Prime Debt Consolidation

Hit your system update option, PS3 owners, and you'll discover firmware revision 3.15 snuck onto Sony's distribution servers overnight. According to PlayStation Lifestyle, it includes a fix for a few issues introduced in the 3.10 update, and introduces PSP Minis to the PS3 itself.

PSP Minis are Sony's bid to peddle relatively inexpensive, 'bite-sized' games. PSP owners have had access to the Minis catalog since October, but today's firmware update marks the first time PS3 owners can give them a whirl natively using an emulator. As of December 17, all PSP Mini releases will work on both the PS3 and PSP, and players who'd previously bought one for the PSP will be able to pull it down again, gratis, for use on their PS3. All that's left to do? Rebrand them PS Minis.

Other additions reportedly include Bluetooth and trophy synchronization fixes, an XMB icon for Minis save data, and more intriguingly, a LAN data transfer utility that lets players wire two PS3s together with a standard Ethernet cable to transfer save data.

Of course that's probably of little use to any of you with massive external USB drives, who already routinely backup save data, music, or video files without complaint. No word if it'll let you bring across 'locked' save data, like the save files in Atlus's Demon's Souls--if it did, it would suddenly be a lot more interesting to guys like me, who have two systems (debug, retail) for occupational reasons.

Sony US hasn't put a blog entry up for it yet, but Sony EU chatted about it preemptively on Tuesday.

Follow me on Twitter @game_on

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) –
Scot Richie Ramsay birdied the first hole of a sudden-death play-off against Indian Shiv Kapur to win the South African Open on Sunday.

It was the first European Tour triumph for 26-year-old Aberdeen-born Ramsay, who entered the final round at Pearl Valley Golf Estate near Cape Town five strokes behind Spanish pacesetter Pablo Martin.

But while Martin faded to a one-over-par 73 on the 6,800-metre Jack Nickluas-designed course, Ramsay fired a 65 for a 275 total matched only by Kapur, who closed with a 67 as he also chased an initial European win.

"There are a lot of emotions going through by head," said Ramsay after becoming the first Scot to win the second oldest national golf championship behind the British Open.

"I played a steady final round and felt positive after a lot of recent work on the mental side of my game," said the 2006 winner of the US amateur championship.

"Many of the names of this tropy are icons of the game so it is fantastic that mine is also there now. I love South Africa and the golf courses and weather are superb."

Steadiness reaped a 140,000-euro reward for the 1.75-metre Scot in an event that had been won eight consecutive times by South Africans with Zimbabwe-born Mark McNulty the last 'outsider' to raise the trophy.

While Kapur sent his drive at the first play-off hole left into a sandy patch and was still short of the green in three at the 550-metre par-five 18th, a driver and three wood left Ramsay putting for an eagle.

Kapur failed to hole his birdie chip, leaving Ramsay to go close with his first putt and tap in the second before celebrating a European Tour breakthrough by hugging his caddie.

Ramsay began the second of four events co-sanctioned by the European and South African Sunshine tours with a 67 before a second-round 75 saw him disappear temporarily from the leaderboard.

A 68 brought him back into contention and he triumphed after enjoying a little luck with Kapur missing a birdie putt for victory on the final hole of regulation play.

Dane Anders Hansen finished one stroke behind the leaders after closing with a 69 and Swede Frederik Andersson Hed (70) and Italian Edoardo Molinari (71) were a further shot adrift.

The best placed South African was Darren Fichardt, who bogeyed the last hole and still finished with a 66 to share fourth place on 278 with Martin, winner of the Alfred Dunhill Championship last weekend.

LEGAZPI, Philippines – The Philippines' most active volcano could erupt within days, officials warned Sunday after detecting a drastic surge in earthquakes and eerie rumbling sounds in surrounding foothills. Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated as a precaution.
Scientists raised the alert level for the Mayon volcano to one step below a major eruption after 453 volcanic earthquakes were detected in a five-hour span Sunday, compared to just over 200 Saturday, said Renato Solidum, chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
Army troops and police will intensify patrols to enforce a round-the-clock ban on villagers within a five-mile (eight-kilometer) danger zone around the 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) mountain, said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province, about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Manila.
The massive evacuations were unfortunate, coming so close before Christmas, Salceda said, but authorities will find ways to bring holiday cheer to displaced villagers in emergency shelters.
The cone-shaped volcano has already belched a plume of grayish ash half a mile (nearly a kilometer) into the sky, and red-hot lava has flowed about 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) down the mountainside, he said.
Residents who briefly returned to their homes within the danger zone to check on their belongings reported hearing eerie rumbling sounds.
More than 40,000 villagers have been moved to school buildings and other emergency shelters, and they should be warned from venturing back now due to the extreme danger, volcanologist July Sabit said.
Superheated gas and volcanic debris can race down the slopes at very high speed, vaporizing everything in their path.
"It's extremely dangerous," Sabit told The Associated Press by telephone.
Residents are used to playing a "cat and mouse" game with Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its near-perfect cone shape.
Mayon last erupted in 2006, when about 30,000 people were moved. Another eruption in 1993 killed 79 people.
The first recorded eruption was in 1616 but the most destructive came in 1814, killing more than 1,200 people and burying a town in volcanic mud. The ruins of the church in Cagsawa have become an iconic tourist spot.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common. The Philippines has 22 active volcanoes.
___
Associated Press writer Jim Gomez contributed to this report from Manila.

OTTAWA (Reuters) –
In a sharp change of position, the head of Canada's main opposition party said in an interview published on Saturday that he was not keen on trying to trigger an election next year.

The comments by Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff mean it is likely the minority Conservative government -- which needs the support of opposition legislators to stay in power -- will be able to push through its budget early next year.

The Liberals were level in the polls with the Conservatives in early September but fell away sharply after Ignatieff said he would try to bring down the government on the grounds that it was mishandling the economy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused the Liberals of playing games during a crisis.

"Canadians did not want an election in 2009. I've heard that message 100 percent ... for Canadians it was a year of anguish and economic uncertainty," Ignatieff told the French-language La Presse newspaper.

Asked about an election in 2010, he replied: "I think Canadians are still worried about the economy. They keep telling us 'We've had enough elections. Do your work and leave us in peace'. I think that will continue in 2010."

The Liberals have since recovered some of the lost support but polls indicate that if an election were held now, the result would be a third consecutive Conservative minority government. The party won elections in January 2006 and October 2008.

No one in Harper's office was immediately available for comment. The prime minister was due to head back to Canada on Saturday from climate talks in Copenhagen.

Harper could try to trigger his own defeat over the budget -- expected in late February or early March -- by including policies unacceptable to the three opposition parties, who control a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

But he has repeatedly stressed he has no interest in an election now and wants to focus on the struggling economy.

A senior Liberal told Reuters on Saturday that while an election in 2010 was not Ignatieff's priority, he would look at the budget before deciding whether to support it or not.

Ignatieff, a former journalist and Harvard academic, angered some of his legislators by not consulting them before issuing his election threat in September.

The Conservatives regularly portray Ignatieff as a snob who is out of touch with ordinary Canadians. Ignatieff noted that despite the attacks, the two parties were at the same levels of public support as they had been in the 2008 election.

The Liberals, who have governed Canada for longer than any other party, lost their way after the 2006 election defeat and are finding it hard to come up with a coherent program. The party is due to hold a policy conference in March.

"The priority in 2010 is to create (a) moderate, credible centrist option ... we have a lot of work to do," said Ignatieff.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren, editing by Anthony Boadle)

BOSTON (Reuters) –
The United States stands at the end of a generation when greed drove leaders and "rewards became perverted," General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said in a speech at West Point on Wednesday.

"We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership, and maybe leadership in general. Tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits," the head of the largest U.S. conglomerate said in prepared remarks to be delivered at the U.S. Military Academy.

"Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability," Immelt said. "In too many situations, leaders divided us instead of bringing us together."

The financial crisis of the past 18 months, which hammered the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company's results and last March briefly pushed its shares to 18-year lows, has changed Immelt's approach to running the world's biggest maker of jet engines and electricity-producing turbines, he said.

"I decided that I needed to be a better listener coming out of the crisis," Immelt said. "I felt like I should have done more to anticipate the radical changes that occurred."

Each Saturday, Immelt now invites one of the company's top 25 executives to chat about the future of the company, an exercise intended to give him a greater insight into what is going on across its many divisions.

In a speech that focused on leadership styles, he said that executives need to be ready to move quickly in times of crisis and need to trust that their subordinates will be able to carry out their orders quickly.

"In the peak of the financial crisis, it seemed like the world was going to end every weekend," Immelt said. "I am sure that my board and investors frequently wondered what in the heck I was doing. I had to act without perfect knowledge; I had to act faster than my ability to communicate or explain my actions. I could do this because we had built trust. And we kept GE safe because we moved fast."

(Reporting by Scott Malone, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Alexander Graham Bell patented the first electrical loudspeaker as part of his telephone in 1876, which was followed in 1878 by an improved version from Ernst Siemens. Nikola Tesla reportedly created a similar device in 1881, but was not issued a patent. During this time, Thomas Edison was issued a British patent for a system using compressed air as an amplifying mechanism for his early cylinder phonographs, but he ultimately settled for the familiar metal horn driven by a membrane attached to the stylus. In 1898, Horace Short patented a design for a loudspeaker driven by compressed air, then sold the rights to Charles Parsons, who was issued several additional British patents before 1910.

The modern design of moving-coil drivers was established by Oliver Lodge in (1898). The moving coil principle was patented in 1924 by Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellogg.

Page

Powdering wigs was messy and inconvenient and the development of the naturally white or off-white powderless wig (made of horsehair) is no doubt what has made the retention of wigs in everyday court dress a practical possibility. By the 1780s, young men were setting a fashion trend by lightly powdering their natural hair. After 1790, both wigs and powder were reserved for older more conservative men, and were in use by ladies being presented at court. In 1795, the English government levied a tax of hair powder of one guinea per year. This tax effectively caused the demise of both the fashion for wigs and powder by 1800.

In July 2007, judges in New South Wales, Australia voted to discontinue to wearing of wigs in the NSW Court of Appeal. New Zealand lawyers and judges have ceased to wear wigs except for special ceremonial occasions such as openings of Parliament or the calling of newly qualified barristers to the bar.

Long Wigs

WASHINGTON – A week after they crashed the Obama administration's first state dinner, Michaele and Tareq Salahi are telling their side of the story on national television.
The Salahis were scheduled to be interviewed Tuesday morning by Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today." Despite reports that the couple was seeking payment to be interviewed, an NBC spokeswoman insisted, "No money changed hands."
NBC's parent company, NBC Universal, also owns the cable network Bravo. Michaele Salahi had hoped to land a part on an upcoming Bravo reality show, "The Real Housewives of D.C."
On Monday there were more twists in the unfolding mystery of how the Virginia couple managed to get into the highly White House dinner Nov. 24 and shake hands with President Barack Obama.
It was revealed that they communicated with a senior Pentagon official about going to the event, but the official denied that she helped the couple get in.
Michele Jones, a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said in a written statement issued through the White House that she never said or implied she would get the Salahis into the event.
"I specifically stated that they did not have tickets and in fact that I did not have the authority to authorize attendance, admittance or access to any part of the evening's activities," Jones said. "Even though I informed them of this, they still decided to come."
WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington, reported on a similar incident a month before, in which the Salahis sneaked in through a back entrance to a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Awards dinner at which Obama spoke. A guest complained that the couple didn't belong at his table.
"I double-checked my (guest) list and when they weren't on that list we escorted them out," a foundation representative, Lance Jones, said in an interview early Tuesday.
Also on Monday, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee asked the couple, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan and White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to testify at a hearing Thursday on the incident.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he wants answers about the Secret Service's security deficiencies that allowed the Salahis to attend the White House dinner. A White House photo showed the Salahis in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held.
"This is a time for answers," Thompson said in a statement Monday. "This is not the time for political games or scapegoating to distract our attention from the careful oversight we must apply to the Secret Service and its mission."
Some lawmakers have called for criminal charges to be brought against the couple, but the Secret Service has not yet decided whether to refer the case for criminal prosecution.
The Secret Service declined to comment on whether Sullivan would testify Thursday.
The couple's publicist, Mahogany Jones, could not immediately be reached for comment about whether the Salahis would testify Thursday. But earlier Monday, she said allegations that the Salahis were shopping interviews and demanding money from television networks to tell their story are false.
A TV executive who spoke on condition of anonymity to publicly discuss bookings told The Associated Press that the couple's representatives had urged networks to "get their bids in" for an interview.
___
Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

MELBOURNE, Australia – A team of 16 surgeons and nurses successfully concluded 25 hours of delicate surgery Tuesday to separate twin Bangladeshi girls who had been joined at their heads, sharing blood vessels and brain tissue.
It is too early to know whether the two-year-old girls, Trishna and Krishna, suffered any brain damage during the marathon operation — an outcome doctors said had a 50-50 chance. The girls will remain in an induced coma for monitoring for several days after the completion of the surgery.
The medical team began the work Monday morning on separating the girls, who were brought to Australia as infants by an aid organization.
"The teams managed to separate their brains and they are both very well," Royal Children's Hospital chief Leo Donnan told reporters. "Now we have the long task of the reconstructive surgery, which will go on for many hours."
Plastic surgeons finished reconstructing the girls' skulls using a combination of their own skin, bone grafts and artificial materials about five hours after the separation surgery ended.
"Their bodies have to recover from this, and we've got a lot of unknown territory we're moving into," Donnan said. "All I can say is that everything is in place for the best possible outcome. The main thing is that the girls are healthy."
Earlier Tuesday, Ian McKenzie, a member of the surgical team, said the girls were improving as their bodies began to work individually.
"The twins are actually in better condition because the degree of separation has increased and this problem we've had with their circulation affecting each other has actually gotten less," he said.
The girls shared parts of their skull, brain tissue and blood flow.
Before the surgery, doctors had said there was a 50 percent chance the girls could suffer brain damage and a 25 percent chance one of the sisters would die.
They were found in an orphanage in Bangladesh in 2007 by a representative from the Children First Foundation, who brought to them to Australia.

Creators Syndicate –
Are we at war — or not?

For if we are at war, why is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed for trial in federal court in the Southern District of New York? Why is he entitled to a presumption of innocence and all of the constitutional protections of a U.S. citizen?

Is it possible we have done an injustice to this man by keeping him locked up all these years without trial? For that is what this trial implies — that he may not be guilty.

And if we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that KSM was complicit in mass murder, by what right do we send Predators and Special Forces to kill his al-Qaida comrades wherever we find them? For none of them has been granted a fair trial.

When the Justice Department sets up a task force to wage war on a crime organization like the Mafia or MS-13, no U.S. official has a right to shoot Mafia or gang members on sight. No one has a right to bomb their homes. No one has a right to regard the possible death of their wives and children in an attack as acceptable collateral damage.

Yet that is what we do to al-Qaida, to which KSM belongs.

We conduct those strikes in good conscience because we believe we are at war. But if we are at war, what is KSM doing in a U.S. court?

Minoru Genda, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, a naval base on U.S. soil, when America was at peace, and killed as many Americans as the Sept. 11 hijackers, was not brought here for trial. He was an enemy combatant under the Geneva Conventions and treated as such.

When Maj. Andre, the British spy and collaborator of Benedict Arnold, was captured, he got a military tribunal, after which he was hanged. When Gen. Andrew Jackson captured two British subjects in Spanish Florida aiding renegade Indians, Jackson had both tried and hanged on the spot.

Enemy soldiers who commit atrocities are not sent to the United States for trial. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers who commit atrocities are shot when caught.

When and where did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed acquire his right to a trial by a jury of his peers in a U.S. court?

When John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, alleged collaborators like Mary Surratt were tried before a military tribunal and hanged at Ft. McNair. When eight German saboteurs were caught in 1942 after being put ashore by U-boat, they were tried in secret before a military commission and executed, with the approval of the Supreme Court. What makes KSM special?

Is the Obama administration aware of what it is risking by not turning KSM over to a military tribunal in Guantanamo?

How does Justice handle a defense demand for a change of venue, far from lower Manhattan, where the jury pool was most deeply traumatized by Sept. 11? Would not KSM and his co-defendants, if a change of venue is denied, have a powerful argument for overturning any conviction on appeal?

Were not KSM's Miranda rights impinged when he was not only not told he could have a lawyer on capture, but that his family would be killed and he would be water-boarded if he refused to talk?

And if all the evidence against the five defendants comes from other than their own testimony under duress, do not their lawyers have a right to know when, where, how and from whom Justice got the evidence to prosecute them? Does KSM have the right to confront all witnesses against him, even if they are al-Qaida turncoats or U.S. spies still transmitting information to U.S. intelligence?

There have been reports that in the trials of those convicted in the first World Trade Center bombing, sources and methods were compromised, weakening our security for the second attack on Sept. 11.

If the trial is held in lower Manhattan, how much security will be needed to protect against a car bomber who wants the world to see a mighty blow struck against the Great Satan? And if, as some suggest, the trial should be held on Governor's Island, would that not make the United States look like a nation under siege?

What do we do if the case against KSM is thrown out because the government refuses to reveal sources or methods, or if he gets a hung jury, or is acquitted, or has his conviction overturned?

In America, trials often become games, where the prosecution, though it has truth on its side, loses because it inadvertently breaks one of the rules.

The Obamaites had best pray that does not happen, for they may be betting his presidency on the outcome of the game about to begin.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday warned against the U.S. imposing its will on negotiations with Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's statements come as Iran is asking to modify a U.N. proposal for Russia and France to turn its uranium stockpile into nuclear fuel and allay Western fears over a possible weapons program.
"Whenever the U.S offers a smile, it hides a dagger in his back," said Khamenei according to the state news agency. He rejected "talks in which the U.S. decides about its results in advance."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday in Marrakech that the U.N. nuclear deal could not be altered.
Khamenei's statements came the day before annual anti-American demonstrations for the 30th anniversary of the 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy — traditionally a time for speeches slamming Washington.
The U.S. and its western allies fear that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward producing a weapon, while Tehran maintains it is for peaceful purposes.
Khamenei said that even as the U.S. talks about negotiations with Iran, it is threatening it.
"American talk about negotiations on one hand but on the other they continue their threats and say how negotiations must reach their own desired conclusion."
Khamenei also slammed what he called "the new U.S. president's beautiful words," which are not supported by deeds, referring to several messages directed by President Barack Obama to the Iranian people.
Khamenei, who has final say in all state matters, also urged the U.S. not to pin its hopes on the Iranian opposition, who are calling for better ties with the West, describing them as "few" and "naive."
Even as Khamenei dismissed the opposition, however, a possible showdown is looming over Wednesday's annual anti-U.S. demonstration as reformists have called for anti-government protests.
The demonstrations would be a display of resolve by the opposition against Ahmadinejad's crackdowns since his disputed re-election in June, but authorities have said they will not tolerate any disruptions to Wednesday's events.
The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the head of Tehran's security forces, Gen. Ali Reza Alipour, as saying that police will use all their "power and capacity" to confront any demonstrators.
The government's presentation of a united front toward the opposition belies splits among the conservatives as well. On Tuesday, the supreme leader's protege, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with his ostensible allies in parliament over cutting subsidies.
The president backtracked on plans to trim energy and food subsidies in the latest sign he remains weakened by the political rifts opened by the postelection turmoil.
"We will take back the bill," Ahmadinejad said in comments broadcast on Iran's state radio.
Iran's president portrayed himself as a champion of the poor when he swept to power in 2005, promising to use the country's oil wealth to eradicate poverty.
The sticking point in the bill was that the money saved from cutting the subsidies would go to a fund controlled only by Ahmadinejad's administration, not parliament.

WASHINGTON – A threatened Republican boycott of a Senate committee's consideration of climate legislation is exposing the sharp partisan divide over a Democratic proposal to combat global warming.
Republicans for the most part plan to stay away from a meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday as the panel begins deliberations over legislation that would cap greenhouse gases from power and industrial plants and curb the use of fossil fuels.
Democrats have a 12-7 majority in the committee and enough votes to advance the measure to the full Senate. But GOP members are demanding additional studies on the cost and job impact of the bill, arguing that an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency was inadequate. The EPA study projected it would cost average households no more than $111 a year.
On Monday, the ranking Republicans on five other committees that will have some say in climate legislation also called the EPA analysis unsatisfactory and said senators should not be expected to vote on a bill "without a full and complete analysis of the likely effects."
The Republicans warned in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the environment committee chairman, that failure to accommodate GOP senators seeking further studies "would severely damage rather than help" the chances of getting the bipartisan support needed to get a bill through the Senate.
Boxer called the EPA cost study "unprecedented in scope" and said it didn't matter that it was largely based on an analysis of the House-passed climate bill because "our bill is 90 percent the same."
Boxer told reporters late Monday she wants to try to accommodate the Republicans, but insisted she will push ahead with plans to begin voting on amendments to the bill. But when those votes will start was unclear. Boxer said Tuesday would be limited to senators' remarks, and said she will make officials from the EPA available so Republicans can quiz them about their cost study.
"We think this is going the extra mile for our friends on the other side," Boxer told reporters. "We want to move the process forward."
The Democratic bill calls for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industrial facilities 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by mid-century. Polluters would be given pollution permits that they could trade among themselves to ease the economic effect of the transition from fossil fuels.
Republicans have argued the bill amounts to a huge energy tax because energy, including electricity, from fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Democrats privately called the GOP tactic largely an attempt to delay consideration of climate legislation and said all seven of the committee's Republicans already had made clear that they have no intention of voting for the bill.
While Boxer said she hoped the Republicans would change their minds and participate, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., another committee member, wasn't as kind at a news conference.
"It's almost like schoolchildren over there," said Lautenberg, referring to the GOP boycott.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) –
Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will compete in the 2010 Tour of California, which will boast a new route and new dates to avoid the West Coast's wet winter weather.

Sixteen host communities were announced on Thursday morning via an exchange on the Twitter micro-blogging site that included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Armstrong and three-time Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer.

Leipheimer will be joining Armstrong in the newly formed Team RadioShack.

The race will be held from May 16-23, so riders can expect balmy weather, a marked change from the wet, chilly conditions that prevailed for much of this year's race in February.

For the first time the event will begin with a road stage, from Nevada City, California, to the state capital of Sacramento.

It will pass through Davis, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Modesto, Visalia, Bakersfield, Pasadena, Big Bear Lake, Los Angeles and end in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, home of title sponsor Amgen.

Stage seven will be the individual time trial in downtown Los Angeles next to the Staples Center arena - home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.

"For the 2010 Tour of California we had the unique opportunity to move our race to a part of the year when we are almost guaranteed great weather in California," said Andrew Messick, president of AEG Sports.

"This timing will help us to better showcase the beautiful features the state of California has to offer, while allowing us to travel to parts of the state that just weren't feasible in previous years."

Organizers said the use of Twitter to announce the schedule was a first for an event of this stature.

Twitter was much in evidence in the 2009 edition of the race, as Armstrong mobilized his army of followers on the networking site to be on the lookout for his stolen time trial bike, which was eventually turned in to police in Sacramento.

This issue arose most clearly in reinsurance, where the use of Financial Reinsurance to reengineer insurer balance sheets under US GAAP became fashionable during the 1980s. The accounting profession raised serious concerns about the use of reinsurance in which little if any actual risk was transferred, and went on to address the issue in FAS 113, cited above. While on its face, FAS 113 is limited to accounting for reinsurance transactions, the guidance it contains is generally conceded to be equally applicable to US GAAP accounting for insurance transactions executed by commercial enterprises.

In some sense we can say that insurance appears simultaneously with the appearance of human society. We know of two types of economies in human societies: money economies (with markets, money, financial instruments and so on) and non-money or natural economies (without money, markets, financial instruments and so on). The second type is a more ancient form than the first. In such an economy and community, we can see insurance in the form of people helping each other. For example, if a house burns down, the members of the community help build a new one. Should the same thing happen to one's neighbour, the other neighbours must help. Otherwise, neighbours will not receive help in the future. This type of insurance has survived to the present day in some countries where modern money economy with its financial instruments is not widespread (for example countries in the territory of the former Soviet Union).

Health Insurance

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
President Barack Obama signed a 7.5 billion dollar aid package for Pakistan after the US Congress acted to placate critics in the strife-torn nation who warned it violated Pakistani sovereignty.

Obama's move followed days of disputes over the package, which sparked a showdown between Pakistan's government and its powerful military.

Tensions in Pakistan are mounting with a wave of attacks over the past 11 days have left 170 dead, the latest a double suicide attack on a police compound in which 11 died.

The US package aims to help the Pakistan government, a key ally in the battle against Al-Qaeda, meet the insurgent challenge by tripling non-military US aid. Related article: Guerrilla war escalating in Pakistan

"This law is the tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the US, as evidenced by its bipartisan, bicameral, unanimous passage in Congress," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

The measure offers 1.5 billion dollars a year for five years to improve Pakistani schools, to fund groups that defend the rights of women and children, and to train and modernize the Pakistani peace force.

It also provide for funds for efforts to cement civilian control in nuclear-armed Pakistan, and supports voter education, civil society and improvements in the functioning of parliament.

Some leading political voices in Pakistan balked at what they saw as conditions on how the money could be spent, including calls for action in curtailing the anti-Indian militant movements Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The bill also called for a cut-off in security assistance if Pakistan fails to crack down on extremists.

The requirements sparked uproar in the Pakistani parliament, and were used by opponents of the government's alliance with the United States to hammer President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistan's foreign minister delivered an impassioned defence of the package on Friday, insisting the legislation would help the fight against Islamist militants.

"This will enhance our counter-insurgency capability," Shah Mehmood Qureshi told parliament after returning from Washington with written guarantees the package would not violate Pakistan sovereignty.

"The legislation does not seek in any way to compromise Pakistan's sovereignty, impinge on Pakistan's national security interest or micro manage any aspect of Pakistan's military or civilian operations," said Qureshi.

In Washington, the minister held talks with Senator John Kerry and Representative Howard Berman, who head committees handling foreign relations in Congress, to get a document stating that the plan did not impose conditions or infringe on Pakistani sovereignty.

The lawmakers' statement said the aid was meant "to forge a closer collaborative relationship between Pakistan and the United States, not to dictate the national policy or impinge on the sovereignty of Pakistan in any way."

"Any interpretation of this act which suggests that the United States does not fully recognize and respect the sovereignty of Pakistan would be directly contrary to congressional intent," it said.

Obama signed the bill hours after militants unleashed coordinated attacks on Pakistani police in which 40 people died, storming offices in Lahore and bombing a police station in Peshawar. Two suicide bombers attacked a police compound in Peshawar again on Friday killing another 11 people.

The assaults underscored the power of armed radicals to strike in the heart of Pakistan, and the weakness of poorly equipped security forces, despite promises of a new offensive against the Taliban.

White House deputy spokesman Bill Burton said Obama was "always concerned when there's a loss of innocent civilian life."

"This shows once again that the militants in Pakistan threaten both Pakistan and the United States," Burton said, adding that Obama had been encouraged by recent actions by the Pakistani military to tackle extremists.

State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood meanwhile extended US sympathy to victims of the attacks, and honored "brave Pakistani military police and security personnel who are fully engaged in combating these extremists."