) should be at least a little bit worried.

Intel doesn?t lose very often ? they?re not going to suddenly take away Qualcomm or ARM?s share of the mobile chip business (if you?re mostly interested in mobile, take a good long look at QCOM, they?re more expensive but are probably closest to being the ?Intel of mobile?), but even if they have some weak years when folks buy tablets instead of laptops I think they?ll continue to be a best-in-class innovator and manufacturer with a huge amount of cash flow rolling through to shareholders. And if tablets are dominating laptops in five years, Intel should have a much larger share of the tablet chip market in five years than they do now. In case you haven?t guessed, I do indeed own Intel ? I haven?t bought more in this recent slump, but I have considered it. My cost basis is pretty close to the market price now, though I?ve also been able to enjoy the compounded dividend to increase the size of my holdings over the last year or two since I first bought shares.

Next?

?BUY #6 ? The Best Darn Bank in All of America?

?According to the most recent Barron?s, this aggressive but well-managed North Carolina bank holding company is considered one of three highest-quality banks. With 1,800 branches throughout the south, it?s the 10th-largest bank in the south.

?The company, through its other subsidiaries, provides automobile lending, bankcard lending, consumer finance, home equity and mortgage lending, insurance, investment brokerage services, mobile/online banking services, payment solutions, sales finance, small business lending, and wealth management/private banking services to retail customers.

?It also offers asset management, association services, capital markets services, commercial finance, commercial middle-market lending, commercial mortgage lending, institutional trust services, insurance premium finance, international banking services, leasing, merchant services, mortgage warehouse lending, real estate lending, supply chain management, and venture capital services to commercial customers.

?Current earnings per share are up to $2.12?

Well, I have no idea whether or not it?s really the ?Best Darn Bank in All of America? ? but the Thinkolator says that this time we?re looking at BB&T (BBT), which did indeed have a trailing annual earnings number of $2.12 a few months ago (with the last reported quarter it?s up to $2.40 now), and it does have approximately 1,800 branches. The branches are all in the ?South?, though it depends on what you mean by south ? they?re really focused in the economic sweet spot of the Mid-Atlantic-to-Carolinas region. And they?re huge, the tenth largest bank in the country (not just the South) and one of the largest ?regional banks? if you?re listing them by market capitalization.

Other than that? Well, they?re a bank and, compared to headline makers like JP Morgan or Citibank they?re relatively simple ? they take deposits and pay essentially nothing for those deposits with interest rates low, and lever those deposits with cheap money from the Fed to make business and mortgage loans and buy low-risk government debt. They make money on the size of their asset base and the spread between what they pay for money (not much) and what they earn on money (not all that much at the moment, but a helluva lot more than they pay), plus whatever fees they can sneak in for overdraft protection or ATM usage or whatever else.

Many regional banks are doing quite well right now, without the massive issues that have bedeviled the mega-banks and investment banks who have much more complex businesses and less transparent operations (not that the regional banks are that transparent either, I confess to not understanding bank balance sheets very well). But if our local neck of the woods here is any indication, ?regular? banks are still making a lot of money and desperately trying to bring in more deposits so they can make more still ? the only buildings that I see consistently being built or renovated as I travel around New England are new bank branches. (And bank branches are, indeed, pretty much the best retail businesses you can imagine ? people pay you to take their money in exchange for ? well, in exchange for nothing except the promise that you?ll give it back someday).

So I won?t pretend to know BBT particularly well, but they are a large and profitable regional bank that?s focused on the Southeast (trickling up to Indiana and out to Texas as well), they pay a decent dividend, and they?re priced right around book value. If you like the idea of the big regional banks but don?t want to choose one in particular, there are also several regional bank ETFs, including, among ohters, the very diversified S&P index version KRE and the more focused iShares version IAT, both own shares of BBT. Personally, when it comes to financial companies I would tend to go with insurance over banks, but that may be as much my reluctance to study banking balance sheets as anything else.

So there you have it ? I can?t really draw a direct line between any of these three stocks and Obama or Romney, they?re all going to be sensitive to the broader economy and interest rates, and I?d argue that any predictions on those have a lot more moving parts and won?t be determined primarily by flipping a switch in two weeks. Some things will make a difference ? for example, if Romney rolls back regulation on banks, that might help BBT, but it probably won?t help them much differently than it does any other financial companies.

Personally, I think there will likely be lots of other stocks that are likely to get a boost or a letdown, even if just a temporary one, from the outcome of the election and the aftermath, with the most likely near-term movements coming due to the spending decisions that are made in the lame-duck session as they try to avoid the fiscal cliff, particularly, since there are a limited number of very visible defense contractors, the military spending stuff ? if they manage to sidestep defense cuts for this year some of the contractors are going to have a quick recovery, and if they resume defense spending growth somehow those companies, including the ones we talked about during our chatter about aircraft carriers, are downright cheap. In the big picture, though, I hate to throw money around speculating on an election or overstating the impact that a president can have on the economy ? better, I think, to focus on good companies that can make a growing profit no matter who?s sitting in the oval office. The six stocks touted by Skousen are mostly large, solid, well run firms from what I can tell in my brief look, and they ought to do fine if the global economy stays on track, I wouldn?t throw any of them out for obvious red flags and I own two of them (Seadrill and Intel). I don?t know if they?ll do better than the S&P 500, but they ought to do fine.

Unfortunately, our divisive political culture has led a huge number of people to believe that if one man is elected the streets will be paved with gold, while if the other is elected the earth will open up and swallow us all alive, so I?m sure the stock market will do lots of crazy gyrations over the next several weeks as the election finishes up and the fiscal cliff discussions begin. I?m not using my portfolio to bet on politics, so I?m going to try to ignore those gyrations unless they present opportunities for buying good companies on the cheap.

Print this article | Email this article

Source: http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/forecasts-and-strategies/the-other-three-must-buy-before-the-election-picks-from-mark-skousen/

B H c mitt romney mark zuckerberg mark zuckerberg fox news

What Is the Worst Budgeting Tip You've Ever Heard?

Welcome to the?Personal Finance Roundtable, where we tackle some controversial money questions with the help of our favorite personal finance bloggers, once a month.

In the days of?King Arthur, the?roundtable?signified the place where consequential ideas were discussed ? hopefully over good food and good drinks. While we don?t yet have virtual food and drinks, we can at least create a place to discuss important topics related to your finances and get a wide range of viewpoints.?So, without further ado, this month?s question is?

Elle from Couple Money: ?The worst piece of advice I received was to keep my mortgage as long as I could to get the tax benefits. The person giving me the advice was talking about the mortgage interest credit. The numbers, however, don?t add up. Paying more interest over the life of the loan to get a small fraction is a money-losing strategy.?

Mrs. PoP from Planting Our Pennies: ?Add $10K in non-tax deductible interest payments to your budget (not to mention principal paydowns) each year! Well, that?s not exactly what our ?personal banker? at Wells Fargo said when he offered us a $100K unsecured personal loan at a 10% interest rate, but it may as well have been. Taking a loan or line of credit offer just because it?s offered seems to be some of the worst budgeting advice we?ve ever been given.?

Greg from Club Thrifty: ?My answer isn?t so much of a tip as it is an attitude. I know several people who think that, just because they paid their bills, they stuck to a budget. While paying your bills is great, it is not budgeting. You actually have to sit down each month and write out a paper budget. You have to consciously tell that money where it is going to go. If you don?t, you are bound to mindlessly spend it.?

David Bakke from Money Crashers: ?Several years ago, I had amassed a significant amount of credit card debt. When I finally decided to do something about it, a family member suggested that I cash in my employer-based 401k plan and pay off all my credit card debt in one fell swoop.?I never took the advice, and I?m glad that I didn?t.

Unless there?s a serious emergency and you have no other recourse, you should never touch your?retirement savings, 401k or otherwise. The first reason not to do this is because you?ll pay an early withdrawal penalty, as well as income taxes on the amount you withdraw. Secondly, you may destroy the nest egg you?ve worked on building up for your retirement. The long-term benefits of compounded interest with a?401k plan?far outweigh any upfront interest costs associated with credit card debt.

Miranda from Planting Money Seeds: ?The worst budget tip I heard came from a loan officer while I shopped around for a mortgage. He said I could be approved for three times the amount I wanted to borrow. Then he told me it was worth it to take the loan, since the house would only appreciate, and that it made sense to stretch the budget a little, to make it work.?Since my husband and I decided that we didn?t want to be house poor, we chose a loan from another lender.

Stretching our budget to pay for a home that we didn?t really need seemed ridiculous, especially since then we wouldn?t have the money to do other things that we enjoyed. It doesn?t make a lot of sense to tie up so much money in mortgage payments, and we didn?t want to have problems in the event of a financial setback.?

Ben from Money Smart Life: ?My least favorite budgeting tip is to start with a blank sheet of paper and write down all your expenses. I?ve never tested it but I?d bet that people who start with a list of expenses and fill in the blanks with their spending estimates are much more likely to create a budget than someone who starts with a blank sheet and has to think up all their expenses on their own.

There?s something intimidating about a blank sheet of paper, you feel as though you?re starting from nothing and have to figure it all out on your own. In contrast, if you start with some kind of template you?re more likely to get started and actually end up with a budget.?

What about you? Tell us in the comments: what?s the worst budgeting tip you?ve ever heard?

And check out our first Personal Finance Roundtable topic: How Many Credit Cards is Too Many?

Image by?USDAgov

This post was published by Ben, Writer and Content Strategist for ReadyForZero. ReadyForZero is a company that helps people get out of debt on their own with a simple and free online tool that can automate and track your debt paydown.

? Get ReadyForZero

Source: http://blog.readyforzero.com/worst-budgeting-tip-ever-heard/

groundhog day ground hog groundhog day 2012 serrano staten island chuck dr jekyll and mr hyde edwin jackson

Obama, Romney pumped for dash to the finish

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney meet family members after the third presidential debate at Lynn University, Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla. (AP Photo/Pool-Michael Reynolds)

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney meet family members after the third presidential debate at Lynn University, Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla. (AP Photo/Pool-Michael Reynolds)

Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, laughs as she pulls her husband away from the edge of the stage after the third presidential debate with President Barack Obama at Lynn University, Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Barack Obama shakes hands with the audience after the third presidential debate at Lynn University, Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla. (AP Photo/Pool-Win McNamee)

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) ? Their debates now history, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday open a two-week sprint to Election Day powered by adrenaline, a boatload of campaign cash and a determination to reach Nov. 6 with no would-have, should-have regrets in their neck-and-neck fight to the finish.

From here, the candidates will vastly accelerate their travel, ad spending and grass-roots mobilizing in a race that's likely to cost upward of $2 billion by the time it all ends.

All the focus now is on locking down support in the nine states whose electoral votes are still considered up for grabs: Colorado, Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia. No surprise then, that Obama campaigns Tuesday in Florida and Ohio while Romney heads West to Nevada and Colorado.

Neither candidate scored a knockout punch in their third and last debate Monday, as both men reined in the confrontational sniping that had marked their last testy encounter. And though the stated topic this time was foreign policy, both kept circling back to their plans for strengthening the fragile U.S. economy ? Job 1 to American voters.

Closing out their trio of debates, Obama concisely summed up this pivot point in Campaign 2012: "You've now heard three debates, months of campaigning and way too many TV commercials. And now you've got a choice."

The president framed it as a choice between his own record of "real progress" and the "wrong and reckless" ideas of Romney.

Romney countered by sketching "two different paths" offered by the candidates, one of decline under Obama and one of brighter promise from himself.

"I know what it takes to get this country back," he pledged.

With polls showing the race remains incredibly tight, first lady Michelle Obama made a prediction before the candidates left Florida that neither side would dispute: "This election will be closer than the last one ? that's the only guarantee."

Obama made it look easy in 2008: He won 365 electoral votes to 173 for Republican John McCain. And he got 53 percent of the popular vote, to 46 percent for McCain.

With 270 electoral votes needed for victory, Obama at this point appears on track to win 237 while Romney appears to have 191. The other 110 are in the hotly contested battleground states.

The candidates' strategies for getting to 270 are implicit in their itineraries for the next two weeks and in their spending on campaign ads.

Obama and his Democratic allies already have placed $47 million in ad spending across battlegrounds in the campaign's final weeks, while Romney and the independent groups supporting his candidacy have purchased $53 million, significantly upping their buys in Florida, Ohio and Virginia. And both sides are expected to pad their totals.

After Obama and Vice President Joe Biden campaign together in Ohio on Tuesday, the president splits off on what his campaign is describing as a two-day "around-the-clock" blitz to six more battleground states. He'll be in constant motion ? making voter calls and sleeping aboard Air Force One as he flies overnight Wednesday from Nevada to Tampa, Fla.

The vice president is midway through a three-day tour of uber-battleground Ohio, and Obama's team contends its best way of ensuring victory is a win there. The campaign says internal polling gives Obama a lead in the Midwestern battleground state, in large part because of the popularity of the president's bailout of the auto industry.

But even if Obama loses Ohio, his campaign sees another pathway to the presidency by nailing New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado.

Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are picking up the pace of their campaigning as well, and their schedule reflects an overarching strategy to drive up GOP vote totals in areas already friendly to the Republican nominee.

The Denver suburbs. Cincinnati. Reno, Nev. They're places that typically vote Republican, but where McCain fell short of the margins he needed to defeat Obama. To win in all-important Ohio, the GOP nominee must outperform McCain in typically Republican areas.

Romney and Ryan start their two-week dash in Henderson, Nev., then hopscotch to the Denver area for a rally with rocker-rapper Kid Rock and country music's Rodney Atkins at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Then Romney heads back to Nevada, on to Iowa and then east to Ohio for three overnights in a row. By week's end, he's likely to be back in Florida.

The following week brings a significant uptick in Romney's schedule. Aides say he'll touch down in two or three states a day, or hold that many daily events in big states like Florida.

Both candidates are done holding fundraisers ? no doubt a happy thought for the two of them.

But hold on to your wallets: Supporters will still be out there raising money, and there will be plenty of emails asking for cash right up to the finish.

The president began the month with a little less cash available than Romney, but both have impressive sums to blow through in the home stretch: $150 million for Obama and the Democrats, $183 million for Romney and the Republicans.

Immediately after the final debate, Obama pinged his supporters with an email that said simply: "This is in your hands now. Chip in $5 or more, and let's go win."

Republicans are dramatically bumping up ad spending in the biggest battlegrounds: In Florida, their spending this week hit $9.2 million after averaging about $5.8 million over the last four weeks. In Ohio, GOP ad spending jumped to $9.6 million this week from an average of $6.9 million over the last four weeks. Virginia saw a bump up to $7.9 million, compared with about $5.2 million over the last four weeks.

Out on the road, Romney has been demonstrating more confidence than ever. He's started making more impromptu stops at local establishments near campaign rallies, a departure from his typically buttoned-down schedule through the summer. His crowds are bigger and more energized, too. And some voters who've attended his recent rallies say his performance helps them to see Romney as a plausible president ? not just a candidate.

Obama, for his part, has been projecting a looser, more easygoing demeanor as he campaigns, using humor to undercut Romney.

He riffs about his rival's "Romnesia" ? a lighthearted way to drive home his opponent's shifting policy positions.

Both sides are working furiously to lock down every possible early vote, and the results are evident in the 4.4 million people who've already cast ballots.

Obama will detour to Chicago on Thursday to make a statement about voting early by becoming the first president to cast his own early ballot.

The country is likely to easily exceed the early voting totals from 2008, when 30 percent of all ballots were cast ahead of Election Day, according to Michael McDonald, a George Mason University professor who tracks early voting closely.

In Ohio, McDonald said, numbers are up across the board ? in rural, suburban and urban areas. As many as 45 percent of Ohio voters may cast early ballots, compared with less than 30 percent four years ago, he said. The numbers in North Carolina seem to be shifting in the Republicans' direction, McDonald says, and those in Iowa "seem to confirm polling showing a slight Obama lead" there.

This year's quartet of debates ? three for the presidential candidates and one for the veeps ? started on a friendly note, with Romney wishing Obama and wife Michelle a happy 20th anniversary, but goodwill quickly deteriorated. Both men were at times argumentative and the back-and-forth often shed more heat than light.

Romney came on like gangbusters in the first debate and left a listless Obama reeling as GOP momentum surged. Biden poured it on for the Democrats in his faceoff with Ryan, rolling out a full complement of smirks, eye-rolls and headshakes. Obama himself rebounded in the fractious town-hall debate. Both Obama and Romney were better behaved in their final faceoff, with the president playing up his commander-in-chief credentials to full effect and Romney playing it safe to avoid making mistakes.

From it all ? more than 65,000 words of debate rhetoric ? there was no signature moment that is likely to be remembered much past Election Day.

___

Benac reported from Washington. AP writers Julie Pace, Jack Gillum and Beth Fouhy in Washington and Kasie Hunt in Boca Raton, Fla., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

Follow Ken Thomas at http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-23-Presidential%20Campaign/id-71627afae6384f00b8ef2479a73dbf43

archer ibooks 2 ifl indoor football league newt gingrich wife callista rick perry

Sports@11...World Series preview, UNLV TD finalist for play of year, Linemakers...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/mynews3/posts/418686738185741

george washington russell westbrook horsetail falls ice t downton abbey new york knicks president day

Here's Some Good News For Facebook's Mauled Shareholders -- Analysts Aren't Hallucinating Anymore

If you're a Facebook shareholder who has lost half their money since the May IPO, here's some good news for you:

Wall Street has finally sobered up about Facebook's prospects.

Specifically, in the wake of Facebook customer Zynga's latest collapse, Wall Street has finally realized that its expectations for the second half of this year were insanely optimistic.

And Wall Street has reduced those expectations.

Most of Wall Street is still looking for modest sequential growth in Facebook's revenue in Q3 (earnings to be released today), but...

Wall Street is no longer expecting Facebook's Q3 revenue growth to accelerate!

That's good news.

Because, until recently, Wall Street thought Facebook's revenue growth would magically accelerate this quarter, thus removing the biggest drag on the stock (deceleration).

This expectation always seemed a tad, well, delusional.

So, it's helpful that analysts have finally gotten control of themselves.

Now, is it possible that Facebook's revenue growth will actually accelerate this quarter?

Yes, it's possible. Not likely, but possible.

And now, if Facebook's revenue does actually accelerate, this will be viewed as a bona fide positive surprise and very encouraging.

So, Wall Street's sobering up is good news for you, Facebook shareholders. Now, expectations are low enough that if your company does manage to reaccelerate its revenue growth, the stock should pop.

What are the key numbers you should look for?

The consensus expectation for Q3 revenue is $1.23 billion.

That's 29% growth year over year, a modest deceleration from last quarter's 32%. If Facebook beats that number, it's good news. If Facebook misses that number, well, you know the drill.

On the bottom line, meanwhile, the Wall Street consensus is $0.11.

SEE ALSO: DEAR FACEBOOK EMPLOYEES: Here's What You Should Know About Your Stock Price

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sai_henry_blodget/~3/L62QZ4gmWCU/faceboo-earnings-estimates-2012-10

anguilla gone with the wind michael jordan checkers imbibe msg network ray j

DuPont to cut 1,500 jobs

DuPont plans to cut 1,500 jobs worldwide.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Chemical company DuPont announced Tuesday it would cut about 1,500 jobs worldwide, or about 2% of its global work force.

The company said it will make the cuts over the next 12 to 18 months as part of an effort to trim costs by $450 million. But the cost-cutting effort resulted in $342 million in after-tax charges in the most recent quarter.

DuPont disclosed its plans as it reported a larger-than-expected drop in operating earnings in the third quarter. It also lowered its earnings guidance for this year, warning that its income would be down for the period.

Related: DuPont CEO on motivating the troops in times of crisis

The company had 70,000 employees worldwide at the end of last year, up from 60,000 a year earlier. DuPont would not give any details about where the jobs to be eliminated are located in its global operations.

Shares of DuPont (DD, Fortune 500), a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, were down about 6% in premarket trading on the earnings report and outlook.

In August, the Carlyle Group (CG) agreed to acquire DuPont's vehicle and industrial coatings business for $4.9 billion.

First Published: October 23, 2012: 7:35 AM ET

Source: http://money.cnn.com/rssclick/2012/10/23/news/companies/dupont-job-cuts/index.html?section=money_topstories

michigan football askew blue moon eddie murphy ann romney marco rubio marco rubio

Earnings Preview: Facebook posts 3Q results Tues.

NEW YORK (AP) ? Facebook Inc. will report its third-quarter earnings results ? the second as a public company ? on Tuesday after the stock market closes. With its stock trading at less than half of its initial public offering price, the online social networking company has been working to grow its advertising revenue without alienating its 1 billion users.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Online advertising rival Google Inc.'s disappointing results, announced prematurely last Thursday, dragged Facebook's stock lower too. Google's ad revenue grew at the slowest pace in three years in the July-September quarter, which some investors took as a sign that Facebook could see a slowdown too.

Susquehanna analyst Herman Leung thinks a big area of focus will be Facebook's progress in mobile advertising. Facebook only recently started showing ads, which it calls "sponsored stories," on mobile devices. The challenge with small screens is showing the ads without annoying users.

The company has launched several new products and features recently that could boost revenue growth. These include the Facebook Exchange, which lets advertisers target users in real-time, based on outside websites they visit. So if you visit a store's website, you might see ads from them on Facebook. A gifts feature, meanwhile, lets users buy physical gifts for their friends through their Facebook account. Investors will be looking for updates on how these and other new features have fared.

Leung said he'll also be listening for an update on new ways for advertisers to measure how well their ads are working on Facebook. He has a "Positive" rating on Facebook and a target price of $32.

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia, meanwhile, notes that looming expirations of post-IPO lockup periods could weigh on Facebook's stock as employees start selling their shares.

"That said, we think the sentiment on the stock is already quite negative and we believe the long-term opportunity for (Facebook) remains very large," he added. He kept a "Buy" rating and $26 price target.

WHY IT MATTERS: Facebook is the dominant social networking company in the world, with more than 1 billion users. Its results are a gauge of the health of social media companies, as well as the overall online advertising environment.

WHAT'S EXPECTED: Analysts, on average, are expecting earnings of 11 cents per share on revenue of $1.23 billion, according to FactSet. Facebook has not given an outlook.

LAST YEAR'S QUARTER: Facebook was still a private company. It had net income of $227 million and revenue of $954 million in the third quarter of 2011.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/earnings-preview-facebook-posts-3q-results-tues-171000710--finance.html

yu darvish mad cow pennsylvania primary jerome simpson hand sanitizer obama on jimmy fallon google drive