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"TWICE a month, President Obama’s senior policy advisers gather at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to hash out strategies for improving the health of the country’s children. Among the assistant secretaries, chiefs of staff and senior aides sits an unlikely participant: a bald, intense young man who happens to be the newest White House chef." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"HEY, America, to quote the relentlessly upbeat temp in the movie “Office Space,” it sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"In a time-deprived world, where book reading is increasingly squeezed off the page, it is hard to know what’s most striking about Ms. Sankovitch’s quest, now on Day 350, to read a book every day for a year and review them on her blog, www.readallday.org. Helpful reminder that we have more time than we think, if we did not waste so much of it? Envy-inducing lesson in parenting? (The kids are all dedicated readers, too.) Meditation on the channeling of grief? (She was inspired, in part, by the need to make sense of her oldest sister’s death.) Gentle celebration of the glories of books?" - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

Elinor Ostram becomes the first woman to win the Nobel for Economics. - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"iedel says it is vital for the administration to avoid lengthy delays in deciding on a course of action in its planning for the Af-Pak war theater." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Eight years later, Mullah Omar leads an insurgency that has gained steady ground in much of Afghanistan against much better equipped American and NATO forces. Far from a historical footnote, he represents a vexing security challenge for the Obama administration, one that has consumed the president’s advisers, divided Democrats and left many Americans frustrated. “This is an amazing story,” said Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who coordinated the Obama administration’s initial review of Afghanistan policy in the spring. “He’s a semiliterate individual who has met with no more than a handful of non-Muslims in his entire life. And he’s staged one of the most remarkable military comebacks in modern history.”" - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"An article published online Thursday in the journal Science reports that 68 of 101 patients with the syndrome, or 67 percent, were infected with an infectious virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV. By contrast, only 3.7 percent of 218 healthy people were infected. Continuing work after the paper was published has found the virus in nearly 98 percent of about 300 patients with the syndrome, said Dr. Judy A. Mikovits, the lead author of the paper. XMRV is a retrovirus, a member of the same family of viruses as the AIDS virus. These viruses carry their genetic information in RNA rather than DNA, and they insert themselves into their hosts’ genetic material and stay for life." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"In a rare public rebuke of state government and policies delivered by a sitting judge, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court scathingly criticized the state’s reliance on the referendum process, arguing that it has “rendered our state government dysfunctional.” In remarks prepared for a speech Saturday before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Mass., the chief justice, Ronald M. George, denounced the widespread use of the referendum process to change state laws and constitutions. And he derided California as out of control, with voters deciding on everything from how parts of the state budget are spent to how farm animals are managed. The state is unusual, he said, because it prohibits its Legislature from amending or repealing many types of laws without voter approval, essentially hamstringing that body — and the executive branch." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Construction crews were hustling to complete an emergency repair to the workhorse Bay Bridge, Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said, but it was too soon to tell if they'll be able to open the span by Tuesday morning's rush hour, after a long-planned closure that began Thursday night. "It is a race right now to get that bridge open," Ney said this afternoon." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

Live webcam... - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

Infectious tune that is sure to put a smile on your face. Don't miss the brief frame of Shirdi Sai Baba...Enjoy the song. - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

This is Pitbull's latest song. Not sure what to think of the lyrics ... - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Boeing has decided to bid on India’s programs to purchase 22 combat helicopters and 15 heavy-lift helicopters. Proposals for the combat helicopters are due Sept. 22, and the deadline for the heavy-lift helicopters is the next day. This is the second time India has issued a tender for attack helicopters. The first tender — issued in May 2008 — was scrapped in March by the government. Neither Bell Helicopter nor Boeing participated in that effort. Bell has said it will not participate in the new competition." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

My Name is Khan debate continues to persist - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Pashtun nationalism alone does not explain the Taliban’s strength, which is fueled by drug money, Islamist fervor, corrupt warlords, hatred of the American occupation and the hidden hand of Pakistani intelligence agencies. But the psychological cement that holds the disparate Taliban factions together is opposition to Tajik dominance in Kabul. Until the power of the Panjshiris is curbed, no amount of American money or manpower will bring the insurgency to an end." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

A snapshot of Rahm Emaneul that makes for an absorbing read. - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Perhaps I’m just losing my sense of humor, but every time I see the ad I get aggravated. First, and this is not so important; if two people know the formula, then if something happened to one of them, the formula would not be lost. So what they don’t say, but must mean, is that there are two people who each know half the formula, and nobody who knows the whole formula. More fundamentally, there is no way in the world that only two people know Coke’s secret formula. If that were really the case, then the shareholders should be filing suit against management. Are firms allowed to just blatantly lie in their advertising? Not that it matters, but I find it strange that a firm would knowingly say something like this when it is completely untrue. (As an aside, the question of how much Pepsi would pay to get Coke’s secret formula has a surprising answer.)" - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

more such conundrums are at http://cheeptalk.wordpress.com/ - divya

"We’ve got a 2004 model-year iPod whirring around the Freakonomics office. Is it retro-hip yet? (And I have a 70s transistor radio...guess that is uber retro-hip....) - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears. The economic slowdown and tight credit have squeezed the entertainment industry along with everybody else, resulting in significantly fewer big-studio films in the pipeline and an even tougher road for smaller-budget independent projects. Independent distribution companies are much less likely to pull out the checkbook while many of the big studios have all but gotten out of the indie film business." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Among the findings of the study, conducted by the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics of a six-county Bay Area region defined as Silicon Valley's "high tech corridor": # High-tech jobs are five times more densely concentrated in Santa Clara County than in the nation as whole. The six-county Silicon Valley corridor is about three times more concentrated. # The growth of a biotech cluster in San Mateo and San Francisco counties and the Web portal and Web search industries in Santa Clara County helped counter downward employment trends. # High-tech employment fell 17 percent, or 85,000 jobs — 65,000 of them in Santa Clara County. During the same period the national work force grew by 4 percent. # High-tech wages grew 42 percent in Santa Clara County, from $96,650 to $137,330. # The valley remained an innovation leader with 11 of the top 20 U.S. cities in new patents." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"An Xbox 360 video game console signed by outgoing Gov. Palin at the Wasilla Governor’s Picnic has been listed on the auction site eBay for a whopping opening bid of $1.1 million. “You can own this … one-of-a-kind item before her expected run for president of the United States of America in 2012,” says the seller. The listing says the game will be sent to the buyer from the farming town of Vimy in the Canadian province of Alberta." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"The digital campaign will be launched in partnership with In.com on August 8 and will be preceded by an online contest that will run for a day on August 7. The electronic campaign will be aired only two days later on August 10." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Twentieth Century Fox took the Mumbai-based BR Films to court, alleging that the Indian company’s forthcoming Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai (This Guy is Fearless) was an illegal remake of the American studio’s Oscar-winning crime caper My Cousin Vinny, which was released in 1992. This week BR Films agreed to pay Twentieth Century Fox, which is 82.1 per cent owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times, about $200,000 (£119,000) in an out-of-court settlement." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"In the joint statement two weeks ago, Mr. Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to decouple discussions about terrorism from broader talks between the two countries on issues such as trade and travel. That was a risky stance with an Indian public that has been particularly wary of its neighbor since November's attacks in Mumbai, in which over 160 people were killed by terrorists from Pakistan. The statement, which Mr. Singh brought home from a meeting at a multinational summit in Egypt, also included a resolution to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and a passing reference to the insurgency in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, another sore point between the two neighbors. Pakistani officials have suggested that India is helping the Baluch separatists, a charge India denies." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has reportedly bought a 20 million pounds apartment in a posh area of London." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"India has launched its first nuclear-powered submarine, becoming only the sixth country in the world to do so." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is in India to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development. The prize recognizes his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is awarded annually to individuals or organizations for creative efforts toward promoting peace, development and a new international economic order." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"The cast of characters changed many times. And so have the specific battles: persuading newbies to buy dial-up Internet subscriptions, selling add-on services, coping with broadband rivals and finally shifting to free, ad-supported services in an age of search. But there also have been common themes: the attempt to exploit the prominence of the AOL brand, the quest for the sort of content that will lure customers, the challenges of rapid growth and then drastic contraction." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"The rise of Firefox unleashed a new wave of innovation and competition among browser makers. Microsoft and Apple, which makes the Safari browser, have narrowed the gap with recent upgrades. That makes it less likely that people will take the trouble to seek out and install Firefox." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet

"Russia's most powerful business lobby moved to clamp down on Skype and its peers this week, telling lawmakers that the Internet phone services are a threat to Russian businesses and to national security. In partnership with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's political party, the lobby created a working group to draft legal safeguards against what they said were the risks of Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services. VoIP software has used the Internet to let hundreds of millions of people talk long-distance for free, or at far cheaper rates than traditional service providers can offer." - kamla bhatt from Bookmarklet