Man finds way to dial into celeb lifestyle

By Kurt Schlosser

Ever wonder what it would take to get invited to exclusive Hollywood parties or even become "friendly" with some celebrities? Apparently, moving to Los Angeles and requesting a new cell phone number is worth a try.

Bob Gray moved from Cleveland to California and requested a new number with an L.A. area code. His new digits just happened to be the former telephone number for actor/comedian Nick Swardson.

"As soon as I got the number I got a text message from someone who said, 'Hey, I just saw you on TMZ, what a bummer,' and I looked at (girlfriend) Liza and I was like, 'TMZ? Whose number do I have?'"

Check out Gray and Liza Foster telling msnbc TV's Tamron Hall about the flood of phone calls and text messages -- and partying with the likes of Paris Hilton -- in the video below:

Source: http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/14/9448451-man-dials-into-celeb-lifestyle-thanks-to-new-phone-number

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China services data may bolster case for further easing (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China's services sector contracted in November, mirroring similar weakness in the country's giant manufacturing sector and underlining expectations that Beijing can ease monetary policy further to cushion the blows of the global economy.

China's official purchasing managers' index for its non-manufacturing sector fell to 49.7 in November from 57.7 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said on Saturday. The 50-mark divides expansion from contraction.

A private-sector PMI on non-manufacturers from HSBC is due for release at 9:30 p.m. EST on Monday and may paint a similar picture of weakness in services as the euro-zone debt crisis weighs on the global economy. The HSBC gauge in October was running at 54.1, the strongest growth in four months.

PMI data in the past week has shown that both domestic and export orders are weakening, helping explain the central bank's decision last Wednesday to cut reserve requirements for commercial lenders for the first time in three years.

The move to free up cash was a signal that the central bank was shifting toward loosening monetary policy to support the economy, which is widely expected to grow next year at less than 9 percent for the first time in a decade, economists said.

Indeed, former central bank adviser Fan Gang said in the Securities Times newspaper on Saturday that there was room for further cuts in reserve requirements provided inflation continued to fall.

"There is plenty of room for adjusting banks' reserve requirements ratios," he said.

The official manufacturing PMI on Thursday showed prices fell in November and Premier Wen Jiabao said on November 9 that prices had fallen since October.

Consumer inflation dropped in October to 5.5 percent, backtracking from a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July.

The official services PMI suggested the sector was weak due to softer consumption patterns and a slowdown in the construction industry.

"The retail, food and beverage industry-based consumer services were in an off-season, showing a more significant decline," Cai Jin, a vice president with the CFLP, said in a statement.

The sub-index of new orders in services PMI declined to 47.2 in November, indicating they were actually falling, from 52.5 in October. Input prices for the Chinese services sector eased to 54.4 from 55.7 in October, showing inflationary pressures eased.

The services PMI index aims to give a snapshot of conditions in the services sector, which accounts for less than 45 percent of China's economy, much less than in developed countries.

Last Thursday, the official manufacturing PMI fell to 49 in November from October's 50.4, pointing to the first contraction in activity in nearly three years, or since the global financial crisis.

The HSBC manufacturing PMI dropped to a 32-month low of 47.7 in November from October's 51.

"The November PMI final reading points to a sharp deterioration in business conditions across the Chinese manufacturing sector," said Qu Hongbin, China economist at

HSBC.

Globally, the picture was similar.

A global PMI produced by JPMorgan, with research and supply management organizations, fell to 49.6, suggesting a contraction in global manufacturing.

Chinese officials have expressed growing alarm at the slide in the global economy as Europe struggles to produce a decisive solution to its debt crisis.

Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said last week that the world economy faced a worse crisis now than during 2008 and that stimulating growth should be a priority.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan in November said a chronic global recession was certain.

Although analysts say China is shifting policy to support growth, China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development suggested there would be no let up in policy controls on the property market.

The ministry told local governments not to relax home purchase restrictions, the China Business Journal said on Saturday, adding that the restrictions would continue despite their scheduled expiry in at least 11 cities by year-end.

The paper quoted an unnamed government official with the ministry as saying China's current property controls of restrictive home buying would not change.

On Friday, China's central bank said Chinese home prices were at a turning point. Home prices fell in October from September for the first time this year, official data showed, but a private survey has indicated that November could mark a third consecutive monthly fall.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Writing by Kevin Yao and Neil Fullick; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111204/bs_nm/us_china_economy

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Putin's party ekes out majority in controversial Russia election (The Christian Science Monitor)

Ufa, Russia ? Vladimir Putin's United Russia party appears to have eked out a 50 percent win in Sunday's elections for the State Duma, which puts it on track to dominate Russia's lower house of parliament for the next five years.

But United Russia (UR), which held a commanding two-thirds majority in the outgoing Duma, has been severely chastened by legions of voters who turned against it despite its near total domination of the media, vast access to official resources, and alleged campaigns of harassment that kept even permitted opposition parties from competing fully. It also faces an unprecedented storm of complaints from oppositionists around the country, especially widespread accusations of vote-rigging in the frenzied hours of Sunday night aimed at bringing UR's totals up to the crucial 50 percent mark.

Analysts say the ruling party's loss of prestige and credibility in this election could change the political atmosphere in Russia and cast a dark shadow over Mr. Putin's coming run for president on the UR ticket, in polls slated for March.

RELATED: Top 8 Putin moments: From Harley-riding bad boy to Formula One driver

"For Putin these results are a loud and clear alarm bell," says Sergei Strokan, a columnist with the Moscow business daily Kommersant. "He is a clever man, and I suppose he understands that UR's popular base is fading away just when he needs it to launch his presidential campaign in a few weeks. He has also been put on notice that discontent is running deeply in Russian society."

The preliminary report (pdf) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which fielded 160 observers -- the biggest Western delegation -- found that Sunday's vote counting "was characterized by frequent procedural violations and instances of apparent manipulation, including several serious indications of ballot box stuffing."

One key example of that allegedly took place here in Bashkortistan, an ethnic republic in the Urals some 1,000 miles east of Moscow, where opposition leaders are up in arms over what they claim were "massive manipulations" of vote tallies in the republic's central election headquarters in the early hours of Monday morning.

Rifgat Gordanov, leader of the Bashkortistan branch of the Communist Party, claims that his party's observer tallies, exit polls, and the first wave of returns Sunday night all agreed that the Communists had won about 21 percent of the votes in the republic, while United Russia had about 46 percent.

"Then, suddenly, on Monday morning we were informed that our final vote was just 15.6 percent, and United Russia had leapt to a total of 70.6 percent," Mr. Gordanov says. "This is a complete fraud. Our observers were everywhere, they saw what was happening, but in many places they were denied copies of the protocols [the polling station document that certifies the raw vote count]. There were unbelievable violations of the rules."

But Andrei Nazarov, chief of UR's Bashkortistan election headquarters, insists that everything was above board.

"Turnout in Bashkortistan was 79 percent, with 70 percent of voters supporting United Russia, that's confirmed," he says. "That's one of the best results in Russia, and it's evidence that our party has been serving the people well, while the other parties have done little.... There is no evidence that violations took place. These are just empty claims by a few people."

In at least one polling station, number 1,736 in the economically-stricken town of Davlekanovo, a journalist watched the entire vote-counting process and noted that the results in that place -- just one of hundreds of polling stations in Bashkortistan -- tracked closely with what the Communist Party is claiming. Vote counters looked visibly surprised as the pile of Communist votes rose to about 25 percent of the total, while UR got just over 50 percent. In that small case at least, the journalist confirmed that the final results did get accurately reported to the territorial electoral commission.

"In ethnic republics like Bashkortistan, the majority of falsifications tend to take place at the higher levels," says Nikolai Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "They can be very honest in the polling stations, where people take their civic duties seriously, but it's harder to control what happens when those results get reported to the higher level....  But in these elections we have seen a shift in the public mood. People are less willing to be taken for granted, and treated like cogs in a big machine. There have been a lot of protests this time."

Russia's main independent election monitoring group, Golos, has logged over 5,300 serious violations in the election campaign so far, including the illegal barring of the group's observers from many polling stations. Perhaps not coincidentally, Golos' official website has been down since Sunday, along with the website of the liberal Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvi, in what beleaguered staffers describe as a massive cyber attack.

Under Russian electoral law, votes cast for parties that fail to make the 7 percent cut required to enter the Duma, as well as spoiled ballots, are divided up among the winners in a formula that's weighted to benefit the strongest party. That puts UR in line to win about 240 seats in the next Duma, a comfortable majority in the 450-seat house, experts say.

The Communist Party officially won 19.2 percent, which will give it about 90 seats. The left-wing A Just Russia party, with 13.2 percent will get 64 seats and the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party of ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which garnered 11.7 percent, will have 56 seats.

"United Russia may have a majority, but the situation will be different from that of the outgoing Duma," says Mr. Petrov. "Opposition parties have received a huge boost of public trust, and in order to justify this trust they will not behave obediently in the Duma as they have in the past. Indeed, UR deputies cannot be expected to be loyal soldiers (of the Kremlin) anymore either, because they know they need to think of their constituents and take other interests into account if they want to survive politically. It's going to be a sharply changed atmosphere."

Mr. Strokan says the message to Putin may be even more dire than just the threat of a more combative parliament.

"What we've seen here is a failure of the system of managed democracy. The myth of United Russia is finished," he says. "And if you look at the fate of other such systems around the world, you see what it can lead to. In Egypt, parties loyal to President Hosni Mubarak won 80 percent victories routinely and then, suddenly, one day everyone was in the streets. All that apparent strength turns out to mean nothing when the crunch comes. Putin must realize that the popular mood, which was docile for years, can just explode one day. And if I were him I'd be very worried right now."

RELATED: Top 8 Putin moments: From Harley-riding bad boy to Formula One driver

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111205/wl_csm/432744

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Etsy scans your Facebook friends for gift ideas

Etsy

By Rosa Golijan

Gift shopping is tough. You have to think about someone's interests, figure out what he or she might want, eliminate the things he or she already owns, and then pick something special that screams "I really put a lot of effort into this even though I did a terrible job when it came to the gift-wrapping!"

Thankfully Etsy?? a popular site which allows folks to buy and sell handmade and vintage items???has a tool?which should help with most of those gift-shopping challenges.

The tool is simple to use. All you have to do is allow Etsy to connect to your Facebook account so that it can scan your friends' "likes" and interests. Based on those, it will produce gift recommendations.

And due to the incredibly varied products offered on Etsy, you can bet your Santa hat that the recommendations will include plenty of unique items. (A quick scan of my friends produced a list of things inlcuding a "Hug a Tree, Save a Pikachu" button, handmade scarfs, silly tshirts, one-of-a-kind necklaces, a Facebook bra, and so on.)

Oh, and to make life even easier, Etsy breaks suggestions down into price groups (any price, up to $25, $25-$50, $50-$100, and $100+).

Etsy's gift recommending tool isn't flawless since it relies on Facebook likes ? which don't always reflect your friends' actual interests?? but that doesn't make it any less useful. After all, it gives you a solid starting point for your gift-seeking missions of the season.

Related stories:

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9222086-etsy-scans-your-facebook-friends-for-gift-ideas

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K Jo bowled over by Vidya

Karan Johar who watched the special screening of Ekta Kapoor?s ?The Dirty Picture? was left awestruck by Vidya Balan?s performance. He showered mountains of praises on the south Indian beauty saying that Vidya has set a supreme standard for the current lot of actresses. Expressing his admiration for the reel life Silk Smitha, K Jo [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newslatest/~3/t_vArhQ2Xlk/9138.html

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Using radiation to sterilize insect pests may protect California fruits and vegetables

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) ? A new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology shows that radiation can be used to effectively sterilize the light brown apple moth (LBAM), an insect pest found in Australia, New Zealand, California, Hawaii, Sweden, and the British Isles. The light brown apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana (Walker), feeds on apples, pears, stonefruits, citrus, grapes, berries and many other plants. A native of Australia, it has been found in California since 2007. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has spent more than $70 million in CDFA and USDA funds to eradicate the LBAM, and estimates that failure to eradicate it could cost California growers over $133 million per year.

Using similar methodologies in two different laboratories, the authors coordinated radiation biology studies between two geographically isolated LBAM populations from Australia and New Zealand. The results showed that for both populations, an irradiation dose of 250 Gy administered to LBMA pupae induced >95% sterility in females and >90% sterility in males. These results can be used to initiate a suppression program against the LBMA where sterile males are released, mate with wild females, and no offspring are produced. If successful, this technique can largely eliminate the need for pesticides.

"These results suggest that a sterile insect technique (SIT) or F1 sterility program can be applied to control an infestation of Epiphyas postvittana, but these would still be reliant on complementary information such as physical fitness and modeling of overflooding ratios." according to the authors. "The challenge now is to identify the dose of radiation that would provide a balance between insect sterility and field competitiveness."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Entomological Society of America.

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Journal Reference:

1. Rajendra Soopaya, Lloyd D. Stringer, Bill Woods, Andrea E. A. Stephens, Ruth C. Butler, Ian Lacey, Amandip Kaur, and David M. Suckling. Radiation Biology and Inherited Sterility of Light Brown Apple Moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae): Developing a Sterile Insect Release Program. J. Econ. Entomol., 104(6): 1999?2008 (2011) DOI: 10.1603/EC11049

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130171103.htm

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Penn State pledges $1.5M for sex-crimes groups

Penn State President Rodney Erickson, left, responds to a question as Acting Executive Vice President and Provost Rob Pangborn, center, and Vice President for Student Affairs Damon Simons look on during a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Penn State President Rodney Erickson, left, responds to a question as Acting Executive Vice President and Provost Rob Pangborn, center, and Vice President for Student Affairs Damon Simons look on during a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Penn State President Rodney Erickson speaks at a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Penn State President Rodney Erickson, left, responds to a question as Acting Executive Vice President and Provost Rob Pangborn, center, and Vice President for Student Affairs Damon Simons look on during a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Penn State President Rodney Erickson, right, gives his opening remarks as T.J. Bard, president of the University Park Undergraduate Association, and Peter Khoury, president of The Council of Commonwealth Student Governments, look on during a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

Penn State administrators including President Rodney Erickson, far left, participate during a town hall forum organized by students at the university's main campus, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, in State College, Pa. The event served as an open discussion between students and the administration about the school's recent sexual abuse scandal, which has resulted in the departures of school President Graham Spanier and longtime football coach Joe Paterno. (AP Photo/John Beale)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Penn State University officials on Thursday said they will donate $1.5 million in bowl proceeds to a pair of sex-crime advocacy organizations in the wake of shocking sex-abuse allegations levied against a once-revered assistant football coach.

University President Rod Erickson promised the donation the morning after he and other administrators faced pointed questions at a student-organized town hall forum.

Erickson told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that the Big Ten bowl revenue, which usually goes back to the athletic department, will go instead to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

"This presents an excellent opportunity for Penn State to raise the national visibility of this issue," Erickson said. "Our students and fans are focused on a cause to play for, to cheer for."

Also Thursday, Jerry Sandusky's lawyer said he has not discussed pleading guilty with his client and that the former coach continues to maintain he is innocent of the charges against him.

Joe Amendola said he would consider "possible alternatives" with Sandusky if new charges are filed that involve more victims than the eight boys covered by the 40 pending criminal counts, but that Sandusky has never considered a plea in his case. Sandusky, 67, is awaiting a preliminary hearing.

Amendola said the topic of a guilty plea came up as a "what-if" question from a reporter about potential additional charges.

"My answer to the 'what if' question was analogous to saying, if weather forecasters were predicting a blizzard next week, which they are not, I would have to at least consider the possibility of postponing my scheduled trip to Philadelphia," Amendola said in an email.

The Wednesday night forum on Penn State's main campus came on the heels of fresh sex abuse allegations against Sandusky, who was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a young boy more than 100 times after meeting him through the charity the coach founded in the 1970s.

The state police commissioner has criticized school leaders for failing to do more to alert authorities to the allegations, and Erickson told about 450 attendees at a crowded auditorium at the student union building that ethics would be raised "to a new level so that everyone at the university understands not just the legal thing to do, but the moral thing to do, so that we learn to do the right thing the first time, every time."

Students appeared grateful to get answers more than three weeks after Sandusky was charged Nov. 5, hopeful it would aid in the arduous healing process.

"I think this is a good start for a lot of good things that can happen at the university," said student Andrew Comes, 21, following the two-hour forum. "It's a singularly bad event, but there can still be positive repercussions and good things happening from it."

Administrators sought to reassure students worried about the unintended ramifications of the scandal, such as the reputation of a Penn State degree.

After several questioners mentioned they felt shamed by the scandal, vice president Henry Foley, as part of an answer about the school's top three priorities, told students to focus on academics and to "recognize that none of you are guilty. ... You may feel shame, but none of you are guilty. Just keep doing what you came here to do."

The scandal has resulted in the departures of head coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier. Athletic Director Tim Curley has been placed on administrative leave, and Vice President Gary Schultz, who was in charge of the university's police department, has stepped down.

Schultz and Curley are charged with lying to the grand jury and failure to report to police. They also maintain their innocence and have a preliminary hearing later this month.

Erickson told reporters after the forum that Spanier was currently on sabbatical, and that as a tenured faculty member would have the right to teach if he so desired.

Several students also asked about the treatment of Paterno, who was the only school leader fired in the scandal's aftermath. Erickson said afterward he could not offer a detailed answer because it was the trustees' decision.

He reiterated there was no truth to Internet-fueled rumors that Paterno's statue outside Beaver Stadium would be removed, or that the Paterno name would be removed from the campus library for which the Paterno family has donated millions.

"At some appropriate time down the road, I'm sure there will be an opportunity to also reflect on the many years of service Joe and (wife Sue Paterno) provided the university and the many good things that they've done for Penn State," Erickson said, eliciting brief applause.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-01-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-2cec852c554347c7af2075e951c9f294

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