via thepostgame.com
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Americans losing addiction to "CrackBerrys" - Yahoo! Finance
By Alistair Barr and Sinead Carew
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - To understand what ails BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd in the U.S. market, just ask eBay Inc Chief Executive John Donahoe.
The world's biggest online auction site had about a hundred engineers developing new iterations of eBay's shopping app for Apple Inc's iPhone a few months ago, and another hundred engineers working on Google Inc's Android mobile platform.
EBay even had 50 people developing apps for Microsoft's Windows phones, but the e-commerce giant only had "one or two" working on RIM's BlackBerry, according to Donahoe.
"I still use the BlackBerry, but it's not the most developer-friendly platform," he told a group of chief technology officers at an event at Stanford University in June, when the subject of RIM came up.
By early November, it seemed Donahoe wasn't even using his BlackBerry much any more. When he met with reporters to talk about plans for the holiday shopping season, the CEO whipped out his iPhone to show how eBay's apps ran on the device. When Reuters asked Donahue about his BlackBerry, he said he still had it but didn't bother to bring it into the room.
Such stories are commonly found among RIM's once-loyal corporate and consumer customers, who are deserting the Canadian company after it has struggled to keep up with competitors' innovations.
RIM on Thursday posted a sharply lower quarterly profit, offered a dismal forecast for BlackBerry shipments this holiday season, and delayed the arrival of new phones using a make-or-break operating system in development, QNX.
"It's frustrating because I haven't heard anything good from them in a long time," said long-time BlackBerry user Kevin Nichols, the head of KLN Consulting Group, who was looking at Android and Windows phones at a Sprint Nextel Corp store in downtown San Francisco on Friday.
"They need to come out with new products soon, otherwise it looks like RIM may become the next Palm," he said, in reference to the collapse of the smartphone pioneer Palm Inc. Nichols ignored the latest BlackBerry Torch in a display case nearby, saying the device wasn't "new enough" for him to upgrade.
Even on Wall Street, where users once joked about their addiction to their "crackberries," loyalty is waning.
"The QNX delay is a concern," said Rob Romero, head of hedge fund firm Connective Capital. "Consumers like new products and vendors want something new to sell in their stores."
The chief technology officer of a Connecticut-based hedge fund said that when a top hedge fund manager wants to use an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry they can now switch, even though he prefers RIM security. "When they say I want an iPhone or an iPad configured, they get it," said the CTO, who declined to be identified.
RIM shares fell 11 percent on Nasdaq on Friday and hit their lowest level in nearly eight years.
SECURITY FEATURES
Research firm Strategy Analytics forecast RIM's share of the U.S. smartphone market to fall to 12 percent this year, a sharp drop from 2007, when RIM had a 44 percent share. By comparison, Apple, which just started selling smartphones in 2007, is expected to grab a 24 percent U.S. market share this year.
To be sure, BlackBerry still has its defenders. Robert Laikin, CEO of cellphone distributor Brightpoint, said that RIM represents between 5 percent to 10 percent of the 110 million phones his company handles globally every year.
"I still have a BlackBerry. When I talk to my friends who are business professionals, most of them still have a BlackBerry. Some of them have bought an additional device too," he told Reuters.
"All manufacturers I've worked with in the last 25 years have product delays. What RIM is going through isn't different," he said. "I believe RIM will survive because their product is very sticky."
There are still many companies who prefer their employees use BlackBerrys because they feel that RIM offers the best security features to protect corporate data. But these enterprise customers are shrinking, analysts said.
Gary Curtis, chief technology strategist at global technology consulting giant Accenture, pointed to improvements in security from Apple and Google mobile software in recent years.
"Choice and leveling of the playing field is the fundamental enabling factor for companies being able to say to employees, use the device you like," he said. "It's not a headlong rush ... but they're opening the door to more devices and people make their own choices."
Interviews with other consumers at phone stores on Friday illustrated why the former bastion of corporate smart phones faces tough competition.
"I'm a BlackBerry user but my company makes me use it," said a shopper called John who was playing with a BlackBerry Torch at an AT&T store in San Francisco. He declined to give his last name.
"Anyone who is anyone at my company has an iPhone, but they make us use BlackBerry still," he added. "I think I might break mine and buy an iPhone. The touch screen on this Torch works pretty well, but the iPhone is just easier to use."
A Sprint store manager said BlackBerry phones would sell better if they had more apps. But some app developers aren't interested in the BlackBerry platform, partly because the technology is difficult to work with.
"Of the companies that pitch to us, I can't think of any that are starting out by developing an app for the BlackBerry," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta of venture capital firm Accel Partners, which invests in mobile app developers.
Hotel Tonight, a start-up backed by Accel's Ranzetta, has developed apps for the iPhone, Android phones and an HTML5 version for its last-minute hotel booking service.
"Will they make a dedicated BlackBerry app? Not on the roadmap," she said.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Gary Hill)
Monday, December 19, 2011
AP Enterprise: Russia oil spills wreak devastation - Yahoo! Finance
USINSK, Russia (AP) -- On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam.
This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.
Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.
Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.
It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.
Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other oil-producing nation including insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.
"Oil and oil products get spilled literally every day," said Dr. Grigory Barenboim, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Water Problems.
No hard figures on the scope of oil spills in Russia are available, but Greenpeace estimates that at least 5 million tons leak every year in a country producing about 500 million tons a year.
Dr. Irina Ivshina, of the government-financed Institute of the Environment and Genetics of Microorganisms, supports the 5 million ton estimate, as does the World Wildlife Fund.
The figure is derived from two sources: Russian state-funded research that shows 10-15 percent of Russian oil leakage enters rivers; and a 2010 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Ministry that shows nearly 500,000 tons slips into northern Russian rivers every year and flow into the Arctic.
The estimate is considered conservative: The Russian Economic Development Ministry in a report last year estimated spills at up to 20 million tons per year.
That astonishing number, for which the ministry offered no elaboration, appears to be based partly on the fact most small leaks in Russia go unreported. Under Russian law, leaks of less than 8 tons are classified only as "incidents" and carry no penalties.
Russian oil spills also elude detection because most happen in the vast swaths of unpopulated tundra and conifer forestin the north, caused either by ruptured pipes or leakage from decommissioned wells.
Weather conditions in most oil provinces are brutal, with temperatures routinely dropping below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) in winter. That makes pipelines brittle and prone to rupture unless they are regularly replaced and their condition monitored.
Asked by The Associated Press to comment, the Natural Resources Ministry and the Energy Ministry said they have no data on oil spills and referred to the other ministry for further inquiries.
Even counting only the 500,000 tons officially reported to be leaking into northern rivers every year, Russia is by far the worst oil polluter in the world.
—Nigeria, which produces one-fifth as much oil as Russia, logged 110,000 tons spilled in 2009, much of that due to rebel attacks on pipelines.
—The U.S., the world's third-largest oil producer, logged 341 pipeline ruptures in 2010 — compared to Russia's 18,000 — with 17,600 tons of oil leaking as a result, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spills have averaged 14,900 tons a year between 2001 and 2010.
—Canada, which produces oil in weather conditions as harsh as Russia's, does not see anything near Russia's scale of disaster. Eleven pipeline accidents were reported to Canada's Transport Safety Board last year, while media reports of leaks, ranging from sizable spills to a tiny leak in a farmer's backyard, come to a total of 7,700 tons a year.
—In Norway, Russia's northwestern oil neighbor, spills amounted to some 3,000 tons a year in the past few years, said Hanne Marie Oeren, head of the oil and gas section at Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency.
Now that Russian companies are moving to the Arctic to tap vast but hard-to-get oil and gas riches, scientists voice concerns that Russia's outdated technologies and shoddy safety record make for a potential environmental calamity there.
Gazpromneft, an oil subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, is preparing to drill for oil in the Arctic's Pechora Sea, even as environmentalists complain that the drilling platform is outdated and the company is not ready to deal with potential accidents.
Government scientists acknowledge that Russia does not currently have the required technology to develop Arctic fields but say it will be years before the country actually starts drilling.
"We must start the work now, do the exploration and develop the technology so that we would be able to ... start pumping oil from the Arctic in the middle of this century," Alexei Kontorovich, chairman of the council on geology, oil and gas fields at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a recent news conference.
The same academy's Barenboim said, however, that Russian technology is developing too slowly to make it a safe bet for Arctic exploration.
"Over the past years, environmental risks have increased more sharply compared to how far our technologies, funds, equipment and skills to deal with them have advanced," he said.
In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, became the scene of Russia's largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed from an aging pipeline.
It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by some 28 percent in the year following the leak.
Seen from a helicopter, the oil production area is dotted with pitch-black ponds. Fresh leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. To spot a leak, find a dying tree. Fir trees with drooping gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing insoil polluted by oil.
Usinsk spokeswoman Tatyana Khimichuk said the city administration had no powers to influence oil company operations.
"Everything that happens at the oil fields is Lukoil's responsibility," she said, referring to Russia's second largest oil company, which owns a network of pipelines in the region.
Komi's environmental protection officials also blamed oil companies. The local prosecutor's office said in a report this year that the main problem is "that companies that extract hydrocarbons focus on making profits rather than how to use the resources rationally."
Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk.
After hours, he is with a local environmental group. Bratenkov used to point out to his Lukoil bosses that oil spills routinely happen under their noses and asked them to repair the pipelines. "They were offended and said that costs too much money," he said.
Activists like Bratenkov find it hard if not impossible to hold authorities to account in the area since some 90 percent of the local population comprises oil workers and their families who have moved from other regions of Russia, and depend on the industry for their livelihood.
Representatives of Lukoil denied claims that they try to conceal spills and leaks, and said that no more than 2.7 tons leaked last year from its production areas in Komi.
Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, who studies oil spills, said the situation in Komi is replicated across Russia's oil-producing regions, which stretch from the Black Sea in the southwest to the Chinese border in Russia's Far East.
"It is happening everywhere," Blokov said. "It's typical of any oil field in Russia. The system is old and it is not being replaced in time by any oil company in the country."
What also worries scientists and environmentalists is that oil spills are not confined to abandoned or aging fields. Alarmingly, accidents happen at brand new pipelines, said Barenboim.
At least 400 tons leaked from a new pipeline in two separate accidents in Russia's Far East last year, according to media reports and oil companies. Transneft's pipeline that brings Russian oil from Eastern Siberia to China was put into operation just months before the two spills happened.
The oil industry in Komi has been sapping nature for decades, killing or forcing out reindeer and fish. Locals like the 63-year-old Bratenkov are afraid that when big oil leaves, there will be only poisoned terrain left in its wake.
"Fishing, hunting — it's all gone," Bratenkov said.
___
Bjoern H. Amland contributed to this report from Oslo, Norway.
___
Nataliya Vasilyeva can be reached at http://twitter.com/natvasilyevaap
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Pa. liquor board pulls ad on heavy drinking, rape - Yahoo! News
PITTSBURGH (AP) — An ad meant to warn young adults about the links between heavy drinking and rape has been pulled by Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board.
Critics said it was another example of suggesting victims are to blame for rape.
The ad featured an image of a woman's legs on a bathroom floor with her underwear pulled down to her ankles, and the words: "She didn't want to do it, but she couldn't say no."
Stacey Witalec, a spokeswoman for the Liquor Control Board, said the online ad was part of a broader campaign that began a few months ago on the website ControlTonight.com. She said there was both criticism and support for the ad, but the board decided to pull it Wednesday evening.
Witalec said the campaign was trying to bring attention to a serious problem, not suggest rape victims are to blame.
"On an annual basis more than 97,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 are the victims of alcohol-fueled sexual assaults," Witalec said, "and those statistics are staggering."
One expert defended the ad.
Jennifer Storm, Executive Director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, noted that one sequence in the interactive ad stated very clearly that rape isn't the victim's fault.
"I feel strongly that we need to be having very frank conversations about prevention. Otherwise, all we're doing is intervening after the fact," Storm said.
"Alcohol is the number one drug used to facilitate rape. You lose your capacity to make sound decisions," Storm said, adding that "we need to empower people with every tool and piece of knowledge we have."
One blogger on the website Jezebel didn't agree.
"Rape is not just a bad thing that happens to someone after drinking too much," wrote Erin Gloria Ryan. "It's a deliberate act on the part of the rapist, a violation of another person committed solely because the rapist wanted to rape. The sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we'll be rid of stupid, finger wagging ads like these."
Ryan also said that the portion of the ad reading "See what could happen when your friends drink too much" was "just shifting blame away from the rapist and onto the victim and, oddly, the victim's friends."
Several other ads in the campaign warning about the dangers of heavy drinking are still being used. Those subjects include excessive drinking and alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, and drunken arguments.
___
Online:
via news.yahoo.com
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
'New Year's Eve' LA Premiere - Photo Gallery on Yahoo! Movies
Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele: A master class in the art of red carpet mugging
Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele are among the 872 (number approximate) romantic leads in the movie “ New Year’s Eve ,” which opens Friday. And as such, they really, really played up the flirtatious angle on the red carpet at Monday’s Hollywood premiere of the ensemble rom-com. Us magazine ran an item that coyly notes that last night marked Kutcher’s first red-carpet walk since his official split ...
Video: Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele Flirt at NYE Premiere - Is Real-Life Love in the Air?
Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele looked pretty smitten with each other at last night's New Year's Eve premiere in LA , but is it purely costar admiration, or could they be getting cozy in real life? Watch today's PopSugar Rush, and tell us what you think!
www.popsugar.com/Lea-Michele-Ashton-Kutcher-New-Years-Eve-Premiere-Video-20747674
Lea Michele Gets Her Flirt on With Ashton Kutcher at 'New Year's Eve' Premiere
Actors Lea Michele and Ashton Kutcher arrive to the Premiere Of Warner Bros. Pictures' "New Year's Eve" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on December 5, 2011 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images) more pics » Lea Michele (Getty Images) Ashton Kutcher is apparently not too worried about how he's coming off in the wake of his split from wife Demi Moore, as he made a big show of flirting his face off ...
www.zimbio.com/Lea+Michele/articles/CpeV7BoBZCN/Lea+Michele+Gets+Flirt+Ashton+Kutcher+New
via movies.yahoo.com
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone - Yahoo! News
This story was updated at 12:15 p.m. ET.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).
The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.
The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.
"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.
Kepler-22b's radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius).
Hunting down alien planets
The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, might be able to exist.
Kepler detects alien planets using what's called the "transit method." It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — the star from Earth's perspective, blocking a fraction of the star's light.
The finds graduate from "candidates" to full-fledged planets after follow-up observations confirm that they're not false alarms. This process, which is usually done with large, ground-based telescopes, can take about a year.
The Kepler team released data from its first 13 months of operation back in February, announcing that the instrument had detected 1,235 planet candidates, including 54 in the habitable zone and 68 that are roughly Earth-size.
Of the total 2,326 candidate planets that Kepler has found to date, 207 are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, falling into the "super-Earth" category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48.
To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument's discoveries should end up being the real deal.
More discoveries to come
The newfound 1,094 planet candidates are the fruit of Kepler's labors during its first 16 months of science work, from May 2009 to September 2010. And they won't be the last of the prolific instrument's discoveries.
"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.
Mission scientists still need to analyze data from the last two years and on into the future. Kepler will be making observations for a while yet to come; its nominal mission is set to end in November 2012, but the Kepler team is preparing a proposal to extend the instrument's operations for another year or more.
Kepler's finds should only get more exciting as time goes on, researchers say.
"We're pushing down to smaller planets and longer orbital periods," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at Ames.
To flag a potential planet, the instrument generally needs to witness three transits. Planets that make three transits in just a few months must be pretty close to their parent stars; as a result, many of the alien worlds Kepler spotted early on have been blisteringly hot places that aren't great candidates for harboring life as we know it.
Given more time, however, a wealth of more distantly orbiting — and perhaps more Earth-like — exoplanets should open up to Kepler. If intelligent aliens were studying our solar system with their own version of Kepler, after all, it would take them three years to detect our home planet.
"We are getting very close," Batalha said. "We are homing in on the truly Earth-size, habitable planets."
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcomand on Facebook.
via news.yahoo.com
Postal cuts to slow delivery of first-class mail - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.
The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the cash-strapped Postal Service to quickly trim costs, seeing no immediate help from Congress.
The changes would provide short-term relief, but ultimately could prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.
That birthday card mailed first-class to Mom also could arrive a day or two late, if people don't plan ahead.
"It's a potentially major change, but I don't think consumers are focused on it and it won't register until the service goes away," said Jim Corridore, analyst with S&P Capital IQ, who tracks the shipping industry. "Over time, to the extent the customer service experience gets worse, it will only increase the shift away from mail to alternatives. There's almost nothing you can't do online that you can do by mail."
The cuts, now being finalized, would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March. Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971.
Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one day to three days. That will lengthen to two days to three days, meaning mailers no longer could expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two days and nine days.
About 42 percent of first-class mail is now delivered the following day. An additional 27 percent arrives in two days, about 31 percent in three days and less than 1 percent in four days to five days. Following the change next spring, about 51 percent of all first-class mail is expected to arrive in two days, with most of the remainder delivered in three days.
The consolidation of mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closing of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.
Expressing urgency to reduce costs, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview that the agency has to act while waiting for Congress to grant it authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs.
The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive tax money, but is subject to congressional control on large aspects of its operations. The changes in first-class mail delivery can go into place without permission from Congress.
After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the Treasury for retiree health benefits. It is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year amid steady declines in first-class mail volume. Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.
It already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.
"We have a business model that is failing. You can't continue to run red ink and not make changes," Donahoe said. "We know our business, and we listen to our customers. Customers are looking for affordable and consistent mail service, and they do not want us to take tax money."
Separate bills that have passed House and Senate committees would give the Postal Service more authority and liquidity to stave off immediate bankruptcy. But prospects are somewhat dim for final congressional action on those bills anytime soon, especially if the measures are seen in an election year as promoting layoffs and cuts to neighborhood post offices.
Technically, the Postal Service must await an advisory opinion from the independent Postal Regulatory Commission before it can begin closing local post offices and processing centers. But such opinions are nonbinding, and Donahoe is making clear the agency will proceed with reductions once the opinion is released next March.
"The things I have control over here at the Postal Service, we have to do," he said, describing the cuts as a necessary business decision. "If we do nothing, we will have a death spiral."
The Postal Service initially announced in September it was studying the possibility of closing the processing centers and published a notice in the Federal Register seeking comments. Within 30 days, the plan elicited nearly 4,400 public comments, mostly in opposition.
Among them:
—Small-town mayors and legislators in states including Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania cited the economic harm if postal offices were to close, eliminating jobs and reducing service. Small-business owners in many other states also were worried.
"It's kind of a lifeline," said William C. Snodgrass, who owns a USave Pharmacy in North Platte, Neb., referring to next-day first-class delivery. His store mails hundreds of prescriptions a week to residents in mostly rural areas of the state that lack local pharmacies. If first-class delivery were lengthened to three days and Saturday mail service also were suspended, a resident might not get a shipment mailed on Wednesday until the following week.
"A lot of people in these communities are 65 or 70 years old, and transportation is an issue for them," said Snodgrass, who hasn't decided whether he will have to switch to a private carrier such as UPS for one-day delivery. That would mean passing along higher shipping costs to customers. "It's impossible for many of my customers to drive 100 miles, especially in the winter, to get the medications they need."
—ESPN The Magazine and Crain Communications, which prints some 27 trade and consumer publications, said delays to first-class delivery could ruin the value of their news. Their magazines are typically printed at week's end with mail arrival timed for weekend sports events or the Monday start of the work week. Newspapers, already struggling in the Internet age, also could suffer.
"No one wants to receive Tuesday's issue, containing news of Monday's events, on Wednesday," said Paul Boyle, a senior vice president of the Newspaper Association of America, which represents nearly 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. "Especially in rural areas where there might not be broadband access for Internet news, it will hurt the ability of newspapers to reach customers who pretty much rely on the printed newspaper to stay connected to their communities."
—AT&T, which mails approximately 55 million customer billing statements each month, wants assurances that the Postal Service will widely publicize and educate the public about changes to avoid confusion over delivery that might lead to delinquent payments. The company is also concerned that after extensive cuts the Postal Service might realize it cannot meet a relaxed standard of two-to-three day delivery.
Other companies standing to lose include Netflix, which offers monthly pricing plans for unlimited DVDs by mail, sent one disc or two at a time. Longer delivery times would mean fewer opportunities to receive discs each month, effectively a price increase. Netflix in recent months has been vigorously promoting its video streaming service as an alternative.
"DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said this year.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees the post office, believes the agency is taking the wrong approach. She says service cuts will only push more consumers to online bill payment or private carriers such as UPS or FedEx, leading to lower revenue in the future.
"Time and time again in the face of more red ink, the Postal Service puts forward ideas that could well accelerate its death spiral," she said, urging passage of a bill that would refund nearly $7 billion the Postal Service overpaid into a federal retirement fund, encourage a restructuring of health benefits and reduce the agency's annual payments into a retiree health account.
That measure would postpone a move to five-day-a-week mail delivery for at least two years and require additional layers of review before the agency closed postal branches and mail processing centers.
"The solution to the Postal Service's financial crisis is not easy but must involve tackling more significant expenses that do not drive customers," Collins said.
In the event of a shutdown due to bankruptcy, private companies such as FedEx and UPS could handle a small portion of the material the post office moves, but they do not go everywhere. No business has shown interest in delivering letters everywhere in the country for a set rate of 44 cents or 45 cents for a first-class letter.
Ruth Goldway, chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission, said the planned cuts could test the limits of the Postal Service's legal obligation to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. "It will have substantial cost savings, but it really does have the potential to change what the postal service is and its role in providing fast and efficient delivery of mail," she said.
___
Online:
Postal Service: https://www.usps.com
via news.yahoo.com
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The Best and Worst Reasons to Go Back to School - Yahoo! Education
The Best and Worst Reasons to Go Back to School
The Best and Worst Reasons to Go Back to SchoolThe Best and Worst Reasons to Go Back to SchoolThe Best and Worst Reasons to Go Back to School
Is higher education right for you? Before you decide, check out our list of best and worst reasons to go back to school.
By Terence Loose
Thinking of going back to school to advance your education? That could be a great move if it's done for the right reason. If done for the wrong reason...well, not so much.
Meredith Haberfeld, New York-based career and executive coach, says potential students need to carefully consider what they want their future to look like before returning to school.
"It's about figuring out what you love doing, how much you are committed to earning, and what careers and degrees match back to that," says Haberfeld.
Are you going back to school for the right reasons? Read on to see what experts say are some of the best and worst reasons to go back to school.
Worst Reason #1 - You Are Being Pushed by Someone to Do It
Going back to school should be a decision you make for yourself, not a decision someone makes for you.
"Personally, I think it's better for those students to, like that great quote in 'Pulp Fiction' says, 'Walk the earth like Kane in Kung-Fu' and figure out what they want," says Schneiderman.
In other words, he thinks letting someone else push you back to school is a terrible idea.
"What happens," he says, "is they end up being unsuccessful for their first couple semesters and once they have those poor grades on their transcripts, it's with them forever. Then, in a few years when they're ready and motivated to go back to school, they have those poor grades stuck with them."
So, make sure that you're going back to school because you want to, not because someone is pushing you to do it.
Still Think Going Back to School is Right for You? Click to Find the Right Degree Program.
Going back to school to help you reach your career goals is a terrific idea. But, if you're going back to school to earn a degree solely for a job - that's a problem.
A lot of people are desperate for a job right now, and as so many studies have shown, earning a college degree is linked to better employment rates. But remember, life is about more than a paycheck. Enjoying what you do is also vital to your health and happiness.
"Is business a great degree to have? Yes. But if you hate business it's a terrible degree to pursue," says Schneiderman. He's even seen students trying to earn a nursing degree who hate people and faint at the sight of blood. That's desperate - and a bad life choice.
Not knowing what you're going to do in terms of your career can be tough. But that doesn't mean that going back to school is the best solution.
"I can't tell you how many lawyers I work with who are three to 20 years out of law school and hate what they do, but went to law school thinking 'Well, I don't know what else to do,'" says Haberfeld. "They never really wanted to be a lawyer. Their thought process was 'What's something that will forward my future?'"
Before you decide to go back to school, do some research and see if the degree you're considering is really for you.
Haberfeld suggests talking to people who actually do the job you are thinking about pursuing. "Find out what they love about their job, what they hate about their job, what they actually do all day, what the culture of the industry is like, and then assess whether it's a match for you."
SCHOOL FINDER: Find local & online degrees now!
Best Reason #1 - You Want to Pursue a High-Growth Career
Being jobless is no fun, as 14 million Americans can attest. And with unemployment at 9.1 percent as of August 2011, doing what you can to get a job, and secure it, is important.
One way you could prepare to pursue a high-growth career is by going back to school to earn a relevant degree. At least, that's what the correlation between educational attainment and unemployment rates suggests.
Are You Ready to Go Back to School? Click to Find the Right Degree Program for You.
As of August 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor notes that high school grads with no college had an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent. Compare that to bachelor's degree holders, whose unemployment was at 4.3 percent, and pursuing higher education looks like a smart option.
What's more, a recent report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce projects that by 2018, "about two-thirds of all employment will require some college education or better."
Have you watched as the guy who couldn't sell TVs to a couch potato get a promotion instead of you, just because he finished college? You're not alone, according to Rob Schneiderman, a counselor at Southern California's Orange Coast College.
Schneiderman says that one of the most common reasons people go back to school is because they were passed over for a promotion due to their lack of degree.
Click to Find the Right School for You.
"And nowadays, with the bad economy, it's even worse," Schneiderman says."People with better skills than their colleagues are getting laid off because they don't have a degree."
So, if you're hoping to advance in your career, going back to school to upgrade your degree could be a great idea.
While there are many factors that go into finding - and qualifying for - a better-paying career, recent studies show that a college degree could greatly improve your chances.
Start Your Education. Find the Right School for You.
According to a 2011 second quarter survey of earnings by the U.S. Department of Labor, the median weekly income of a full-time worker with a high school diploma was $643. Compare that to the median weekly income of bachelor's degree holders - $1,141 - and you're talking almost $26,000 more per year.
As they say on the golf course, that's a lot of green in-between.
SCHOOL FINDER: Find local & online degrees now!
Next Article: Great Degrees for Going Back to School »<div><img src="http://a.analytics.yahoo.com/p.pl?a=10001399099462&js=no" width="1" height="1" alt="" /></div>
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)