Give your child unlimited access to age-appropriate books, games, and videos on your Kindle Fire

Kids I’ve seen seem to be fascinated by tablet computers, and many of them want their own. ?The problem with tablets and children is there isn’t a lot you can do to restrict what they can access with the tablet, and there’s a worldwide-web of things out there that you may not want them to [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/12/18/give-your-child-unlimited-access-to-age-appropriate-books-games-and-videos-on-your-kindle-fire/

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Chris Christie, Born to Run (The Note)

By AMY WALTER ( @amyewalter ), ELIZABETH HARTFIELD (@lizhartfield ) and CHRIS GOOD ( @c_good )

NOTABLES:

HURRICANE SANDY FUNDING FIRST VICTIM OF FISCAL CLIFF IMPASSE. ABC's Jonathan Karl reports on "Good Morning America" that the $60 billion request from the White House is likely to fall flat on Capitol Hill: "I do not think Hurricane Sandy funding will get done while there in an impasse. Republicans are already balking at the cost that represents almost everything that would be raised next year by raising the rates on the top two percent." Republicans also point out, Karl reports, that FEMA has enough money in its reserves to go through March. Is this payback for Chris Christie's pre-election Obama embrace?

THE MOST FASCINATING POLITICIANS OF 2012. Which two politicians made it onto Barbara Walters' list of the 10 most fascinating people of 2012? Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton. The New Jersey governor and the Secretary of State sat down with Walters for exclusive interviews in which they talked politics, 2016, age, weight, and the challenges of styling one's hair on the road.

CHRIS CHRISTIE: I DIDN'T HELP OBAMA WIN. In his interview with Barbara Walters Christie shot down the criticism from conservatives that his praise for Obama's handling of superstorm Sandy's aftermath hurt Mitt Romney's election prospects. "First of all, I didn't help [Obama] win," Christie told Barbara Walters. "I was doing my job ? The fact of the matter is President Obama won the election pretty comfortably ? I was doing my job as I saw fit to do it. And I told the truth, like I always do. The president did step up and help tremendously in New Jersey." http://abcn.ws/QVYPPH

HILLARY ON RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT: 'I REALLY DON'T BELIEVE THAT THAT'S SOMETHING I WILL DO AGAIN.' In her interview with Walters, Hillary Clinton said she doesn't have a plan for what she'll do immediately after leaving political life but that she wants to continue contributing to society in some way, perhaps in philanthropy or academia. But when pressed on whether her future will include a widely speculated 2016 run for president, Clinton maintained that she still does not plan to run. "I've said I really don't believe that that's something I will do again," she said. "I am so grateful I had the experience of doing it before." http://abcn.ws/Rq65ow

THE NOTE

If there's one takeaway from Barbara Walters' Chris Christie interview last night it was this: the man is setting up to run for president in 2016.

The buzziest example, of course, was his pushback against Walters' question as to whether he was "too heavy" to be president.

"That's ridiculous," said Christie. "I mean, that's ridiculous. I don't know what the basis for that is."

When Walters' asked about his statement last year that he wasn't "ready" to be president, Christie responded that he wasn't ready for the campaign-a very important distinction. Not being "ready" to be president suggests deficiency in experience-not ready to campaign is simply a recognition of the difficulties of setting up a presidential operation.

And, while many potential 2016ers are quick to dismiss talk of a presidential run, Christie does not bat it down. When asked how he'll feel about running in 2016, Christie simply responds: "I have no idea how I'll feel."

Not exactly a Shermanesque statement.

But perhaps the most telling example of Christie's desire for a 2016 run: he was visibly torn when asked by Walters' to choose between being able to be a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band or be POTUS.

"You could be a member of of the E Street Band or President of the United States, which would you choose?" posed Walters.

Christie laughed, paused and then said: "I think at the moment, at the moment, I'd want to be a member of E Street band. A few years from now, who knows."

Call us crazy, but we're not holding our breath that the governor is going to take up guitar lessons anytime soon.

More from the interview: http://abcn.ws/UV2Owg

NOTE IT!

ABC'S RICK KLEIN: It's not just a matter of big business speaking. The question is whether it can actually say something meaningful in time to resolve the fiscal cliff standoff. Corporate America has gotten quite good at lecturing Washington about trying to do its job, and few institutions deserve such lectures more. But getting the parties-both parties-to move enough this late, off of long-sacred positions, will take more than platitudes about the need for compromise. We're starting to hear specificity about tax rates and breaks. But if the cliff is truly as terrifying to business as we're being told, the pressure has to build, and fast.

MORE FROM BARBARA WALTERS' INTERVIEWS:

CLINTON ON LIFE AFTER THE CABINET, HER DARKEST MOMENT IN THE JOB. Hillary Clinton made one thing abundantly clear in her interview: she is definitely leaving the Cabinet as soon as a new secretary is sworn in and a smooth transition occurs. "It sounds so simple, but I've been, as you know, at the highest levels of American and now international activities for twenty years, and I just thought it was time to take a step off ? maybe do some reading and writing and speaking and teaching," she told Walters. Her darkest moment as secretary of State happened this year when terrorists in Libya attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, killing four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Clinton called the attack the "worst time" in her tenure. "It's something that is certainly terrible," she said. "We take risks in the work we do. The people who do this work are often in very threatening environments, whether it's our military or our civilian people around the world, I have just the most extraordinary admiration for them." http://abcn.ws/UEzFkI

NOTED: CLINTON'S HAIRSTYLING ROUTINE. "I do not travel with any hairdresser, or anybody, to help me do that, and I'm not very competent myself. I've been admitting that for years, which should be obvious to everyone," Clinton joked to Walters in a conversation that she referred to as "girl talk." "And so it became simpler to just grow it so that I can pull it back, and I can stick rollers in."

THE BUZZ:

With ABC's Elizabeth Hartfield ( @LizHartfield )

SPINNERS & WINNERS: HONEY I RAISED THE TOP TAX RATES. Husband-and-wife team Reps. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., got some bad news on November 6. Both lost their elections and are now leaving Congress at the same time. But, ABC's Jonathan Karl reports, they've got one foot out the door during one of the most controversial lame duck sessions in recent history, and neither is budging on their votes-though they don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations with the White House. Karl spoke to the congressional couple in the latest episode of his ABC/Yahoo! show "Spinners & Winners." Bono Mack says she thinks President Obama and Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, will reach a deal that she will be able to support; Mack says if tax increases are part of the deal, it won't get his vote. http://yhoo.it/VCpUEN

STATE DEPT.: MISSILE LAUNCH WILL 'FURTHER ISOLATE' NORTH KOREA. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland on Wednesday called North Korea's deployment of an intercontinental ballistic missile "highly provocative" and said the country would face international consequences, ABC's Sarah Parnass and Luis Martinez report. The country's foreign ministry asked that the launch not be "overblown" in the international sphere, but U.S. officials are not holding back in expressing their displeasure. North Korea violated two U.N. Security Council resolutions with its launch of a missile Tuesday night, Nuland said. http://abcn.ws/Z12MYd

VIRGINIA GOVERNOR RACE: ONE TO WATCH. Terry McAuliffe has spent most of his time in politics helping the Clintons, and other members of his party, raise money and run for national office. His own political career has been less successful, although now he seems to have a clear shot at the Democratic nomination for governor in Virginia. ABC's Shush Walshe reports, barring any surprises, next year McAuliffe will be up against Ken Cuccinelli, the anti-Obamacare crusader who in a short time as Virginia's attorney general has galvanized conservatives by challenging the national health reform law and prodding the state's university system over climate change, as well as waging high-profile battles against abortion rights. http://abcn.ws/SThdaq

OUTGOING SEN. DEMINT SAYS OBAMA WILL WIN TAX FIGHT. The AP reports: " a leading conservative who's resigning from the Senate is predicting that President Barack Obama will win the battle over raising taxes. South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint calls it 'a political trophy' within Obama's grasp. Appearing Thursday on 'CBS This Morning,' DeMint says, quote, 'The president's proposal is not a plan, it's not a solution.' Asked why Obama and congressional Republicans can't agree on a plan to avert a fiscal cliff in less than three weeks, DeMint says both political parties have 'failed' the country." http://apne.ws/UFTW9r

SENATE INTERN ARRESTED AS UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT, REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER. An unpaid intern to Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was a registered sex offender and undocumented immigrant and is now facing deportation, a DHS official confirmed Wednesday to ABC News. ABC's Sunlen Miller and Jason Ryan report that the intern, 18 year-old Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta from Peru, who worked in a New Jersey office for Menendez, was arrested on December 6th. The senator's office was informed Monday of the arrest and the senator was informed today, Menendez said. The Senator defended his office's action today, emphasizing that the intern applied, was recommended and vetted by his school for the internship, not by the senator's office. http://abcn.ws/SS635M

WHAT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE CAPITAL GAINS TAX. ABC's Susanna Kim reports: One of the most contentious issues in the debate over how to increase revenue may be a difference of almost 8 percentage points, but it has encouraged over a hundred companies to scramble to issue special dividend payments to shareholders ahead of the New Year. It's called the capital gains tax and it's the tax paid on the difference between the sale price of an investment asset, like a stock, and the cost. http://abcn.ws/VDhY5Q

BERNANKE SAYS FISCAL CLIFF ALREADY HURTING THE ECONOMY. The AP's Martin Crutsinger reports, "the U.S. economy is already being hurt by the 'fiscal cliff' standoff in Washington, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday. But Bernanke said the Fed believes the crisis will be resolved without significant long-term damage. The steep tax increases and spending cuts can be avoided with a successful budget deal, Bernanke said during a news conference after the Fed's final meeting of the year. The Fed's latest forecasts for stronger economic growth next year and slightly lower unemployment assume that happens ? The Fed took more steps Wednesday to try and help boost economic growth and lower unemployment. The Fed said it would keep its key short-term interest rate near zero as long as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and inflation stays tame." http://abcn.ws/VCtUoH

HILLARY CLINTON TO TESTIFY ON BENGHAZI REPORT ON DEC. 20. Reuters reports, "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify on Dec. 20 before the House of Representatives and Senate foreign affairs committees on a report on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, the committees said on Wednesday." An accountability review board convened by the State Department is expected to release a report on the Benghazi attack before Clinton testifies. http://huff.to/SSmiQf

RETIRING SENATORS MAKE FAREWELL SPEECHES AS FISCAL CLIFF LOOMS. On Capitol Hill Wednesday, it was like the last day of school before final exams. With Congress in a stalemate over the fiscal cliff, the Senate floor was reserved for farewell speeches by retiring Senators. ABC's Sunlen Miller reports that the speeches -a tradition for those stepping down or from those who failed to win reelection-ranged from the emotional to the funny, from the provocative, to the odd and the poignant. http://abcn.ws/VBkqdo

CLIFF TALKS AND MIDDLE-CLASS INCOME MALAISE. The New York Times' Annie Lowrey reports, " the income stagnation that has hit the middle class in the last decade is complicating the Democrats' position in the fiscal talks, making it more difficult for them to advocate across-the-board tax increases if a deal falls through?The income and wealth trends of the last decade also create a longer-term dilemma for the party. By advocating the continuation of most of the Bush-era tax cuts, Democrats might find themselves confronting deeper-than-comfortable cuts to spending programs that aid the poor and middle class down the road." http://nyti.ms/VCtpee

WHAT IS A RIGHT-TO-WORK LAW? Right-to-work laws have garnered a lot of national attention in recent years as more states have implemented this legislation that prohibits unions from requiring workers to pay dues as a condition of their employment. ABC's Elizabeth Hartfield reports, the laws are meant to regulate agreements between employers and labor unions that would prohibit the employer from hiring non-union workers. http://abcn.ws/Sh0wsE

SEN. MARCO RUBIO CONCEDES TO HIS THINNING HAIR. Marco Rubio has a lot of things going for him. ABC's Elizabeth Hartfield notes that the freshmen senator from Miami is youthful, telegenic and very popular with his party. But Rubio, 41, has a growing or, rather, thinning problem: his hair line. http://abcn.ws/VWJy42

WHO'S TWEETING?

? @ShaneGoldmacher Fiscal cliff: 19 days away

@KateNocera The GOP may relent on paying for Sandy aid. Story w/ @seungminkim http://politi.co/RqXRN5

@Redistrict In my estimation, if every state awarded Electoral votes by Congressional district (a la ME & NE), Romney would have won, 276-262.

@1bobcohn That alleged shooter in Portland lists on Facebook his interests as sushi, BMX, and shooting. http://bit.ly/VDYZIi

@CPHeinze The bonus: @jdickerson dubs Rubio: "The Coalition Whisperer." http://slate.me/UDyvrC

? @HotlineReid Ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham has been transferred from a prison in AZ to a halfway house in New Orleans to complete his sentence #HotlineSort

@DomenicoNBC Why is it that senators urge compromise when they LEAVE the Senate? Think Bayh, Lugar, Lieberman, etc etc. Not that DeMint did that, however

@ZekeJMiller Not quite CW, but NBC-WSJ poll finds 56% of Americans would blame both sides if there's no fiscal cliff deal.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chris-christie-born-run-note-135743067--abc-news-politics.html

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2013 dubbed ?the year of mobile malware? for Android users

LONDON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins has not ruled out an attempt at retaining the title next year. "As it stands, I'm probably going to try and win a second Tour de France, so I don't know, maybe we'll have two leaders (with Chris Froome)," the Team Sky rider, who became the first Briton to win the race, told BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday. "We are resetting the goals, trying to win a second Tour de France, but you cannot replicate those circumstances. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2013-dubbed-mobile-malware-android-users-205131167.html

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The Roger Williams Code

Roger Williams? last known theological work lurking in the margins of an old book in an encrypted secret code?"An Essay Towards the Reconciling of Differences Among Christians."

Courtesy John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

For more than a century, a small, leather-bound book has sat collecting dust and attracting little attention in a gray stone library on the corner of Brown University?s Main Green in Providence, R.I. In a library full of old and obscure texts, the 234-page quarto was older and more obscure than most. Its brown, battered leather cover was blank, its title page missing, and its author unknown. Inside, a series of inscrutable symbols filled every inch of the book?s margins: Scrawled in black ink were what looked like a combination of Greek, Hebrew, and some wholly invented characters. Who wrote them? And what do they say?

The only hint came from an unsigned note attached to the book and dated Nov. 11, 1817. It read, in part, ?The margin is filled with Short Hand Characters, Dates, Names of places &c. &c. by Roger Williams or it appears to be his hand Writing?. brot me from Widow Tweedy by Nicholas Brown Jr.?

Despite this intriguing reference to the man who founded Rhode Island and brought the idea of religious liberty to the New World, the book languished?until an offhand remark at a small lecture in 2010 led a team of Brown scholars and undergraduates to crack the code, confirm it was written in Roger Williams? hand, and discover, this summer, his last known work of theology.

On a late fall day in 2010, Ted Widmer, then-director of Brown?s John Carter Brown Library, was giving a talk on Williams? life and legacy to about 20 members of the Pembroke Club, a group of Brown alums. The attendees were ?mostly people with either gray hair or no hair,? says Bill Twaddell, a retired diplomat and member of the library?s board of governors who sat in on the lecture.

At one point, Widmer (an occasional contributor to Slate) mentioned the book and the suspicion that Williams had authored the code in its margins. Twaddell?s ears perked up. Why not scan the code and let computers attempt to crack it?

Roger Williams? last known theological work lurking in the margins of an old book in an encrypted secret code?"An Essay Towards the Reconciling of Differences Among Christians"

Courtesy John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

With the help of Kim Nusco, the JCB?s manuscript librarian, Widmer and Twaddell began recruiting faculty from the fields of mathematics, computer science, comparative literature, and history. But 17^th century penmanship triumphed over 21^st century technology: The writing was simply too messy for a computer to make sense of.

Manually cracking the code was going to be a slog. The project didn?t neatly fall into any one field, and the academics recruited by Widmer, Twaddell, and Nusco had work of their own to worry about. They decided to give Brown?s undergrads a shot.

In the fall of 2011, two juniors and two seniors?students of history, American studies, and mathematics?signed on to tackle the code during the spring semester. But over winter break, one team member, Lucas Mason-Brown, decided to get a head start. (Full disclosure: Mason-Brown is a friend.)

Mason-Brown studied math and had a particular interest in cryptography. He began with a basic technique called frequency analysis. It relies on statistical truths?for example that e is the most common letter in the English language?to crack the kinds of simple ciphers one would expect from the Colonial era.

It yielded nothing. He then turned to co-occurrence analysis, a more sophisticated technique based on the frequency with which certain letters tend to succeed or precede others. For example, the most commonly occurring pair of letters, or bigram, in English is t and h.

Still nothing. The cipher might have been more complex than expected. Or it could combine elements of the six other languages Williams knew. If that were the case, the uselessness of frequency analysis would be the least of the group?s problems.

Like Emily Yoffe's Dear Prudence Column on Facebook:

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=244ba62e20f1cc3a4cf37eb971b6bf1e

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Revenue Residence Drew Brees Jersey BASED Organization ...

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binudsingh: Internet and Businesses Online: SEO Article??? | Social

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Crafting with Kids: Advent Calendar : Ideas for Women Home and ...

Since the countdown to Christmas has begun why not make an advent calender with your kids so that you can enjoy the countdown. I have seen some really great ones this year that include a wrapped book with the day?s number written on it as well as small presents that kids open each day as they count down. I am talking going old school though and making one that has either a figure or treat for each day.

There are a couple of ways you can create an advent calendar. You could use a poster board and make pockets out of folders or even envelopes.?Then?allow your children to decorate it. You then would take a wooden stick and move it from day to day. Don?t laugh because this is the one we had for a number of years because it was easy. Next came the felt one with the same principals?as the cardboard one but using felt. Since felt is thicker you could put a small piece of candy into each one.

Our current favorite is using a cutout of a tree and then attaching 25 pieces on it. We then pull down one?little?piece of candy each morning. Of course there is usually an argument over who will egt to pull the candy down and eat it but we use a rotating schedule with Santa pulling the last one off on Christmas Eve.

What do you think? Click here to leave a comment: Comments (0)

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Video: Dimon on Fiscal Cliff, Elizabeth Warren & Regulations

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Black magic revealed in two ancient curses

At a time when black magic was relatively common, two curses involving snakes were cast, one targeting a senator and the other an animal doctor, says a Spanish researcher who has just deciphered the 1,600-year-old curses.

Both curses feature a depiction of a deity, possibly the Greek goddess Hekate, with serpents coming out of her hair, possibly meant to strike at the victims. Both curses contain Greek invocations similar to examples known to call upon Hekate.

The two curses, mainly written in Latin and inscribed on thin lead tablets, would have been created by two different people late in the life of the Roman Empire. Both tablets were rediscovered in 2009 at the Museo Archeologico Civico di Bologna in Italy, and were originally acquired by the museum during the late 19th century. Although scholars aren't sure where the tablets originated, after examining and deciphering the curses, they know who victims of the curses were.

Kill the pig
One of the curses targets a Roman senator named Fistus and appears to be the only known example of a cursed senator. The other curse targets a veterinarian named Porcello. Ironically, Porcello is the Latin word for pig.

Celia Sanchez Natalias, a doctoral student at the University of Zaragoza, explained that Porcello was probably his real name. "In the world of curse tablets, one of the things that you have to do is to try to identify your victim in a very, very exact way."

Sanchez Natalias added that it isn't certain who cursed Porcello or why. It could be for either personal or professional reasons. "Maybe this person was someone that (had) a horse or an animal killed by Porcello's medicine," said Sanchez Natalias.

"Destroy, crush, kill, strangle Porcello and wife Maurilla. Their soul, heart, buttocks, liver ..." part of it reads. The iconography on the tablet actually shows a mummified Porcello, his arms crossed (as is the deity) and his name written on both of his arms. [See images of the curse tablets]

The fact that both the deity and Porcello have their arms crossed is important. Sanchez Natalias believes that the spell forced the deity, and thus Porcello, to become bound. "This comparison may be understood in two ways: either 'just as the deity is bound, so will Porcello be' or else 'until Porcello is bound the deity will stay bound,'" she writes in a recent edition of the journal Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

May all his limbs dissolve ?
The case of Fistus, a Roman senator, is also remarkable. The senate in ancient Rome was a place of great wealth and, earlier in Roman history, was a place of considerable power.

By the time this curse was written toward the end of the Roman Empire, the influence of the senate had diminished in favor of the emperor, the army and the imperial bureaucracy.

1. More science news from msnbc.com

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Fistus would still have been a person of some wealth, however, and whoever wrote the curse had it in for him. The Latin expression for "crush" is used at least four times in the curse. "Crush, kill Fistus the senator," part of the curse reads, "May Fistus dilute, languish, sink and may all his limbs dissolve ..."

Again, Sanchez Natalias isn't sure of the motives behind the curse; but whatever they were, even by the standard of modern-day political attack ads, this was a nasty senatorial blow.

Sanchez Natalias' translation and study of the senator curse is detailed in two recent articles published in the German journal Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

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Mrs. Eastwood, star of new reality show, talks family, boy bands

Mrs. Eastwood, star of a new reality show, talks family, boy bands and her famous husband in a candid interview about her newly-debuted television show on the E! network.

By The Associated Press / May 21, 2012

Mrs. Eastwood, star of new reality show ?Mrs. Eastwood & Company,? talks family and boy bands. In this Jan. 31, 2010 file photo, Clint Eastwood, right, arrives with wife, Dina Eastwood, on the red carpet in London.

Joel Ryan/AP

Enlarge

Dina Eastwood has heard the question repeatedly: Why put her family and superstar husband Clint Eastwood on display for a reality TV show, generally the province of D-list or wannabe celebrities?

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The answer is simple, she said. "Mrs. Eastwood & Company," the E! series debuted Sunday, is her bid for stardom ? not for herself, but for a vocal group, Overtone, that has become her passion.

"I had a midlife crisis and I adopted a boy band," said the breezily candid Eastwood. "I was edgy, I didn't know what I was doing. Clint was accelerating how many movies a year he was doing. Our youngest daughter was getting to the point she doesn't want to be around me as much."

Eastwood, 46, discovered Overtone at a concert in Capetown, South Africa, where her husband of 16 years was making the 2009 film "Invictus" with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. The six-member group ended up a prominent part of the movie's soundtrack and Dina Eastwood made the leap to manager.

"They're very good-looking and the best vocal group Clint and I have ever heard," she said. "I was thinking what a cute little reality show about a haggard mom who doesn't know what she's doing, leading this cute band around trying to ... get them successful."

Overtone singer Eduard Leonard said the group is awed by the opportunity and by their patrons, especially Clint Eastwood.

"At first it was terribly intimidating to be in his presence," Leonard said. "We still have to pinch ourselves."

Although Dina Eastwood pitched "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" as a showcase for Overtone, she decided the gender balance, of a half-dozen men and her, was off. So the "& Company" was expanded to include Morgan, her 15-year-old daughter with Eastwood, and her stepdaughter Francesca, 18, (Clint Eastwood's daughter with actress Frances Fisher).

The teenagers were game ? reality TV is in their generation's DNA, as Dina Eastwood sees it ? but the Eastwoods and Fisher vetted the girls' involvement before deciding it was appropriate for them, she said.

Also in the mix are Groucho Marx's granddaughter (married to Dina Eastwood's brother, Dominic Ruiz, Overtone's road manager); a tart-tongued housekeeper who could have come straight from Sitcom Central Casting; a pet menagerie including a tortoise and a pig; and access to the Eastwood's Carmel home on California's greatest stretch of coastline.

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You Choose to Outlive Your Retirement Income - Investment U

by Jason Jenkins, Investment U Research
Monday, May 21, 2012

No Social Security. No Medicare. No pensions. Higher life expectancy. Retirement income is harder to attain than ever, but it can be done.

A generation ago, it was easy. Case in point: My Dad spent 35 years working for Bethlehem Steel. He was a union man that knew his pension and retired health benefits were coming after he called it quits. On top of that, he would also file for social security to give him an added boost in retirement income. And that?s how it would be for the rest of his years.

Then that reality changed. For the most part, the private sector realized that pensions ? and the actuaries that ran them ? put a hurting on their bottom line. Workers would be OK because those 401(k) plans that Congress created finally started to really catch on in the 1990s. Thirteen or 14 years ago a 401(k) would burst off the charts with tech funds and when you wanted to play it safe a money market fund would give you 5%. This saving for retirement stuff wasn?t so hard. Can you say, ?The good old days???

Let?s fast forward to 2012. We just saw the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression four years ago. The ball game has changed. Gone are the days when retirement was just simple math. You knew exactly how much retirement income Social Security, savings and your pension would deliver. Then, you would cut back any unaffordable expenses when you hit 65.

With Social Security and Medicare?s future uncertain due to our budget crisis and a market that makes your employer benefit retirement plans remind you of a rollercoaster, the retirement planning process went from pretty simple to very complicated.

The current landscape has caused a great deal of pessimism concerning the retirement years. This new retirement reality is reflected in the fact that only 14% of Americans polled in the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute said they were ?very confident they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement.?

?Will I or we have enough money to maintain a comfortable lifestyle and make adjustments that may be necessary once I stop working?? This question is a burden weighing on the hearts of many. More than half of those surveyed said they had not even tried to calculate how much retirement income they will need.

Sit Down And Write Up A Plan

As you enter that stage where you?re really thinking about how to use retirement money for living expenses, you probably need to come up with a spending plan. Figure out the income you will have and what costs you will be paying out to help make your retirement income last over the long haul. This plan cannot be based on wishful thinking. Let?s be brutally honest. Let?s take into account the following:

• Future inflation
• Life expectancy
• Health care costs.

There is a risk these days of your nest egg running out while you are still alive and kicking.
Technology and the knowledge of how to live better have us living longer. According to the Society of Actuaries, at age 65:

• The average life expectancy is 17 years for men and 20 years for women.
• Men have a 41% chance of living to age 85 and a 20% chance of living to age 90.
• Woman have a 53% chance of living to age 85 and a 32% chance of living to age 90.
• For married couples, there is a 72% chance that at least one of them will live to age 85 and a 45% chance that one will live to age 90.

To sum it up, this money better last cause chances are that you will.

You?ll Most Likely Have a Funding Gap

Given your investments, rates of return, life expectancy and amount of risk you?re taking in your 401(k) portfolio, how much money will you need? The run-of-the-mill retirement model will tell you to assume you?ll need to replace 80% of your pre-retirement income. For most people going through this process, many find that there is a gap between projected income and expenses during retirement.

Your plan?s possible ?funding gap? will show that some changes in behavior may be necessary to meet objectives. This could be accomplished by increased contributions to retirement plans, a larger allocation to stocks or greater outside savings. It is essential that you determine how you will fill the gap through creating your retirement spending plan.

How to Attack the Gap

You need to determine a strategy for using all of your investment accounts and IRAs to bridge the gap. You might want to start by taking the following steps:

• Determine the current market value of all your investments and estimate expected rates of return. You need this information so you can see how to go about withdrawing money in your retirement to meet all your known expenses.
• Rather than drawing down with specific monthly dollar amounts, you may want to take out a periodic percentage of the sum. Using a percentage can be your best bet against outliving your retirement income.
• Take note: A method popularized by William P. Bergen, a certified financial planner practicing in California, uses an annual withdrawal rate from retirement assets of 4% plus annual increases of about 3% to compensate for inflation.

For the moment, all of this is preliminary planning because Social Security and Medicare are wild cards.

If your gap really scares you, you also can take these additional steps now:

• Tell your employer to raise your pretax contribution to your employer-sponsored retirement plan.
• If you are self-employed in any manner, you can set up your own small business plan such as Simple or SEP-IRAs or a Profit Sharing or Money Purchase Pension Plan.
• Also, contribute as much as you can to your traditional IRA and/or Roth IRA.
• Then there?s the obvious. Save more in your traditional accounts!

Allocate and Make Decisions

Allocate your retirement assets to accomplish the complementary strategies of asset preservation and growth. You?ve heard this from Investment U before. Because different asset classes are imperfectly correlated ? some zig, while others zag ? our approach allows you to boost returns while reducing your portfolio?s volatility. True Asset Allocation should be the foundation stone of your whole investment strategy. It?s critical to your long-term financial health.

To do this, you use a special asset allocation percentage among large and small stocks, foreign shares, real estate investment trusts (REITs), gold stocks and three different types of bonds (high grade corporates, junk bonds and inflation-adjusted treasuries). The actual percentages run as follows:

• 15% ? US Large Caps,
• 15% ? US Small Caps,
• 10% ? European Stocks,
• 10% ? Pacific Rim stocks,
• 10% ? Emerging Market Stocks,
• 10% ? High Grade Bonds,
• 10% ? High Yield Bonds,
• 10% ? TIPS,
• 5% ? Gold mining stocks,
• 5% ? REITS

Remember that just sticking your money in money market accounts and Treasuries doesn?t cut it anymore. According to the Society of Actuaries, from 1980 to 2007, annual inflation in the United States has averaged 3.5%, so keeping some of your money in equities is vital if you expect your retirement funds to last by keeping pace with inflation.

Finally, a good idea would be to keep your retirement funds in separate ?buckets.?

• Money that you will need in the 12 months or less to meet monthly expenses in cash or cash equivalents.
• Money that you expect to need in 2-5 years in fixed investments, which entail less risk and are likely to preserve your retirement capital.
• Finally, keep any money that you don?t expect to need for five to 10 years in equity investments where you will get the growth needed to keep pace with inflation.

Choose the retirement assets that you will draw down first with consideration for tax advantages. Consider withdrawals from taxable accounts first and then tax-deferred accounts such as traditional IRAs, 401(k) plans, 457 plans and the like. Roth IRAs should be drawn down last to allow the tax-free earnings to continue growing as long as possible.

I hope this is a start and gets rid of some of that pessimism.

Good Investing,

Jason Jenkins

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Great-grandma: Ready to 'lose' my life protesting

Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc

Nan Wigmore, 75, brought a walker and a sign to Chicago to protest at the NATO summit.

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

CHICAGO -- Nan Wigmore brought her walker and packed her sign, ?Grateful Great Grandmas Circle The Wagons, Support Occupy,? and rode on a bus for some three days, sleeping in the same clothes, to make it to the NATO protests in Chicago.

The 75-year-old from Portland, Ore., says she couldn't imagine being anywhere else despite the discomfort of her journey.?

?My feelings are too deep to keep me in my old comfortable place, so I had to learn some new things and that means to move out of my comfort zone,? Wigmore said as she sipped a hot chocolate late Friday after a few hundred protesters met at a downtown Chicago plaza in the lead-up to the two-day summit that begins Sunday.

She was one of hundreds of demonstrators who got free bus rides from National Nurses United, a coalition of nurses unions that held a rally earlier Friday in Chicago calling for a transaction tax on Wall Street.?But Wigmore stands out from the crowd with her sign and walker.

A few protesters at the plaza greeted her and shared laughs amid the thunder of helicopters clattering overhead and people playing drums.?

After one man told her she was ?amazing? and a ?force to be reckoned with,? she later said: ?I?m a woman walking with a sign, period ? I?m following the heroics, the courage of generations back really, you know, we?re just continuing what was going on.?

Wigmore, who was an anti-nuclear activist, said she got involved in the Occupy movement as it picked up steam back home.

A great-grandmother to ?less than 15,? grandmother to 12 and mother of five, she said her youngest child called her ?hero? but there were others in her family who had differing points of view.

US veterans to return medals as NATO protesters march
Scenes from Chicago protests surrounding NATO summit
Attacks on police, Obama HQ were planned, prosecutors say?

For her, there was nothing more important than being in Chicago protesting against NATO, calling for money to go to health care, for example, and not to war. She said she was ?very serious? about her protesting and did not intend to stop.

?As a matter of fact, if I lose my life in the process of all this, it?s the best way I would let myself go,? she said.

And to those who may wonder why she is out on the streets protesting, she has a question of her own in turn: ?I?d say, ?Are you certain that everything is the way you want it??"

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Fire risk prompts recall of nearly 87,000 Jeeps

DETROIT (AP) ? Chrysler is recalling nearly 87,000 Jeep Wranglers in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere due to a risk of fires.

The recall affects only Wranglers from the 2010 model year that have automatic transmissions and were built before July 14, 2010, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted Saturday on its website.

Debris can get caught between a plate that protects the transmission and the catalytic converter, causing a fire. A catalytic converter is part of the exhaust system and uses heat and precious metals to control pollution.

Chrysler knows of at least 14 complaints of fires caused by the problem with 2010 Wranglers. The company says it doesn't know of any injuries. It said debris can get trapped when the SUVs are driven off-road or through tall brush.

Chrysler, which makes the classic Wrangler and other Jeeps, will fix the problem free of charge by replacing the plate with a bar so debris doesn't get caught.

The recall affects about 68,000 Wranglers in the U.S., 6,000 in Canada, 1,500 in Mexico and about 11,000 in other countries, Chrysler spokesman Eric Mayne said. Chrysler will contact all the owners by mail. Recall work is expected to begin this month.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also checked Wranglers from the 2007 through 2012 model years and determined that only the 2010 models had the debris problem. Mayne said the 2010 Wranglers had a transmission plate and catalytic converter that were configured differently than the Wranglers from the other model years.

NHTSA said in documents that it had received 14 complaints of Wrangler fires from the other model years, but Mayne said there was no pattern or common cause in those fires.

Associated Press

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Feds probe Minnesota's Medicaid bills (Star Tribune)

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Facebook IPO: Money, Connections Help The Wealthiest On Wall Street Snag Shares In Social Media Site

By Joseph A. Giannone
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lot of loyal Facebook fans and occasional investors are discovering a hard truth this week: Money and connections talk, especially when it comes to a hot deal handled by Wall Street.
The scramble for shares in what is one of largest initial public offerings in U.S. history quickly divided the haves from the have-nots on Thursday. Those with big brokerage accounts and a long history as customers of Wall Street firms likely got at least part of their orders for Facebook shares filled, but would-be buyers who had no such ties were lucky to get any.
At stake may well be the chance to cash in on a big pop in the shares -- some in the market expect a gain of 50 percent or more -- when they start trading on Friday.
"This is worse than not scoring an invitation to the best party in high school," said Fran Carpentier, 57, a publishing and marketing consultant in New York City who wanted to get in on the social media company's IPO but could not figure out how.
Facebook raised about $16 billion on Thursday by selling roughly 421 million shares at $38 each. That is approximately half a share for each of its 900 million active monthly users.
It may end up raising even more, bringing the total to $18.4 billion, if an option for underwriters is exercised.
Demand for the long-awaited deal has been surging, helped by wall-to-wall media coverage. Orders for Facebook shares outweigh the supply by a ratio of more than 20 to 1, according to traders' estimates.
Aside from wanting the cachet of owning the next big thing, investors are eager to buy something that may deliver big, even astronomical returns -- a rare opportunity in today's low-yield and turbulent markets. IPOs often offer an early pop, even if the shares stumble later, and Facebook is seen initially climbing further than most.
UNCOMFORTABLE
Facebook and underwriters, as usual, kept mum about overall demand ahead of the IPO. Facebook, which will trade under the ticker FB, did not return calls for comment.
There have been growing expectations in the market that small investors, as opposed to big pension and mutual fund managers, have snapped up as much as 30 percent of the deal. That's a bigger chunk than the 10 percent to 15 percent that is typically allocated to retail investors. It is a result of efforts by Facebook executives to make shares available to more users.
Underwriters are accommodating Facebook's wishes and there were signs late on Thursday that they were releasing more shares to individual investors than previously expected.
For example, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which is the brokerage arm of one of the lead underwriters, Morgan Stanley, emailed its wealth advisers late on Thursday afternoon to say that it had raised the cap for individual investors to 5,000 shares, from an initial 500 shares, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Retail got a lot more than I thought they did," said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of research firm IPO Boutique. "I don't know what the final split was, but some of the retail clients who called me today were getting 15,000 or 20,000 shares."
But the allocation may still not be nearly enough to meet demand. And even Sweet, who has been a client of Morgan Stanley for 15 years, hadn't heard by late Thursday exactly how many shares he was going to get - he had earlier been told he would get less than 500.
That puts financial advisers and brokerage houses in the uncomfortable position of not having enough shares to satisfy Main Street investors clamoring to be a part of the hottest IPO since Google's 2004 debut.
One of those investors is Mary Furlong, who runs a marketing firm for baby boomers in Lafayette, California. "I want to buy shares. I missed the Google opening," she says, but did not end up getting hold of any shares.
Google, whose founders made "Don't be evil" a core principle, in 2004 issued its stock through a more transparent process known as a modified Dutch auction. Underwriters gathered bids from investors regardless of their connections or size of their portfolios.
That created more of a level playing field for potential investors. Google's shares were priced at $85, climbed to $100 on Day 1 and are now trading at about $623.
Facebook is selling its shares through a traditional Wall Street IPO, a more subjective process, one managed by investment bankers.
"The deal is probably not 'fair,' but there's no way it can be," said Bruce Foerster, owner of South Beach Capital Markets and former head of global equity syndicate at Lehman Brothers. "If you don't have ties to Facebook management, if you don't have accounts and an investment history with firms that are co-managing the deal, why should you get any stock?"
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Mindful that customers would be frustrated, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney early on distributed a script to its brokers on how to handle requests from clients, said one veteran broker.
"The minute someone says ?Facebook,' we're supposed to say, ?Yes, we're the lead, but we can't talk about it,'" the broker said. "I heard from three or four clients, and I told them there is no way I'll be able to get them shares because I haven't done IPO business in years."
Other brokerages are in the same boat. Bank of America's Merrill Lynch brokerage is limiting retail clients to a maximum 2,000 shares per account, according to brokers at the firm.
Wells Fargo Advisors, the brokerage arm of Wells Fargo & Co, has a scoring system for allocating shares among its more than 15,000 brokers. It weighs brokers' annual revenue production, how much IPO work they do and how long their clients held positions in prior IPOs, according to one Wells Fargo broker.
Then, in turn, brokers score their clients based on assets with the firm, how much they have traded in the past, and how long they've held onto previous allocations of shares in IPOs.
"I can't just get Facebook shares for my buddy," said one Wells Fargo adviser, who declined to be named because he is not permitted to speak to the press.
At Fidelity, the funds and brokerage giant, Facebook shares will be reserved only for clients with at least $500,000 in assets, excluding 401(k) plans, or those who make at least 36 trades a year with the firm, according to Fidelity spokesman Stephen Austin.
Loyalty helps: Fidelity customers who have being doing business with the firm for the longest periods get higher priority in the IPO food chain.
While excluded investors may feel spurned, there's nothing illegal about banks selling shares to their best customers. Whether it is fair to everyone is another question.
"People have argued that it leaves other investors out, especially for hot IPOs, where in the after-market the prices are likely to be much higher," said Jill Fisch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Maurice Costello, a former broker who works as an accountant in the Boston area, says he has ordered Facebook at $37 a share through his E*Trade account. But he has no idea how many shares he might ultimately receive.
The online brokerage, which typically caters to small investors, is one of 33 firms named by Facebook to distribute its newly issued shares. E*Trade would not comment on the Facebook IPO.
For some investors, buying into the IPO doesn't necessarily mean holding on to the stock. Richard Laermer, who is CEO of social network ThankBank, is clamoring to get Facebook shares and flip, or sell them, at a profit.
"I am going to do what I did with LinkedIn, Groupon, Google, Research In Motion, AOL, Netscape, Dunkin Donuts ... plus a host of 90s stocks that I can't even recall," Laermer wrote in an email to Reuters. "Buy on Day One, sell on Day Three. It never fails."
(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr, Olivia Oran, Jessica Toonkel, John McCrank, Jennifer Cummings, Jed Horowitz, Andrew Longstreth and Lauren Young; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Martin Howell, Steve Orlofsky and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Montana labor board backs Legislature in dispute

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Before They Were Stars! Baby Photos of the Kardashians

As the ninth season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians premieres on May 20, enjoy these adorable Twitpics of Kim and co.

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House OKs $642 billion defense bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House on Friday passed a $642 billion defense bill that abandons the deficit-cutting agreement that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans backed last summer.

On a 299-120 vote, lawmakers backed the spending blueprint that adds $8 billion for the military for next year. The bill calls for a missile defense site on the East Coast that the military opposes and restricts the ability of the president to reduce the arsenal of nuclear weapons under a 2010 treaty with Russia. It also preserves ships and aircraft that the Pentagon wanted to retire in a cost-cutting move.

Lawmakers also rejected the military's request for another round of domestic base closings. The White House has threatened a veto, as Republicans made wholesale changes in Obama's budget proposal.

Earlier Friday, the House reaffirmed the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, even of U.S. citizens captured on American soil.

A coalition of Democrats and tea party Republicans fell short in their effort to end the controversial policy established last year and based on the post-Sept. 11 authorization for the use of military force that allows indefinite detention of enemy combatants.

The House rejected an amendment by Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Justin Amash, R-Mich., that would have barred indefinite detention and rolled back mandatory military custody. The vote was 238-182.

"The frightening thing here is that the government is claiming the power under the Afghanistan authorization for use of military force as a justification for entering American homes to grab people, indefinitely detain them and not give them a charge or trial," Amash said during hours of House debate.

The policy's supporters argued that ending it would weaken national security and coddle terrorists.

The spending blueprint calls for money for aircraft, ships, weapons, the war in Afghanistan and a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel, billions of dollars more than Obama proposed.

The bill snubs the Pentagon's budget that was based on a new military strategy shifting focus from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace. The bill spares aircraft and ships slated for retirement, slows the reduction in the size of the Army and Marine Corps and calls for construction of a new missile defense site on the East Coast.

A Democratic effort to stick to last year's deficit-cutting pact and cut $8 billion from the bill failed Friday on a 252-170 vote.

The detention issue has created an unusual political coalition in Congress.

Conservatives fear it could result in unfettered power for the federal government, allowing it to detain American citizens indefinitely for even a one-time contribution to a humanitarian group that's later linked to terrorism. They argue it would be a violation of long-held constitutional rights. Also disconcerting to the GOP is the reality that the current government is led by a Democratic president.

Several Democrats also have criticized the provision as an example of government overreach and an unnecessary obstacle to the administration's war against terrorism.

The provision in the current defense law denies suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subjects them to the possibility they would be held indefinitely.

When Obama signed the bill on Dec. 31, he issued a statement saying he had serious reservations about provisions on the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Such signing statements are common and allow presidents to raise constitutional objections to circumvent Congress' intent.

"My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."

In February, the Obama administration outlined new rules on when the FBI, rather than the military, could be allowed to retain custody of al-Qaida terrorism suspects who aren't U.S. citizens but are arrested by federal law enforcement officers. The new procedures spelled out seven circumstances in which the president could place a suspect in FBI, rather than military, custody, including a waiver when it could impede counterterrorism cooperation with another government or when it could interfere with efforts to secure an individual's cooperation or confession.

In a face-saving move, the House voted 243-173 Friday for an amendment that reaffirms Americans' constitutional rights.

During Thursday's debate, Republicans insisted they're stronger on defense than Obama.

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, railed against "the secret deal the president has with the Russians to weaken our missile defense," a reference to Obama being caught on an open microphone in March telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more room to negotiate after the November election.

The White House wrote to Turner on April 13, insisting that in pursuing cooperation with Russia, "We have been clear that we will not agree to any constraints limiting the development or deployment of United States missile defenses."

The GOP effort to make Obama's national security record an issue in the campaign has made little headway. Opinion surveys show Americans give the president high marks on defense after the killing of Osama bin Laden, repeated drone attacks against suspected terrorists and a weakened al-Qaida and an end to the Iraq war.

Republicans, in a further assault on Obama's authority, on Friday secured approval for an amendment prohibiting the president from making any unilateral reductions to U.S. nuclear forces. The vote was 241-179.

And in a blow to establishment Republicans, the GOP-controlled House rejected appeals from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the business community to back an amendment limiting funds for institutions or organizations established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The vote was 229-193.

The chamber supports Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty "because it would provide clear legal rights and protections to American businesses to transit, lay undersea cables, and take advantage of the vast natural resources in and under the oceans off the U.S. coasts and around the world, spokesman R. Bruce Josten said in a statement. He noted the treaty also is backed by the Defense Department.

Tea party Republicans and other conservatives have expressed concerns about the treaty impinging on U.S. sovereignty.

Associated Press

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