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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Spherical Task Light Sisifo Is Illuminating Eye Candy [Beautiful]

Click here to read Spherical Task Light Sisifo Is Illuminating Eye Candy

Sisifo, the sleek task light/table lamp designed for Artemide by Scott Wilson, debuted recently at Frankfurt's 2012 Light+Building Show as well as at Milan's Salon de Mobil. We love its compact form and slick, almost Apple-inspired cylindrical base. [MNML via Mocoloco]

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Pfizer Q1 profit falls 19 pct on generic Lipitor

NEW YORK (AP) ? Pfizer Inc. says first-quarter profit fell 19 percent, mainly because new generic competition to its blockbuster cholesterol pill Lipitor cut U.S. sales by 15 percent as the drugmaker offered big rebates and discounts to keep patients on its brand.

The maker of Viagra says net income was $1.79 billion, or 24 cents per share, down from $2.22 billion, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, the world's biggest drugmaker would have made $4.43 billion, or 58 cents per share. Analysts were expected 56 cents a share.

Revenue totaled $15.4 billion, down 7 percent from $16.5 billion a year ago. Analysts were expecting $15.46 billion.

Pfizer lowered its adjusted profit forecast for 2012 by 6 cents, to $2.14 to $2.24 per share.

Associated Press

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New York pension funds to vote against 5 Wal-Mart directors

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Being Bullied Tied to Anxiety, Depression in Special-Needs Kids

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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Highway bill enters legislative homestretch

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Defying expectations, Congress has reached the homestretch on a major overhaul of federal transportation programs that is critical if the nation is to avoid steep cutbacks in highway and transit aid.

The bill is driven partly by election-year politics. Both Congress and President Barack Obama have made transportation infrastructure investment the centerpiece of their jobs agendas. But the political imperative for passing a bill has been complicated by House Republicans' insistence on including a mandate for federal approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The White House has threatened to veto the measure if it retains the Keystone provision.

And there are other points of disagreement between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate, including how to pay for transportation programs and how much leverage the federal government should have over how states spend their aid money. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said it's unlikely Congress will pass a final bill until after the November elections.

Despite LaHood's pessimism, lawmakers and transportation lobbyists said they believe prospects are improving for passage of a final bill by June 30, when the government's authority to spend highway trust fund money expires. The fund, which pays for roads and transit, is forecast to go broke sometime next year.

A House-Senate conference committee is scheduled to begin formal negotiations May 8.

It has taken Congress years to get this far. Work on a transportation overhaul began before the last long-term transportation bill expired in 2009. The Senate finally passed a $109 billion bill with broad bipartisan support in March. The bill would give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money, step up the pace of road construction by shortening environmental reviews and impose a wide array of new safety regulations.

House Republicans, after failing to corral enough votes to pass their own plan, recently passed a placeholder bill that allows them to begin negotiations with the Senate. That bill included the Keystone provision, as well as provisions limiting the public's ability to challenge transportation projects on environmental grounds and taking away the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate toxic coal ash.

"I feel like people are worn out on this issue and would like to get something done," said Jeff Shoaf, a lobbyist with the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade association for the construction industry. "I think the prospects are good."

Winning approval of the Keystone provision, which would give federal regulators no choice but to approve a pipeline to transport oil from Canada's tar sands, appears to be House Speaker John Boehner's top priority, lawmakers and transportation lobbyists said.

Republicans portray Obama's delay in the pipeline as a contributor to high gasoline prices. "Boehner wants to push Keystone as hard as he can because he sees it as a political winner," said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving transportation.

Senate Democratic conferees on the bill appear to have enough votes to block inclusion of the Keystone provision in the final product. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., one of four Senate committee chairmen responsible for a portion of the bill, has announced he'll oppose Keystone and other House environmental provisions.

An open question is whether House Republicans will balk on an overall transportation bill if they can't get Keystone. Similarly, despite their public statements, it's unclear whether Senate Democrats would be willing to sacrifice the bill in order to block a Keystone provision, and whether Obama would follow through on his veto threat, especially if the Keystone language were softened in negotiations.

The president painted a bleak picture of America's infrastructure in a speech Monday to union workers in the construction industry, saying U.S. highways are clogged, railroads are no longer the fastest in the world and airports are congested. A transportation construction bill would boost employment and the economy, but "the House Republicans are refusing to pass a bipartisan bill that could guarantee work for millions of construction workers," Obama said, referring to the Senate bill.

"Instead of making the investments we need to get ahead, they're willing to let us all fall further behind," he said.

The transportation bill "is incredibly important to the president," said Ed Wytkind, president of the transportation trades department of the AFL-CIO.

Both sides ultimately must decide whether they want an issue to be used as a campaign weapon or an accomplishment they can tout to voters.

Dave Bauer, a lobbyist for the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, cautioned against reading too much into what congressional conferees say at this point.

"Before they even get to a conference table, some seem to be trying to make this all about Keystone, and it's not," he said.

___

Follow Joan Lowy at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

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Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up

Here's an odd one: average connection speeds around the globe dropped 14 percent to just 2.3 Mbps during the last quarter of 2011. The drop off remains something of a mystery since the data used to calculate that result doesn't include mobile broadband (so its increased adoption can't be dragging down the whole) and Akamai offers no explanation. Still, it's not time to start panicking, just yet. Even though speeds in the US dropped 5.3 percent from the previous quarter, average connection rates are still up significantly over the previous year. Otherwise, things largely stayed the same. Global broadband adoption was steady at 66 percent and the US continued to trail its friends across the Pacific (by a lot) in the race for the fastest Internet connections.

Interestingly, while the number of broadband connections stayed consistent the number of narrowband lines (under 256 Kbps) declined dramatically. Yet, the percentage of the wold's population connected to the web managed to increase 2.1 percent quarter over quarter -- and 13 percent for the year. So, while it may seem that the internet had a temporary set back in Q4 of 2011, the long term trends look good. The number of people online is increasing, the average speeds being pulled down by those people is climbing and the number of folks stuck in the dial up era is dropping. To get a copy of the full report hit up the source.

Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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