Purveyor
Purveyor's JournalNew Home Construction Up In May And Permits Are Highest Since 2008
Source: Examiner
A sign that the economy is improving is that new home starts increased 3.2% in May and applications for permits for new homes and apartments increased 7.9% and are at the highest level in since September 2008. The Census Bureau released the May data this morning.
The government also said April was much better for housing starts than first thought. The government revised the April starts to 744,000 — up from an initially reported 717,000 and the fastest building pace since October 2008.
Although single family housing starts were up 4.8% in May and 28.8% over last year, total starts were down because new apartment starts dropped in May. Month to month variations in apartments starts are normal because it takes longer to get an apartment project out of the ground than a single family home. What is important is the trend, and the trend has been up for three months.
Permits for ne construction increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 780,000 — the most since September 2008. This shows that builders and developers are optimistic about the future. Although 780,000 is half what economists would like to see, it is far larger than the months during the recession when the home building virtually stopped.
Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/new-home-construction-up-may-and-permits-are-highest-since-2008
J.C. Penney Falls After Francis Leaves Amid Strategy Flop
J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) (JCP) fell the most in a month after announcing president Michael Francis was leaving in the wake of a marketing strategy that flopped with shoppers.
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The retailer said in a statement yesterday that Francis stepped down after joining the Plano, Texas-based company in October. The company didn’t give a reason for his exit.
Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson, who is taking over marketing and merchandising, is trying to remake the retailer’s image and overhaul its pricing strategy.
“The bottom line is, the marketing strategy wasn’t working,” said Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management LP, is the company’s largest shareholder. “Ron decided that he really needed to take over the marketing and advertising.”
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-18/j-c-penney-says-ceo-to-run-marketing-as-francis-leaves.html
Job Openings in U.S. Decrease by Most in Almost Four Years
Source: Bloomberg
By Michelle Jamrisko - 2012-06-19T15:04:58Z
Job openings in the U.S. decreased in April by the most in almost four years, the latest sign that the labor market is cooling.
The number of open positions dropped by 325,000, the biggest decline since September 2008, to 3.42 million from 3.74 million the prior month, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Hiring slowed from the prior month and firings climbed.
The decrease in openings coincides with the slowdown in hiring seen in April and May, signaling employers are pulling back as the economy cools. The number of jobs available is down from an average 4.46 million in the two years before the recession began, showing the labor market continues to struggle.
“The most worrisome development is this big drop in hiring,” said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Group in New York. “If you have the outlook that things are getting little bit better, you eventually have to hire more people. But the fact that this is not happening -- that’s worrisome.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-19/job-openings-in-u-s-fell-to-3-42-million-in-april-labor-says.html
Obama, Putin Give Off Chilly Body Language In The Heat Of Mexico’s Coast
Source: Associated Press
LOS CABOS, Mexico — It’s hard to tell if President Barack Obama got a sense of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soul. In front of reporters, they hardly looked at each other.
In their first meeting since 2009, Obama and Putin shared little eye contact and did not appear to express much personal warmth following a two-hour meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit. Putin made brief remarks and then looked down at the table as Obama spoke to reporters, aided by a translator.
The gathering had a much different feel compared with President George W. Bush’s first meeting with Putin in Slovenia in June 2001. Bush said then that he was “able to get a sense of his soul.”
Yet aides said the media shouldn’t draw any conclusions from the chilly body language. They said the meeting wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did if the two leaders didn’t get along.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/obama-putin-give-off-chilly-body-language-in-the-heat-of-mexicos-coast/2012/06/18/gJQAoiWQmV_story.html
Obama Choice For Next Ambassador To Iraq Withdraws Nomination Amid Allegations Of Impropriety
By MATTHEW LEE | Associated Press | 4 minutes ago in
The Obama administration's pick to be the next ambassador to Iraq is withdrawing his nomination amid concerns that he engaged in improper behavior while working at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in 2008.
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In a letter sent Monday to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Brett McGurk said he was removing himself from consideration for the job with a "heavy heart." He said he was doing so after consulting with his wife, Gina Chon, because he believed it was in the "best interests of the country, and of our life together, to withdraw my nomination and serve in another capacity."
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http://www.newser.com/article/d9vfo1p80/obama-choice-for-next-ambassador-to-iraq-withdraws-nomination-amid-allegations-of-impropriety.html
Nice Girls Don't Say 'Vagina' -- What The Rep. Lisa Brown Controversy Is Really About
Nice girls don't say the word "vagina."
They don't say the word "vasectomy," either.
That's what two female lawmakers being banned from speaking last week -- a move Inside Michigan Politics Publisher Bill Ballenger called unprecedented -- is really about.
As much of the country knows, thanks to coverage from National Public Radio, CBS News and CNN, Rep. Lisa Brown (D-West Bloomfield) protested some highly restrictive abortion bills by announcing in a floor speech: "I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but no means no."
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Ari Adler, press secretary for House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall), unloaded on Brown and Byrum, accusing the two mothers of throwing "temper tantrums." He said the comments violated the "decorum" of the House and blasted Brown's in particular for being "inappropriate and uncivilized."
Translation: You're both very bad girls. Go sit in a corner and think about what you've done.
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Really? In the year 2012, more than 40 years after the sexual revolution, the word "vagina" is still considered to be as dirty as a curse word? That seems to say more about Mike Callton, whose claim to fame used to be his birther bill requiring candidates to present a birth certificate to get on the ballot, than the woman who used the term.
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http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/06/vagina_lisa_brown_vaginagate.html
Pentagon Is Concerned About Egyptian Military’s Latest Moves; But Hopeful Of Transition
Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials say they will continue to urge Egypt’s military council to transfer power to the new, democratically elected government, and are hopeful it will happen.
Pentagon press secretary George Little says the Defense Department is deeply concerned about the move by Egypt’s military to issue an interim constitution just as polls closed Sunday night that gives the generals sweeping authority to keep control of the government.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pentagon-is-concerned-about-egyptian-militarys-latest-moves-but-hopeful-of-transition/2012/06/18/gJQAFAvZlV_story.html
How Flame Virus Has Changed Everything For Online Security Firms
By John Naughton, The Observer
Sunday, June 17, 2012 15:18 EDT
Here’s a question: if you connect an unprotected Windows computer to the internet, how long will it take before it is infected by malicious software? The answer is: much more quickly than most lay users think. In 2003, the average time was 40 minutes. A year later it was 20 minutes. By 2008 an unpatched computer running Microsoft Windows XP could only expect five to 16 minutes of freedom. The Internet Storm Centre (ISC) provides a useful chart of what it calls “survival time” for Windows machines. It suggests that a PC currently can expect between 40 and 200 minutes of freedom before an automated probe reaches it to determine whether it can be penetrated. The numbers for other operating systems (such as Unix and Linux) are better (from 400 to 1,400 minutes), but the moral is the same: the only way to have an absolutely secure computer is not to connect it to the net.
On the back of statistics like this, a huge global industry has grown up – the PC “security” business – dominated by companies such as Norton, Symantec, Sophos and Kaspersky. They offer software tools for blocking computer viruses, worms and Trojans (programs that look innocuous but compromise the computer in some way, rendering it controllable by an external agent).
The PC security business does offer a degree of protection from the evils of malware, but suffers from one structural problem: its products are, by definition, reactive. When a particular piece of malicious software appears, it is analysed in order to determine its distinctive “signature”, which will enable it to be detected when it arrives at your machine. Then a remedy is devised and an update or “patch” issued – which is why your PC is forever inviting you to download updates – and why IT support people always look pityingly at you when you explain sheepishly that you failed to perform the aforementioned downloads.
So the security companies are always playing catch-up, profitably slamming stable doors after the horses have bolted. Until recently, the industry has tactfully refrained from emphasising this point, and most of its customers have been too clueless to notice.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/how-flame-virus-has-changed-everything-for-online-security-firms/
Google Calls Increasing Requests To Remove Political Content ‘Alarming’
By Agence France-Presse
Monday, June 18, 2012 7:38 EDT
Political commentary remains a prime target as governments increase the number of requests for Google to remove material from the reach of Internet users.
The Internet giant on Sunday released its fifth semi-annual Transparency Report providing insights into requests by countries around the world to “take down” content from search results or Google venues such as YouTube.
“Just like every other time before, we’ve been asked to take down political speech,” Google senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou said.
“It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect — Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/18/google-calls-increasing-requests-to-remove-political-content-alarming/
Iran Nuclear Offer Isn’t Enough to Delay EU Oil Embargo
By Jonathan Tirone, Ilya Arkhipov and Henry Meyer - 2012-06-18T15:29:10Z
Iran’s signal of willingness to compromise over the most contentious part of its nuclear program failed to convince the European Union to reconsider a pending embargo on oil shipments from the Persian Gulf country.
Diplomats adjourned in Moscow after five hours of meetings and will reconvene talks tomorrow over Iran’s atomic work that officials say probably won’t yield enough progress to end the threat of military strikes. Chinese, French, German, Russian, British and U.S. negotiators met with their Iranian counterparts behind tight security at a hotel near Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
“All the sanctions that are supposed to come into force on July 1 will come into force on July 1,” EU foreign-policy spokesman Michael Mann said in an interview today in the Russian capital. “We’ve taken a political decision that this is an important measure to put pressure on the Iranian regime.”
The so-called P5+1 group wants Iran to suspend production of uranium enriched to 20 percent, while the Islamic republic is pressing for relief from sanctions set to tighten when the EU oil embargo kicks in. European insurers and shipping companies carrying Iranian crude to other parts of the world will be affected by the embargo and shouldn’t expect relief, Mann said.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-17/iran-atomic-deal-prospects-dim-as-elections-embargo-loom.html
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