John McCain's Daughter Meghan Talks Election: 'It's Nowhere Near Over'

Candidate's daughter says she's gotten to live the 'life of a political rock star.'
LAS VEGAS — Apparently, the homestretch of this year's presidential campaign runs parallel with the Strip here.
As Senator John McCain marches through a final push in key swing states, his 23-year-old daughter, Meghan, is rubbing shoulders with punk-rock royalty at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas. Meghan has turned up alongside Johnny Ramone's widow Linda to thank campaign workers in this hotly contested western state. Nevada is a key battleground state, after all ... and Linda assures us that being a Republican is very punk rock, so it all makes sense. (Plus, Meghan is a die-hard Ramones fans, even stealing her first kiss to one of their songs.) So while Senator McCain and running mate Sarah Palin continue their final push through Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Meghan is on the western flank.
"It's just a good way for me to say hi to people while they kick back and have a drink at the end of the day," McCain said.
It's a role that fits well in her comfort zone — despite a year in the spotlight, she's still nervous speaking to large crowds ("I've got to give it up to my girl, Chelsea Clinton. She's the one who rocked that, not me," she said), and prefers one-on-one time with supporters. And she's logged a lot of it over the past 18 months while hitting the trail with her father — a long, strange trip that's been captured on her blog in all its giddy, gory and usually sleep-deprived glory. There are behind-the-scenes photos and videos of life on the road — Straight Talk shenanigans, hotel room hijinks and quiet moments when the candidate is simply "dad."
"I've had such an amazing experience, and I've gotten to live the life of a political rock star," she said, looking back. "It's been so amazing. I'm so grateful."
Amid the parade of snapshots, playlists and personal stories that populate her blog, Meghan has also published a children's book ("My Dad, John McCain"), palled around with Heidi Montag and done time on "Larry King Live," "The Tonight Show," "The Today Show" and "The View." She's also made the leap from registered independent to card-carrying Republican, and become one of the hardest working members of her father's campaign (quite a change from when MTV News first met Meghan, almost exactly a year ago, on the campus of South Carolina's Clemson University).
"I thought Hillary [Clinton] was going to be the nominee," Meghan said of her initial expectations. "A lot of people thought [Mitt] Romney was going to be our nominee. Nothing has turned out the way I thought it would be, except I knew my father could pull it out."
No, little has gone according to script in this election year, so the campaign (and the blog) that were expected to fizzle out long ago are marching on. Meghan's week includes more TV, radio and college appearances before meeting up with her father for a series of rallies. "We're continuing to get the message out, and we're giving back to the people who've given up so much for this campaign," she said.
"It's not over. It's nowhere near over," she declared.
And, of course, all of it will be fodder for her blog. "I love the blog and I love the people I meet and I have really great friends here with me," she said. "It's been the most liberating experience of my life. ... I wanted to be a music journalist back in the day. I wanted to work for Rolling Stone and be the next Hunter Thompson. But I've kind of gone about it a different way."
It's been a remarkable experience for Meghan, one that she's not eager to let go. She admits that she gets emotional when thinking about how close this trip is to its end. "I've been doing this for a year and four months, right after I graduated college. Living on a bus for that long is a long time. I can't believe it's almost over. ... I'm going to have to manage a band or something after this so I can stay on the road," she joked.
There has been disappointment, however, especially when encountering indifference during an election season offering up what she calls "two great candidates."
"I don't know what's going to inspire you if these two candidates don't," she said.
And, of course, there have been the lessons that this unique race has taught us about gender issues. "I'm disappointed in how the media treated Senator Clinton," she said. "I think it's a shame. I think how they treat Sarah is also terrible. My mother, Mrs. Obama, myself ... politics is a rough place for women. ... I hope for more. I think that Senator Clinton and Governor Palin have broken a lot of barriers, and I hope that will continue in the future.
"I think that a lot of male reporters have issues with interviewing powerful women," she added. "It says a lot more about the media than it does about the public."
But the disappointments have been few. For Meghan, seeing her father's success has been overwhelming at times. "I cried at the [Republican National] Convention — backstage and onstage — when I was watching him. My mom was pregnant with me at the '84 convention, so it kind of came full circle."
And the success of her blog, which Meghan calls "my baby," has been an unexpected thrill as well. "I've totally opened myself up and made myself vulnerable. ... I wasn't sure how it would be received, but people have been so amazing.
"If my dad does win, knock on wood, I'm going to keep the blog going and tell everyone what it's like to be the first daughter," she vowed.
But before all that, how will she unwind after a year and a half on the campaign trail? What does life on November 5 look like?
"I'll relax a little bit, but I'm a total type-A personality," she joked. "I've got to start looking for another job when this is over."
And what will be the first song on her playlist the day after the election?
"Probably Queen's 'We Will Rock You.' "

How Was T.I. Able To Vote After Felony Weapons Conviction?

Rapper's early trip to the polls in Georgia marked the first time he had ever voted.
You may have seen the pictures of T.I. proudly displaying a sticker on his thumb Tuesday as proof that he cast an early ballot in this year's presidential election.
According to a press release from his spokespeople, it was the first time the 28-year-old rapper (born Clifford Harris) had ever voted. Tip is the national spokesperson for the nonpartisan group Respect My Vote's "Get Out the Vote" campaign.
"T.I. has been a very vocal and engaged activist in helping to get young people to register and, now, to get them to the polls to vote," read a release from T.I.'s camp. "With his prior difficulties with the law, T.I. made it his point to emphasize that, while he thought he was ineligible to vote, others needed to get out to the polls to make a difference in their lives and their communities. Recently, he did further research on his own and discovered he was, in fact, still eligible to vote. Going to the polls early this morning in Atlanta, Georgia, was a transformative experience for him."
How was T.I. able to vote? Well, the Georgia Secretary of State's office, in consultation with their own lawyers and the Georgia Attorney General's office, in consultation with their own lawyers and the Georgia Attorney General's office, "reviewed the law and found that Mr. Harris is eligible to in Georgia because the state constitution says that to be able to vote, you have to have served your entire sentence, which includes all probation and fines and any other stipulations," said Matt Carrothers, the Secretary of State's director of media relations.
Because T.I. is not slated to go to prison until next year on felony gun charges and is not currently incarcerated — though he is under house arrest — and is not on probation, all he had to do was contact the county he votes in and get re-registered in order to cast a ballot.
"Feels like I've taken advantage of my right to become a part of the democracy," T.I. said in the release. "It was definitely worth standing in line and doing all the things people complain about voting. I think it's more than worth it."
T.I. was arrested in October 2007, mere hours before he was to headline the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta. The rapper was charged with possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. He pleaded guilty to the charges in May as part of a plea deal.

Want To Ask Barack Obama A Question? Here's Your Chance!

Senator will answer the best questions we receive, and we'll also air your response to his answer!
What would you ask Barack Obama if you had the opportunity?
Think fast — because that opportunity is here!
MTV will be speaking with the Democratic presidential candidate Saturday morning, and we want you to give us the questions. Upload your video or written question to YouRHere.MTV.com, we'll take the best ones to Senator Obama, and we'll broadcast his answers on air next week.

But that's not all — be sure to check your e-mail in the coming days, because if your question is chosen, we'll want to know your reaction to his answer. We'll broadcast your response to his answer on-air and/or online Sunday night and Monday.
MTV News has extended the same offer to Republican candidate John McCain; as of press time, he has yet to respond. However, both Senators McCain and Obama participated in our "Presidential Dialogues" last year, where they fielded a wide variety of tough questions from college-age audiences.
Senator Obama also participated in our "Closing Arguments" forum in February, and we also caught up with him in North Carolina late last month.
In that interview, Obama talked about everything from McCain's attacks on him to ways in which the current economic crisis could affect young people in the job market.
"If we don't do it, it will have an impact on everybody, especially the next generation, because if the economy slows down, they're the ones who are going to have the toughest time finding a job," he said. MTV News' Sway even got in a few questions about hip-hop.
So what do you want to know? Head over to YourRHere.MTV.com and make your voice heard!

Michael Jackson opts out of Jackson 5 reunion

Michael Jackson denied on Thursday that he would take part in a reunion of the famed Motown singing group, a day after elder brother Jermaine said the faded pop star was on board.
"My brothers and sisters have my full love and support, and we've certainly shared many great experiences, but at this time I have no plans to record or tour with them," the self-proclaimed "king of pop" said a statement.
Jackson, 50, said he was in the studio working on "new and exciting projects."
But Jermaine Jackson, 53, said in Australia on Wednesday that the clan was working on the music and logistics for a tour next year.
"It is going to be more like a family affair," he was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press. "(Younger sister) Janet's going to open and, of course, the original Jackson 5 ... Michael, Randy and the whole family. ... We're in the studio, we're planning on being out there next year."
Michael Jackson has not encouraged reunion talk. He did not show up with his brothers to collect a lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles in September.
The Jackson 5, whose lineup is rounded out by Jackie, 57, Tito, 55, and Marlon, 51, as well as unofficial member Randy, 47, rose to fame in the early 1970s with such singles as "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "I'll Be There." The group last toured in 1984, by which time Michael Jackson was a huge star in his own right.
His statement was credited to a spokesperson dubbed "Dr. Tohme." The publicity firm that distributed the statement declined to elaborate on the person's identity.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman, editing by Alan Elsner)

Former McAfee employ arrested

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A California woman and her husband have been arrested on suspicion of misappropriating millions of dollars from software provider McAfee Inc.
The Santa Clara District Attorney's office says 35-year-old Susan Despinic of Los Gatos and her husband, 37-year-old Aurawm Almaneih, were arrested Wednesday on grand theft charges.
Prosecutors say Despinic, who worked as a product marketing manager for Santa Clara-based McAfee, steered more than $3.8 million in business from the company to vendors in which she had a financial interest.
Prosecutors say at least one of the firms was a dummy company set up by the couple for their own benefit.
The couple is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 14.

Cyberattacks target UK national infrastructure

Sustained cyber-espionage attacks are being waged on companies that play a key role in the Britain's national infrastructure, a UK cyber-defense chief has warned.
The computer systems of critical businesses in the UK, such as power companies and large financial institutions, are being repeatedly probed to steal information or uncover weaknesses that could take them down.
That was the warning from Mark Oram, head of the threat and information-security knowledge department at the Center for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), the security service tasked with protecting key government and private organizations in the UK.
Speaking at the RSA Conference Europe 2008 in London, Oram said: "We see frequent attacks on organizations for the purpose of theft of property. There are known threat sponsors with known requirements looking to gather information from industry."
"The use of cyber-techniques is relatively easy, cheap and low risk in terms of being caught. Most of the time, we know the likely culprit but proving it is very difficult," said Oram.
However, he added that the UK government feels the risk of a cyber-terrorist attack is low due to a "lack of capability and difficulties with understanding the vulnerabilities in the infrastructure".
Oram said the CPNI would continue to work closely with key industries to help them understand the vulnerabilities and threats they face.
Internet-warfare expert Ira Winkler, president of the Internet Security Advisors Group, said Chinese hackers are "vacuuming up the internet for security and economic secrets". Winkler cited examples such as the Titan Rain hacking attacks.
The announcement came as the EU presented a blueprint for how European countries can strengthen national communications networks.
The report from the European Network and Information Security Agency recommends prompt reaction to reported incidents, collaboration between public and private stakeholders, and development of a national strategy for information-sharing and responsibilities for different parts of the network.
In the US, the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Division has tripled its budget to $350m (£215m) over the past two years, to upgrade security systems protecting critical civilian networks and build up its US-CERT emergency-response team.

Madonna: Who's a gold digger now?

With much more serious choices pending for Americans at the polls in just 11 days, the side-taking game surrounding Madonna's collapsed marriage is trivial at best. Commenters on entertainment news message boards declare themselves for "Team Madonna" or "Team Ritchie," but who really cares? It's just another War of Roses, with both sides shaming themselves with displays of materialism and vindictiveness.
But this is Madonna, who's channeled feminine aspirations and anxieties since Sarah Palin's role model Ronald Reagan was in office. It's a pity that her personal life now generates more interest than her art -- the matter of her divorce has become a central theme in the mostly negative reviews of her directorial film debut, "Filth and Wisdom," and the mostly positive ones for her new Sticky & Sweet tour -- but it's also inevitable, given her lifelong devotion to the project of creating herself in public. What's truly sad is that she's seemingly abandoned the aspects of her mission that challenge the culture in favor of simply promoting and preserving her own gain.
Or has she?
In the 1980s, Madonna shocked onstage and in her music, but now we've grown utterly comfortable with bared midriffs, masturbation references and even the language of S&M; they're just part of the blithely exhibitionistic era that Madge herself helped usher in. The imagery she used in her tours, her "Sex" book and her videos pushed an envelope that's been ripped open -- now you can see girl-on-girl action in episodes of "House" and bondage is a joke in a bound-for-Broadway musical.
Madonna herself embraced a more conservative image, though by no means did she conform to old ways. She became a mom without marrying her daughter's dad, Carlos Leon. She wed Ritchie, son Rocco's father, but that union broke another mold -- Ritchie is a decade younger than she is. Her third son, David Banda, was born in Africa and joined the family in a controversial adoption. Madonna also became religious during the last decade, but she's devoted herself to Kabbalah, a mystical Jewish sect that was hardly the obvious path for this former Catholic schoolgirl.
As the entertainment world caught up to her, making it tougher for her to break taboos, Madonna became less controversial and more simply clucked over by gossips. But even sticking with the tabloid fodder, she's still flipping old norms.
Take recent reports that she's been calling Ritchie a "gold digger" -- a term rarely, if ever, associated with the male plaintiff in a divorce. The quote she apparently fed to an anonymous friend didn't invoke the usual term for a money-hungry male -- gigolo, which would have had demeaning sexual connotations for Madge. "Gold digger" feminizes Ritchie and elevates Madonna to the role of the soft-hearted moneybags -- as played, for example, by Tommy Noonan in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a flick we all know she's seen a few times.
The gold digger is also a recurring character in pop music. Madonna may have tossed off the reference in anger, but her word choice shows some of her old cultural savvy. After all, she's played the gold digger herself in song and videos; to brand her soon-to-be-ex with the label signals her final ascension beyond that scrappy role. It also relates, however accidentally, to the present moment of economic struggle and doubt.
The "Gold Diggers" films of the 1930s provided dazzling distraction from the economic hardships of the times. Busby Berkeley's choreography could make even poverty picturesque, while the antic plots celebrated showgirls who lived by their wits but ultimately let love rule. The fact that their hearts usually steered them toward wealthy suitors only made the atmosphere bubblier. In these films, gold diggers could sometimes be conniving, but could plead that they were just looking out for themselves. They represented American pragmatism in a rapidly changing time.
From the Depression on, the gold digger has remained a complicated comic figure in pop culture, a female trickster who upends the boys' club by playing a traditional female role. Independent but not exactly feminist, a champion of the underdog who's not above pulling some tricks to benefit herself, she represents the possibilities and limits of individual empowerment in arenas dominated by men.
Madonna herself refashioned Marilyn Monroe's portrayal of the diamond-loving Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a 1949 gold digger film, into her "Material Girl" identity. Though in the video she plays the gold-hearted vintage vamp, the song has a twist that makes it very 1980s and all Madonna: "Experience has made me rich and now they're after me," she sings, putting herself forward as the working woman who'll make her own material world, thank you very much.
A few other women have taken on the persona since Madonna christened herself the Material Girl in 1985, but the most noteworthy gold digger of the new century is the one Kanye West described in his hit of 2005. Tweaking a Ray Charles sample (in the original song, the woman gives her man money instead of taking it), West offers a wry meditation on the risky intersections of lust and money.
He admires the gold digger he takes to task -- "Get down girl, go ahead, get down," he chants in the chorus, resigning himself to her charms even when he knows he should demand a pre-nup. And the last verse suggests that a man can be a gold digger too, though on a more modest scale. Admonishing a put-upon girlfriend to stay with her struggling, would-be "baller," West concludes by joking that when he does make it, he'll dump her for a white woman.
The scenario West paints in his song is the same one in which Madonna's offhand bash at Ritchie resonates. When materialism has gone too far, whether in a scene like hip-hop or in a marriage like that of the Ritchies, it can become impossible to separate money hunger from other forms of lust, or love.
It's a sad scenario, and particularly repulsive now that the whole culture's greed is backfire. It's too bad Madonna's least attractive side is now making her more relevant, but you gotta hand it to the woman: she can still tap into our rawest nerve.

Madonna: 'Sarah Palin Isn't Welcome On Tour'

Madonna has made her dislike for Sarah Palin very clear by banning the politician from attending her world tour.
The singer shared her political views whilst performing a show in New Jersey as part of her Sticky & Sweet tour.
She told the crowd: "Sarah Palin can't come to my party. Sarah Palin can't come to my show. It's nothing personal,"
And this outburst against the Republican party is not the first for Madge.
On her current tour she used John McCain's image in a video clip alongside scences of destruction, global warming, starving children and Adolf Hitler.
A spokesperson for McCain's campaign said Madonna's actions were, “outrageous, unacceptable and crudely divisive all at the same time.”
It seems the superstar is walking a fine line. Speaking of lines see Madonna's straight face here

Suspect In Murders Of Jennifer Hudson's Mom, Brother In Custody

Singer/actress' nephew is still considered missing.
considered missing.
Although Chicago police had yet to officially confirm, police sources tell the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune that a suspect in the double-homicide of Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother has been taken into custody.
Earlier Friday (October 24), Chicago police told MTV News they had responded to a call shortly before 3 p.m. at a South Side residence belonging to Hudson's mother, Darnell Hudson Donerson, where they found both Donerson and Hudson's older brother, Jason, who had been shot and killed. Donerson was 57 years old; Jason was 29.
Chicago Police Deputy Chief Joseph Patterson told reporters in a press conference that neighbors reported hearing shots between 8 and 9 a.m. Friday. Patterson said a family member found the body of Donerson in the living room Friday afternoon and left the house to call police. When authorities arrived, they found Jason Hudson in a bedroom. Patterson said there was no sign of forced entry, and police were unsure if anything was missing from the house.
Chicago police told MTV News that William Balfour was a suspect in the double-homicide, which may have arisen from a domestic situtation; the Sun Times reported that Balfour is the suspect who was taken into custody. Balfour, 27, was out on parole from the Illinois River Correctional Center on attempted murder, carjacking and stolen-property charges, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to serve seven years in 1999. He's 5-foot-5 and weighs 147 pounds. Police called him "armed and dangerous."
A Corrections rep said that Balfour was paroled in 2006; he was set to be discharged from that parole in May 2009.
Balfour was romantically involved with the singer/actress' sister Julia, who identified Balfour as her husband on her MySpace page. Balfour had been living at the residence and shared vehicle registration with Julia.
Julia's 7-year-old son, Julian King, was declared missing in the aftermath of the shooting. According to the Amber Alert issued for King, he is wearing a brown, striped polo shirt and khaki pants. He is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds and has brown eyes and black hair. Despite reports that a suspect is in custody, Chicago police stressed to MTV News that King is still considered missing.
According to public records, the home is owned by Hudson's mother, but both Jennifer and Jason have been listed as residents for the second apartment. A neighbor, Vanessa Stanton, told ABC News, "Jason was a good person. His mom was too."
The Tribune reported that Hudson is not injured, according to her bodyguard. ABC News reported that Hudson was traveling to Chicago from Tampa, Florida. Her representative had no comment yet.

Obama vs. His Advisers

On health care, they once liked McCain's principles.

One underreported story of this election is how heavily John McCain has been damaged by Barack Obama's television ad assault on his health-care plan. A lot of voters seem to believe the Democrat when he says that Mr. McCain wants to deny them coverage or bankrupt them with crushing hospital bills.

Mr. McCain has himself to blame for not defending his own reform ideas, during the debates and in TV ads, against attacks that have been misleading when not flat-out false. Even so, Mr. Obama's tactics are especially cynical because his own health-care advisers support plans much like Mr. McCain's. Or at least they did before joining up with Mr. Obama.
Put simply, the McCain plan seeks to remedy a distortion in the health-care market that economists have spent decades begging politicians to fix: The tax code subsidizes insurance only if it is provided through employers. Individuals can't take the same tax deduction for buying insurance that businesses can. So Mr. McCain wants to "spread the wealth" of these tax breaks to individuals of any income through a refundable tax credit, no matter where they get coverage.
"The fact that the tax subsidy, which supports the employer-sponsored system, is better than nothing is a feeble excuse for resisting any changes to the status quo." That's not John McCain's judgment. It's a quote from Jason Furman, who happens to be Mr. Obama's economic policy director. In a cri de coeur published in the journal Democracy in 2006, Mr. Furman implored fellow Democrats and other progressives to confront "a critical missing link" in their health ideology -- the same link his boss now spends most of his time demagoguing.
Mr. Furman used to portray the current system as regressive, inequitable and a subsidy for health plans that insulate consumers from the cost of their care, thus inflating health spending. When he was director of the Brooking Institution's Hamilton Project, Mr. Furman outlined a health reform -- again using tax credits -- that took the "sensible approach" of "exposing individuals to the price of health care through greater cost sharing."
When President Bush unveiled a health reform similar to Mr. McCain's in 2007, Mr. Furman co-authored a Tax Policy Center paper that called it "innovative and a step in the right direction." As recently as May, he published a long article in Health Affairs on the possibilities of health-care tax reform.
What a difference an election makes. "The choice you'll have," Mr. Obama warned of the McCain plan during one of the debates, "is having your employer no longer provide you health care." Sounds terrible. But wait, let's consult another one of Mr. Obama's advisers. David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard, put it this way: "Health insurance is not something that is made better by tying it to employment. As a result, essentially all economists believe that universal coverage should be done outside of employment."
That passage comes from Mr. Cutler's 2004 book, "Your Money or Your Life," which outlined a strategy for universal health care. Not surprisingly, Professor Cutler's plan, like Mr. McCain's, also applied subsidies such as "tax credits -- people get a lower tax bill, or a refund from the government, to be used to purchase insurance." In this he was echoing many other liberal health experts such as MIT's Jonathan Gruber, another Democratic policy star.
These advisers know that Mr. Obama's claim that Mr. McCain will tax health benefits "for the first time in history" is particularly disingenuous. For people who stick with employer coverage under the McCain plan, the money employers take out of wages to pay for insurance would be taxed, but the new credit more than covers the bill. The people who decide to buy coverage on their own would see their wages rise. And everyone who joins the individual market -- many of them uninsured now -- would be equipped with new health dollars, instead of paying with after-tax income.
Obviously neither Mr. Furman nor Mr. Cutler would endorse the McCain plan outright. They are, after all, Democrats. Liberals who support rearranging the tax code for health care think it must be accompanied by other insurance reforms to protect families in the individual market that Mr. McCain doesn't include. Even so, speaking on a Tax Policy Center panel on taxes and health insurance in February of this year, Mr. Furman said that "I think we should be cheerleading" the emphasis on tax reform, "not writing it off."
He even prefaced his remarks by joking, "this talk might actually sound like a John McCain rally." Maybe Mr. Obama should be running attack ads against his own economic guru.

The best cancer-fighting foods

A doctor with a malignant tumor changes his diet to stave off his disease

was diagnosed with brain cancer about 16 years ago. I received chemotherapy and went into remission, but the cancer came back and I endured two surgeries and 13 months of chemotherapy. I asked my oncologist if I ought to change my diet to avoid another recurrence. His answer was perfectly stereotypical: "Eat what you like. It won't make much difference."He was wrong.The extensive research published in the last decade alone proves that what you eat can have a profound effect on your protection against cancer. But my doctor's answer was hardly surprising. It's a little-known fact that nutrition is barely taught in med schools, where the solution to most problems is a drug. And doctors don't trust patients to make lifestyle changes. I recall a conversation with a fellow physician at a conference after I spoke on the importance of a healthy diet in fighting disease. "You may be right, David, but people don't want to change," he said. "They just want to take a pill and forget about it." I don't know whether he's right, but after all the study I've done, I know it isn't true for me.I spent months researching the healing powers of food before I fully grasped my own natural cancer-fighting potential. I met with a variety of researchers, scoured medical databases, and combed scientific publications. I traveled all over the world and consulted experts from nearly every continent.In my quest, I discovered that the list of anticancer foods is actually quite long. Some foods block natural bodily processes such as inflammation that fuels cancer growth. Others force cancer cells to die through a process that specialists call apoptosis. Still other foods assist the body in detoxifying cancer-causing toxins or protecting against free radicals. But most of them attack the disease on a variety of fronts. And they do it every day, three times a day, without provoking any side effects. To avoid the disease, it's essential to take advantage of this natural protection, and nurture it.I've learned that the anticancer diet is the exact opposite of the typical American meal: mostly colorful vegetables and legumes, plus unsaturated fats (olive, canola, or flaxseed oils), garlic, herbs, and spices. Meat and eggs are optional. Through extensive research, I devised a list of the most promising cancer fighters, along with recommendations on how to make the most of their potential. Include at least one, and preferably two, at every meal, to maximize your protection.To date, there is no alternative approach that can cure cancer, and I believe that the best of conventional medicine — surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and soon, molecular genetics — must be used to treat this disease. But to neglect your own natural cancer-fighting capacity is folly. I've kept cancer at bay for 8 years now, and I attribute my survival largely to the changes I've made in my diet and lifestyle. I exercise and meditate more and eat wholesome anticancer foods on a daily basis. Still, the medical establishment is slow to embrace this approach. After my last screening at the university's cancer center, I stopped at the cafeteria and discovered eight different types of tea: Darjeeling, Earl Grey, chamomile, and several fruit-flavored herbal teas. Sadly, there was not a single packet of green tea in the lot.

Microsoft profit up 2 percent, but outlook soft

Microsoft is still churning out big profits, but its decision to trim its sails shows that even the world's largest software maker is feeling the effects of the choppy economy.
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday its fiscal first-quarter profit edged up 2 percent, buoyed by corporate customers that renewed licenses for servers and other business programs.
But Microsoft's guidance for the current quarter was weaker than Wall Street was expecting. Its shares rose then dipped in extended trading as investors digested the news.
"We, like most companies, saw a slowdown at the tail end of the quarter in particular," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said in an interview. "We're now taking a more conservative stance on the balance of the year."
Liddell said the worst hit among Microsoft's customers in the just-concluded quarter were small- and medium-sized businesses that "perhaps are more affected by the credit squeeze and who perhaps make decisions on a month-by-month basis."
In a conference call with investors, Liddell said Microsoft will "tailor our business to whatever the economy brings."
The CFO said Microsoft will trim operating expenses by $400 million to $500 million in the fiscal year by slowing hiring, cutting marketing expenses and spending less on building the massive data centers that prop up its online business.
"Microsoft isn't known for great spending restraint," said Edward Jones analyst Andy Miedler in an interview. "It is clear that Microsoft is now watching its expenses very closely, which is important in this challenging economy."
In the three months that ended Sept. 30, Microsoft's earnings rose to $4.37 billion, or 48 cents per share, from $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per share in the same period last year.
Sales improved 9 percent to $15.1 billion.
Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations on both counts. Analysts, on average, predicted the Redmond, Wash.-based company would earn 47 cents per share on $14.8 billion in sales, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.
The software maker highlighted a 20 percent third-quarter jump in sales of multiyear contracts to businesses, which helped boost revenue for Microsoft's server software group and the division that makes Office productivity software.
The server group's profit increased 20 percent to $1.2 billion, while the division responsible for Office software saw earnings jump 23 percent to $3.3 billion.
The Windows division's profit, on the other hand, slipped 4 percent to $3.3 billion. Microsoft, which recently launched a massive new advertising campaign to trumpet Windows' virtues, attributed part of the decline to higher marketing expenses.
The company also blamed some of that decrease on the rising popularity of netbooks, a class of small, inexpensive laptops that on the whole aren't powerful enough to run the souped-up, pricer versions of Windows Vista.
Sid Parakh, an analyst for McAdams Wright Ragen, said Microsoft also drops the price it charges PC makers for installing Windows on laptops that cost so little.
Microsoft also said revenue from PC makers like Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. sank 1 percent as those companies bought a smaller percentage of higher-priced "premium" versions of Windows Vista.
Microsoft's online division widened its loss in the quarter to $480 million from $270 million last year as the company continues to invest heavily in the unit. Liddell said Web advertising revenue improved 15 percent, with search ads bringing in more than graphical "display ads." That's much stronger than the 1 percent gain Yahoo Inc. reported this week in its online ad revenue.
Liddell said Microsoft's outlook for the current quarter was lower than expected because of an across-the-board slowdown, not pain in one particular area. Microsoft expects to earn 51 to 53 cents per share, on sales of $17.3 billion to $17.8 billion.
Analysts were predicting a profit of 55 cents per share on $18 billion in sales.
Shares of Microsoft slipped 21 cents, or almost 1 percent, to $22.11 in after-hours trading. In the regular session they added 79 cents, or 3.7 percent, to end at $22.32.

Computing Awards: Best IT Strategy shortlist

Computing Awards for Excellence: Best IT Strategy shortlist
Berwin Leighton Paisner
A green IT strategy has already produced results at the law firm. New laptops lowered energy consumption, investment in blade server technology saved space and power, and use of virtualisation has increased performance and resource utilisation. Introducing new printers and electronic filing has reduced the amount of paper required, and helped staff to work more efficiently.
Liverpool Direct
Liverpool Direct is a joint venture between BT and Liverpool City Council. Over the past seven years the partnership has modernised datacentres, rationalised its servers, introduced digital telephony, improved web services and hosting, and upgraded the local and metropolitan area network. This has led to lower power consumption and emissions, plus cost reductions.
PDSA
IT plays an important role at the veterinary charity. This year it began updating its IT strategy and has implemented data warehousing and analysis. A wide-ranging intranet is in pilot, and a major overhaul of all veterinary systems is due to take place soon. The IT strategy has had input from all areas of the business.
Swiftcover.com
The insurer’s IT strategy has three objectives: To build an agile IT platform, to maintain an innovative online service, and to increase revenue opportunities in insurance aggregator sites. All areas of the business had input into the strategy ­ an effort that delivered industry firsts.
VocaLink
VocaLink implemented the hub of the Faster Payments service in May, providing near real-time interbank money transfers. It operates under ever increasing volumes, continually exceeding performance expectations.

Top 10 best features found in laptop computers

With the recent release of the new Apple MacBook Air, which is apparently crafted out of a single block of metal, we've decided to have a look about for some other impressive sounding laptops.
If you have a niche requirement such as: "I only want a laptop that is carved from a piece of aluminium", then this is the place to look. The products below are neat devices that could get you out of a spot of bother - whether that is at the oversized baggage counter, or on the top of a cliff in a heavy downpour. Here you will find laptops that can stand falling off desks; laptops that could save the planet; and notebooks that can survive the British weather.
Which is the toughest?
Is the Panasonic Toughbook the toughest notebook? It certainly looks like it. Not only does it look like a briefcase that could withstand a bomb blast, but it can stand a fall of almost a metre. We think that this means that it could fall off the top of Jeanette Krankie's head without breaking. Disturbingly, the web site has a picture of an elephant stamping on one (a Toughbook, that is, not a Krankie). We presume that this is to demonstrate its toughness, rather than the fact that one disgruntled user happens to be an elephant.
Which is the most waterproof?
On its web site Getac shows its notebooks being exposed to a multi-directional shower - putting us in mind of certain other online videos that you wouldn’t find on our site. It certainly looks waterproof, everything is sealed and the water just runs off the keyboard. Unless they are prepared to send one in, we can't say whether it would withstand a large dose of cider, and at almost £5000 you could not call it a drop in the ocean either.
Which is the thinnest?
There is a lot of competition here, but the aforementioned MacBook Air is so thin it is almost not there. According to Apple it is almost as thin as your index finger which is presumably the digit that Apple chief Steve Jobs sticks in the air in the direction of his competitors - at least those competitors that might be as slim, but only get a thin slice of the sales pie. But really, how thin is too thin? Do you actually want to lose your laptop down a crack in the pavement?
Which laptop is most likely to be used to save the world?
The fact that an Apple iBook in the film Independence Day was used to send a computer virus to marauding aliens prompted blog comments such as: "Are the aliens using RS-232, or USB 1 or 2, or maybe Firewire. Maybe Ethernet or maybe Token Ring. I can't believe the aliens would use our physical interface specifications." Of course, we believe everything the former Fresh Prince says or does. Speaking of the Prince, his song Boom, Boom Shake the Room reminds us that the next entrant is:
Which laptop is least likely to blow itself up? A tough choice this one, quite a few vendors have been forced to withdraw their devices following battery-based explosive incidents. In this case it was made even harder by the fact that our own piece of equipment decided to turn itself into an incendiary device during the research process. Feel free to contribute your own experiences so we can compile a definitive list.
Which is the most powerful?
CompAmerica appears to lay claim to the title of most powerful laptop. It's Orca Extreme is certainly pretty consistently harpooned by our researchers. Although the firm has given itself a name that surely is the first out of the end of a screenwriter's fingertips, it actually calls itself the best little computer company in the world. Which is nice. When it comes to the Orca Extreme in question, it's specifications are anything but little.
Which is the most expensive?
The Ego notebook is surely a major contender here, and cream of the crop is its Bentley model. The laptop is clad in Bentley leather and stamped with the iconic Bentley logo. It even has what looks like a Bentley door handle on it. There are only 250 in the world, and it will most likely set you back £10,000. Still, at least its never going to get you a parking ticket.
Which laptop really should never have been lost?
Is the Ministry of Defence’s infamous lost laptop the most inappropriate device to find itself in the wrong hands? Possibly. Unfortunately, we are loathe to write too much about government bodies and their laptops in case they start investigating us. And we would hate to find our personal information falling into the wrong hands. Which has the strangest keyboard?
Sony has a Vaio with the snappy title VGC-LJ25L, that looks the least like a laptop out of all the ones we've seen so far. Sure, it has a 15.4in wide display, but below that everything goes a bit odd. Ever specifically wanted a laptop with only half a keyboard? Then this should go at the top of your Christmas list.
Which is most likely to act as a girlfriend repellent?
NEC's Himitsu Kitchi Type No-1, which it co-designed with the toy maker Takara, looks like the ultimate gamer boy’s-toy laptop, which surely can’t ever be seen as a good thing. It looks like something that would fill the centre of a control panel in a tank, and even has an LED message panel and emergency alarm button. If you are on the look out for one, be warned, there were only ever 300 made, which is somewhat less than the number of single guys out there.

Surprise, Surprise: E-Voting Glitches Found In Early Voting

from the this-is-a-surprise? dept
The GAO had warned that there would be some pretty massive e-voting problems this year, as election officials were not properly trained on the already problematic machines, so it should come as little surprise that over in West Virginia, the "early voting" procedures have resulted in numerous complaints that the e-voting machines selected the wrong candidate. The scenario is depressingly similar to the one that The Simpsons predicted, where the voter selects one name, and the other one shows up as highlighted. Poll workers told them to just keep clicking until the right one was chosen, and noted that the machines have "just been doing that." What's more depressing is how everyone involved seems to brush this off as no big deal. Officials claimed that these "were isolated cases and that poll workers fixed the problems so the correct vote was cast." That may be true of the two people that CNN spoke too, but who knows if others got the machines to work properly. And then there's West Virginia's Secretary of State, Betty Ireland , who basically pulled a page from Sequoia's playbook, of covering her eyes and ears and screaming loudly that everything is fine:
"There are no problems with the machines as recalibrated. Touch-screen voting in West Virginia is accurate and secure." Because you say so? As opposed to those who are actually voting and finding it's not? That's comforting. In this case, the machines are supplied by ES&S whose machines (like both Sequoia and Diebold) have a relatively long history of screwing up at election time. ES&S is also the company where an employee of the company showed up here to berate us and insist that no independent experts should be allowed to look at the machines and that they were safe and reliable because those working at these firms knew better than the rest of us. It's as if the e-voting companies and the politicians think that if they just keep repeating it, maybe it will become true.

Intel teams with Oprah Winfrey for ad campaign

Intel and Oprah Winfrey. You don't hear these two words often in the same sentence, but perhaps you may want to get used it, at least for this year. Intel announced today that that for the 2008-2009 season, it will be partnering up with the popular talk show host for an ad campaign emphasizing the power of their processors as well as the company's investment in education. The partnership seems to have been in the works for a while, as tomorrow's O You! event in San Francisco, California, will be made live at www.oyouonline.com, powered, of course, by Intel Centrino 2 processors.O You! is an annual self-help event hosted by the Oprah Magazine where the publication's lead specialists come in and talk to those attending. Intel, obviously attracted by the mass following of Ms. Winfrey's media network, is hoping to tap into her viewers. Although Oprah Show watchers are probably not in Intel's target demographic, the company presumably wants to capitalize on increased name recognition afforded by the campaign. Whether this turns out to be a productive measure, however, remains to be seen.

Lil Wayne Welcomes A Baby Boy

Rapper had announced that he was expecting a son during the BET Hip-Hop Awards.

Lil Wayne said on Saturday that he'd be the father of a baby boy any day now, and he wasn't kidding.
Wayne's son, Dwayne Carter III, was born Wednesday afternoon (October 22), at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, a rep for the rapper told MTV News. It's Carter's second child. He has a daughter, Reginae Carter, with Antonia "Toya" Johnson, his high school sweetheart, whom he married in 2004 and divorced two years later.
The identity of the boy's mother had not been announced at press time.
Wayne revealed during the BET Hip-Hop Awards that the birth of his son was imminent. He made the announcement during his acceptance speech, after being named Lyricist of the Year.
While changing diapers is in Wayne's immediate future, the MC is prepping the re-release of his latest LP, Tha Carter III. The rapper said the reissue wouldn't be like most reissues, which typically include only one or two unreleased tracks.
"I think we're gonna release Tha Carter III — a new Carter III with none of the same songs, though," he told MTV News recently. "None of them. Not one! We don't wanna call the [next album] we got coming out Tha Carter IV. That was the dilemma we were in. We want Carter IV to be what everybody wants it to be. This is something brand-new, so we don't want it to be some experimental thing, 'cause some people are not gonna like this. I don't want them to not like Tha Carter IV. But I do have an album coming soon, very soon, and it's gonna be called ... Tha Carter III: The Rebirth. The birth of a new beginning."

Beyonce would like to be known as "Sasha Fierce"

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) – Just like the "Seinfeld" episode where George wanted everyone to call him "T-Bone," Beyonce Knowles would like to be known by a bold new name.
The R&B singer has christened herself "Sasha Fierce" for her new double album, "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," due in U.S. stores on November 18, and has released a lengthy justification for the comical moniker.
"I have someone else that takes over when it's time for me to work and when I'm on stage, this alter ego that I've created that kind of protects me and who I really am," the former Destiny's Child frontwoman said in a statement.
"Sasha Fierce is the fun, more sensual, more aggressive, more outspoken side and more glamorous side that comes out when I'm working and when I'm on the stage."
Additionally, she has set up a cryptic MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/sashafierce) that gives a "lucky person" the opportunity to receive a personal message and a gift bag valued at $500.
As George found out, nicknames usually do not work when they are self-bestowed. His colleagues thought he should be called Koko the monkey. In real life, rapper Eminem had better luck with his alter ego "Slim Shady," which he said came to him while he was on the toilet.
Beyonce released her previous solo album, "B'Day," to coincide with her 25th birthday in September 2006. It debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop chart and yielded the No. 1 single "Irreplaceable."
"I Am ... Sasha Fierce" will be distributed by Columbia Records, a unit of Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment.

Jay-Z: I'm voting for Obama"

Jay-Z: I'm voting for Obama"
Tuesday October 21, 2008
Jay-Z and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama have been trading compliments throughout this election season. Obama compliments Jay for his entrepreneurial endeavors in interviews; Jay, on the other hand, describes himself as the "hood's Barack Obama" in song. So, it should come as no surprise that the hip-hop mogul is casting is vote for Obama. Watch the video below to see Jay-Z proclaim his support for Obama.

Ciara Gets Motivated By Sports Stars

Ciara says she looks to the inspiration of basketball players to drive her music career.
"I take my motivation from athletes - basketball players in particular," the R&B star tells Men's Health magazine.
"I love LeBron James because he's my age and full of ambition and drive. I love Michael Jordan... there was so much pressure, but he pulled through every time."
"That energy motivates me," Ciara adds.
"When it comes to my career, there's nothing more exciting than being successful at the highest possible level."

John McCain And Barack Obama Sharpen Attacks In Final Presidential Debate

Candidates take the gloves off to fight over negative campaigning, taxes, abortion and health care.
Forget Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. The real winner at Wednesday night's presidential debate was a guy from Ohio called "Joe the Plumber."
In their most bare-knuckle meeting yet, the men vying for the White House got personal at Hofstra University during a 90-minute debate focused on domestic issues ranging from the tanking economy to education, abortion and the Supreme Court.
(Which candidate do you think won the debate? Go to the MTV Newsroom blog to weigh in.)
Both candidates sharpened their attacks and tried to give one final impression of his opponent — McCain again painting Obama as a typical big-spending liberal who is going to raise taxes, Obama repeating his assertion that McCain will continue the failed policies of President Bush. But they also veered off topic to air dirty campaign laundry and argue over who was going to do more to help Joe the Plumber.
As the candidates sat at a large table within a few feet of each other and moderator Bob Schieffer, McCain went on offense early in the evening, responding with a snap to an early assertion from Obama that the Arizona senator would keep up the policies that have led to the biggest national deficits in American history.
"Essentially, what you are proposing is eight more years of the same thing — and it hasn't worked," Obama said. "And the American people know it hasn't worked."
Looking like he'd been waiting to unwrap the line for weeks, McCain responded to a question about whether he could balance the budget in four years by saying, "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." The line was already being called out as the quote of the evening by many pundits moments after the debate ended, but it did not throw the calm, measured Obama — whom some Republican commentators on CNN called "professorial" and cold during the debate.
One of the most heated exchanges of the night, though, came when Schieffer brought up the relentlessly negative tone of the campaign and asked both men if they would repeat to each other's face some of their campaigns' nastiest charges.
McCain sounded genuinely hurt when recounting a recent comment from Representative John Lewis, who said that McCain and running mate Sarah Palin were stoking the fires of hatred much like 1960s segregationist George Wallace did. McCain asked Obama to repudiate Lewis' comments, and Obama said he had already done so.
When the question came up again about what proposals they could cut given the current financial disaster, Obama once more appeared to talk around the answer. He mentioned cutting the $15 billion spent per year on insurance company subsidies and said the answer is to invest in education, health care and energy policies. McCain pointed to several obscure budget items, including marketing assistance programs, ethanol subsidies and tariffs on imported sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil.
But back to Joe the Plumber. According to The New York Times, he is Joe Wurzelbacher, a small-business owner from Ohio who was seen speaking to Obama earlier this week. He became a running example during the night of how differently the two candidates plan to fix what ails the country. McCain said Obama wants to tax people like Joe out of business and force them to buy health care while attempting to "spread the wealth around" to lower-income Americans. Obama said the opposite was true, that he wants to give Joe a tax break right now.
"You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket, which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him to not be able to employ people, which Joe was trying to realize the American dream," McCain said, accusing Obama of engaging in "class warfare." He asked Obama why he would want to increase taxes in the current economic climate.
"Now, Senator Obama talks about the very, very rich. Joe, I want to tell you, I'll not only help you buy that business that you worked for your whole life and be able ... I'll keep your taxes low, and I'll provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees," McCain said.
Obama reiterated that his plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, adding that an independent study found that his plan provided three times the tax relief to the middle class as Senator McCain's. "Now the conversation I had with Joe the plumber, what I essentially said to him was, 'Five years ago, when you were in a position to buy your business, you needed a tax cut then,' " Obama responded.
The elephant in the room, though, was the William Ayers question. McCain's camp had, until this week, been daily questioning Obama's truthfulness and judgment by attempting to link him to the 1960s radical, and McCain had vowed to bring Ayers up for the first time in person on Wednesday night. Obama smiled when the subject finally was on the table and said, "Mr. Ayers is not involved in this campaign, he has never been involved in my campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House." Obama added that the fact that McCain keeps bringing up Ayers, "says more about your campaign than it says about me."
McCain also questioned Obama's association with the community organization ACORN, which has been accused of hiring workers whose job it was to sign up new voters, but some of whom filled out their forms with phony names. McCain accused the organization of being "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Obama said his campaign has nothing to do with ACORN and that he represented the organization years ago as part of a "Motor Voter" project in Illinois to register voters at their DMV offices.
While McCain accused Obama of spending more money on negative ads than any campaign in history, Obama shot back that McCain has run "100 percent" negative ads, an assertion McCain refuted. "This has been a tough campaign," McCain said, suggesting that if perhaps Obama had agreed to his suggestion for 10 town-hall style meetings, it might have been less nasty.
"The American people are less interested in our hurt feelings during the course of the campaign than addressing the issues that matter to them so deeply," Obama countered, noting that McCain's own campaign said last week that they would lose the race if they kept talking about the economy.
And when it came down to those issues, both men made it very clear that they do not see eye to eye on most of them. In response to a question about why they thought the country would be better off if their running mate became president, Obama said his VP pick, Senator Joseph Biden, "is one of the finest public servants" in the country's history, with a long list of foreign policy credentials and strong ties to his working-class roots. McCain praised Palin as a "reformer" and "role model to women," who would be a "breath of fresh air" in Washington. Obama ducked a follow-up about whether Palin would be qualified, but McCain said he thought Biden had been wrong on "many foreign-policy and national-security issues" over the years.
Painting Obama as being in concert with "extreme environmentalists" in saying nuclear power isn't safe, McCain said he would deal with climate change by building 45 new nuclear power plants and investing in clean technologies. Obama said he thought it would take 10 years, not four as McCain suggested, to wean American off foreign oil.
They clashed once again on health care, hitting at one another's plans in much the same way as they have in previous debates, but with Joe the Plumber getting into the mix this time when McCain talked about his claims that Obama's plan would fine those who don't sign up, a claim Obama again refuted.
One of the pivotal issues in any presidential campaign, abortion, finally came up when the candidates were asked if they could ever nominate a Supreme Court justice who disagreed with their stance on the Roe vs. Wade decision. McCain, who is against abortion, said he has never imposed a litmus test and said he would look for "the best people ... in the United States" for the job.
Obama, who is pro-choice and wants to uphold Roe vs. Wade, said he would also look for judges with "an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect and who hopefully have a sense of what real-world folks are going through." McCain lashed at Obama over his voting record while in the Illinois Senate — at one point attempting to tie Obama to the most "extreme" proponents of abortion.
But the men agreed that more needs to be done to prevent unintended pregnancies and that reforming education is so critical as to be a national security issue. Both vowed to give parents more choice and provide funding for more affordable college loans.
McCain ended by saying, "All of these things and all the promises and commitments that Senator Obama and I made to you tonight will ... be based on whether you can trust us or not to be careful stewards of your tax dollar, to make sure America is safe and secure and prosperous, to make sure we reform the institutions of government. That's why I've asked you not only to examine my record, but my proposals for the future of this country."
Saying investing in tax cuts for the middle class, health care for all Americans and college for every young person is necessary, but won't be easy, Obama signed off by admitting that "it's not going to be quick. It is going to be requiring all of us — Democrats, Republicans, independents — to come together and to renew a spirit of sacrifice and service and responsibility. I'm absolutely convinced we can do it. I would ask for your vote, and I promise you that if you give me the extraordinary honor of serving as your president, I will work every single day, tirelessly, on your behalf and on the behalf of the future of our children."
A New York Times/CBS News poll released Tuesday night suggested that the negative campaigning from McCain's camp was not working, with 60 percent of the voters surveyed saying they thought McCain spent more time attacking Obama than explaining what he would do as president to help the country, while 63 percent said they thought Obama has spent more time explaining his policies than attacking McCain.
With Obama up by 8 points and 8 percent of voters still undecided, according to the latest CNN poll, with 8 percent of voters still undecided, both men are scrambling to reach those voters who have not yet made up their minds in the final 20 days of the campaign. It remains to be seen if their performance Wednesday night will be able to tip those scales.

Janet Jackson resumes tour after bout of vertigo

WASHINGTON - Janet Jackson took the stage to exploding fireworks, clouds of smoke and the sounds of some early hits Wednesday in her first concert since she was sidelined for two weeks by a bout of vertigo.
Sporting a huge mohawk and light-colored body suit, the Grammy-winning performer opened with "Pleasure Principle," followed by "What Have You Done for Me Lately" from her 1986 album "Control." Soon after, she sang her latest single, "Feedback."
"It feels so good to be back after being down just a little bit," Jackson told the crowd at the less-than-full Verizon Center.
The two-hour, high-energy show went smoothly, but Jackson did appear winded at times. At one point, she paused to admire her backup dancers, and the audience roared with approval.
"She was perfect. If she was sick, she's not sick anymore," said Maurice Bell, 28, of Washington. "She can still do it at 42."
At the end of the show, a teary-eyed Jackson told the crowd: "I love you D.C. so much."
Jackson's publicist said Wednesday she has been suffering from migraine-associated vertigo, which led to her canceling a string of shows. She is being treated for the illness, which is characterized by dizziness, imbalance and other symptoms.
"She's a world-class entertainer and needs to be at the top of her game to give her fans the show they expect," Jackson's manager, Kenneth Crear, said in a release. "She's feeling much better and is ready to hit the road again to finish the tour."
Crear said Jackson is feeling better and ready to continue her first North American tour in seven years. Upcoming stops include Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, New York and East Rutherford, N.J.

Facebook kills fresher butterflies

ANYONE WHO has been to university knows that the first couple of weeks can be a daunting and somewhat frightening time – which is why the University of Leicester has come up with a solution.
Research by those at the university has found that many freshers use the internet to ease the settling in period.
The most obvious solution to the loneliness problem seemed to point to using platforms students were already familiar with, such as social networking sites, in order to help the new arrivals get their bearings.
Following this discovery the University of Leicester has decided to take this knowledge and apply it to improving the entire student experience beyond the first two weeks at Uni.
The foundations of these improvements lie in the study which concludes that “Facebook is part of the social glue that helps students settle into university life”. Which sounds unhealthy, but really isn’t.
The study looks into how students use Facebook, and how it actually helps with progression through university.
The researchers claim, “We know little about how this phenomenon impacts on the student experience and, in particular, if and how it facilitates new students’ social integration into University life.
Our project focused on how pre-registration engagement with the University of Leicester Facebook network influences students’ post-registration social networks and their understanding of the University.”
This research went just slightly further still by utilising this online tool to help students with support services and by helping academic departments to enhance the social and academic integration of students.
A survey just over 220 first-year students from just before university began this year found that more than half had joined Facebook to make new pals before arriving at uni, while a further 43 percent joined immediately after starting.
However, the survey also found that 41 percent of students were against being contacted directly by tutors via Facebook – Universities, while using this tool for good use, need to tread carefully in order to keep the distinction between academia and social time.
There would of course be nothing worse than a lecturer logging on to find that most students hadn’t attended the day’s lecture because of the “banging party” in Block A.
The team that conducted the research is now beginning a second phase of the study. µ

Your ‘pure’ bottled water has contaminants, too

Tests on leading brands of bottled water turned up a variety of contaminants, including cancer-linked chemicals three times higher than California's health standard, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental advocacy group.
The findings challenge the popular impression — and marketing pitch — that bottled water is purer than tap water, the researchers say.
However, all the brands met federal health standards for drinking water. And most of the detected contaminants are common in tap water, too.

McCain caught in DMCA flap

Video-sharing site YouTube has declined to give special treatment to Republican presidential candidate John McCain over digital millenium copyright act (DMCA) claims.
In an exchange of letters, the site and McCain's campaign staff engaged in a debate over the controversial law, which requires web sites to take down content which contains copyrighted material at the request of the copyright holder in order. McCain voted to approve the DMCA in 1998.
The issue surrounds campaign videos produced by McCain which contained clips from broadcasts by Fox News. The network contended that McCain was illegally using is copyrighted broadcasts in the advertisements and filed a DMCA claim to have the video clips removed from the internet.
McCain's campaign sent a letter to YouTube asking the site to allow the clips to remain online while it was determined whether the videos constituted fair use, a series of protections which allows individuals to use copyrighted clips under certain circumstances. Earlier this year, US courts decided that copyright holders had the responsibility to consider fair use before filing a DMCA takedown claim.
The campaign contended that because the clips were brief and non-commercial in nature, they fell under the protections of fair use and as such should not be removed. The letter also suggested that the site extend special protections to political campaigns which would allow for a more thorough review before clips could be removed due to a DMCA claim.
YouTube countered in a letter contending that if the site complied with the campaign's request, it could lose the DMCA protections which shield sites from lawsuits. The site also said that, given the amount of video uploads it receives on a regular basis, it could not make special concessions to isolate and protect campaign videos.
"The fact remains that we do not know who uploaded what content in user vid eos, who uploaded the videos or what authorization the uploader may or may not have to use that content," read the letter.
"Moreover, while we agree with you that the US presidential election-related content is invaluable and worthy of the highest level of protection, there is a lot of other content on our global site that our users find to be equally important, including political campaigns from around the world at all levels of government, human rights movements, and other important voices."

Lil' Wayne gets a million dollar birthday present

My birthday was cool. I got a tattoo. And some gift certificates. And a lot of Facebook messages. I think maybe I need to rap and drink prescription cough syrup more.
WHATEVER happened to the trusty tenner in a card and a pint of lager for your birthday?
In the rap game you get a suitcase of cash, or it just ain’t worth bothering.
LIL WAYNE must be a fussy lad to buy for.
His mentor BIRDMAN, who he also calls his old man, presented the US rapper with a million dollars in cash at his birthday bash in Florida on Tuesday.

Britney Spears 'Sets The Record Straight' In Documentary Airing November 30 On MTV -- Check Out A Preview Here!

In the special, Britney reflects on hardships of the past few years: 'What the hell was I thinking?'
Possibly more than anyone on Earth, Britney Spears' life is constantly documented by the media, which voraciously reports on the singer's every step and misstep. But what's it like to be in her shoes?
With her new album, Circus, set for release in just a few weeks, the singer is ready to show the world her side of the story.
Britney has joined forces with MTV for a 90-minute documentary about her return to the pop-music spotlight. Tentatively titled "For the Record," the special is set to air on November 30 at 10 p.m. on MTV, two days before Circus is released on December 2 (the singer's 27th birthday).
"So much has gone on over the last couple of years and there's a lot that people don't know about me that I want them to know," Spears told MTV News in a statement about the special. "I wanted to make this film because I started to feel like I wasn't being seen in the light that I wanted to be seen in. This is an opportunity to set the record straight and talk about what I've been through and where I'm headed."
The documentary combines personal stories with behind-the-scenes footage of her comeback. Cameras follow her to the recording studio, to rehearsals, to press tours, to the video shoot for her latest single, "Womanizer," and even to her hometown in Louisiana. Backstage footage from her recent triumphant appearance at the Video Music Awards is also featured.
Through it all, we hear Britney talking about the hardships that led up to this comeback. "I've been through a lot, and there's a lot people don't know," she says in the film. "Sometimes it can get lonely 'cause you don't open the gate. I'm stuck in this place, and I just cope every day."
Britney also owns up to the mistakes the world has watched her make, and offers some telling insight into how she feels about it all now. "I sit there and I look back," she says, before asking rhetorically: "I'm a smart person, what the hell was I thinking?"
"For the Record" airs Sunday, November 30 at 10 p.m. ET on MTV.

T.I. has dual No. 1s but claims underdog status

Although T.I. owns both the No. 1 album and single in the country, the platinum-selling rapper says he still feels like the underdog.
"Nobody has ever given me a win and nobody has ever said, 'T.I., you know he's going to do this thing.' They always (say), 'He's not going to do this much, he's not going to do that good, I don't believe he'll do that well.' So its always been an uphill battle for me no matter how big I get I'm always the underdog," he said in an interview.
But the 28-year-old may not be able to claim that underdog title for long. His latest CD, "Paper Trail," sold more than 560,000 copies in its first week to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts, and his newest single, "Live Your Life" featuring Rihanna, supplanted the album's first single, "Whatever You Like," at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
The 28-year-old rapper made the comments before taking the stage at Diesel's 30th birthday celebration in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Saturday night. The circus-themed event for the apparel company featured mash-up performances; other artists performing included N.E.R.D., Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand, Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte, Chaka Khan and M.I.A., who performed her breakthrough Top 10 hit, "Paper Planes."
Other celebrities in attendance included Lindsay Lohan, "Gossip Girl" co-stars Chace Crawford and Taylor Momsen, actresses Emma Roberts and Zoe Kravitz, and former Destiny's Child member Michelle Williams.
T.I. also performed a song with the pregnant M.I.A., and called the lyricist "the hottest rap chick in the game right now, period." T.I. recently sampled "Paper Planes" for a collaboration with Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. The song, "Swagga Like Us," appears on "Paper Trail."
T.I. said the collaboration between the top rappers is a reflection of the respect they have for one another.
"It wasn't like I said let me get Jay, Wayne and Kanye on the same song," he said. "The song started off with me and Kanye and it was just me and Kanye, and mutual associates of all four of us suggested, 'Hey man, if Jay and Wayne were on here too, it'll be one of the biggest songs in hip-hop history.' So I said, 'You know what, that's a great idea. It's ambitious, but it's a great idea.' So we reached out and they agreed and it's a pleasure to have them involved."
The rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, was sentenced to one year in prison on federal weapons charges after he was arrested last October before the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta for allegedly trying to buy automatic weapons. He is scheduled to start his prison sentence in March 2009 after completing 1,000 hours of community service.
"It's a blessing to come from where I was at the beginning of the year all the way to right here," he said. "It's an honor and a privilege to assume such levels of achievement."

Kenya's elephants send text messages to rangers

The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.
Kenya is the first country to try elephant texting as a way to protect both a growing human population and the wild animals that now have less room to roam. Elephants are ranked as "near threatened" in the Red List, an index of vulnerable species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The race to save Kimani began two years ago. The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit.
So they placed a mobile phone SIM card in Kimani's collar, then set up a virtual "geofence" using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory's boundaries. Whenever Kimani approaches the virtual fence, his collar texts rangers.
They have intercepted Kimani 15 times since the project began. Once almost a nightly raider, he last went near a farmer's field four months ago.
It's a huge relief to the small farmers who rely on their crops for food and cash for school fees. Basila Mwasu, a 31-year-old mother of two, lives a stone's throw from the conservancy fence. She and her neighbors used to drum through the night on pots and pans in front of flaming bonfires to try to frighten the elephants away.
Once an elephant stuck its trunk through a window into a room where her baby daughter was sleeping and the family had stored some corn. She beat it back with a burning stick. Another time, an elephant killed a neighbor who was defending his crop.
"We had to go into town to tell the game (wardens) to chase the elephants away or we're going to kill them all," Mwasu remembered.
But the elephants kept coming back.
Batian Craig, the conservation and security manager at the 90,000 acre Ol Pejeta conservancy, says community development programs are of little use if farmers don't have crops. He recalled the time when 15 families had their harvests wiped out.
"As soon as a farmer has lost his livelihood for six months, he doesn't give a damn whether he has a school or a road or water or whatever," he said.
Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, said the project is still in its infancy — so far only two geofences have been set up in Kenya — and it has its problems.
Collar batteries wear out every few years. Sometimes communities think placing a collar on an elephant implies ownership and responsibility for the havoc it causes. And it's expensive work — Ol Pejeta has five full-time staff and a standby vehicle to respond when a message flashes across a ranger's screen.
But the experiment with Kimani has been a success, and last month another geofence was set up in another part of the country for an elephant known as Mountain Bull. Moses Litoroh, the coordinator of Kenya Wildlife Service's elephant program, hopes the project might help resolve some of the 1,300 complaints the Service receives every year over crop raiding.
The elephants can be tracked through Google Earth software, helping to map and conserve the corridors they use to move from one protected area to another. The tracking also helps prevent poaching, as rangers know where to deploy resources to guard valuable animals.
But the biggest bonus so far has been the drop in crop raiding. Douglas-Hamilton says elephants, like teenagers, learn from each other, so tracking and controlling one habitual crop raider can make a whole group change its habits.
Mwasu's two young daughters play under the banana trees these sultry evenings without their mother worrying about elephants.
"We can live together," she said. "Elephants have the right to live, and we have the right to live too."

McAfee sees rise in stock scams, social engineering attacks

If you think there are a lot of phishing scams cramming your e-mail in-box now, just wait--fraudsters have more tricks up their sleeve.
That's the message from McAfee Security Journal, due out Monday. Most of the articles deal with ways in which scammers use social engineering --not hacking--to dupe people into downloading malicious software to their computers or giving out their personal information, passwords, and bank account details to malicious Web sites.
One of the more interesting articles is titled "Vulnerabilities in the Equities Markets."

There have been headlines about people scamming the equities market by circulating false news in the hopes that stocks will move up or down (the false report that Apple's Steve Jobs had a heart attack being just the latest). What about investors losing or winning based on security news events?
It's already happening, writes Anthony Bettini, a senior manager at McAfee Avert Labs.
He notes that Microsoft's stock price tends to go down on "Patch Tuesday," the day it issues its monthly batch of security fixes, and when it issues an advance notification of the security bulletins for the month. Then on "Exploit Wednesday," which is the day after "Patch Tuesday," there is, on average, an uptick in the stock price.
"This is probably because institutional investors or market makers feel Microsoft was oversold the day before because of the bad news and that, in reality, Microsoft's value as an investment was only negligibly affected," he writes. "Note that this trend has been consistent during the past three years and continues today."
There's nothing really scary with that. But the notion that stock price fluctuations are occurring after vulnerability and patch announcements could give rise to more serious threats. "What would happen if a person built up a short position in a major software company and posted a handful of vulnerabilities with exploits to the Full Disclosure mailing list?" Bettini writes, before speculating on the legal consequences of such an action.
"It is possible people are already using zero-day threats for financial gain, not simply for embedding them within password-stealing Trojans but for taking short or options positions in equities and derivatives," he writes. "It's clear that spammers have figured out ways to profit from securities markets: we have received lots of penny-stock spam."

Another article in the McAfee Security Journal deals with the prevalence of spam and phishing attempts that piggyback on news events to grab the attention of people. For instance, malware writers exploited the broad interest in the Olympic Games to distribute e-mails that dropped malicious software on the recipient's computer that creates a back door for remote attacks, according to an article titled "A Prime Target for Social Engineering Malware."
There also has been a jump in the number of malicious programs posing as updates or software from security vendors, writes Elodie Grandjean, a virus researcher for McAfee Avert Labs in France. The programs lure people into downloading malicious software that instead of protecting the computer infects it with malware and interferes with legitimate security software actions. Such "scareware" has prompted Microsoft and the attorney general of Washington to file lawsuits.
Ben Edelman, assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, writes about the problem of incorrectly typing a Web address. "Typosquatting" is the practice of registering domains that are very close to popular Web site domains in order to get traffic from people who make a spelling error or typo in the URL address bar. The Web sites that appear when you make such a wrong turn on the Internet could have malware on them, but more likely are just making money off ads.
The most popular domain for typosquatting, spawning 742 offshoots, is "freecreditreport.com," followed by "cartoonnetwork.com," "youtube.com" and "craigslist."
However, lawsuits against typosquatters are making the practice less desirable, Edelson writes. Microsoft has received more than $2 million in typosquatting settlements, he says.
The report is on McAfee's Web site.

This screenshot shows code from the backdoor Trojan hidden in a PDF file related to the Olympics that was e-mailed to a pro-Tibet group. It allows an attacker to compromise the computer.(Credit: McAfee Avert Labs)
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 and previously covered search, online advertising, and portals. E-mail Elinor.

Madonna gives fans a treat with ``Sticky & Sweet''

In a show defined by throbbing dance music, tight choreography, spectacular stage sets and stunning visuals, perhaps the most stirring moment during the kickoff concert to Madonna's "Sticky & Sweet" tour came when the Material Girl stood onstage with just her guitar and a few musicians for an acoustic set.As she sang the emotional song from her movie "Evita," Madonna couldn't help but wink and smile at the roaring sold-out crowd as she sang the song's main refrain and title: "You must love me."Maybe that's because she knew she was right. Even the superstar's most cynical critics couldn't walk away from her two-hour extravaganza at the Izod Center on Saturday night without being thoroughly wowed. It was not only the spectacle of the concert, but the performer herself, as she reasserted her musical relevance and dominance in her 25th year in the spotlight.Madonna is not the world's most gifted singer or dancer or even musician, but she may be its greatest performer. From the moment she first appeared on stage, looking taut and chiseled in a black bra and shorts with a mesh layer overlay, she turned the arena into a massive dance club and a nonstop party. The zooming "Candy Shop," off her most recent CD "Hard Candy," set it off as Madonna strutted onstage flanked by an army of dancers. While they may have executed the show's most intricate dance moves, the ever-fit Madonna dazzled on her own with sinewy steps that belied her AARP-status.Though the show's first moments were devoted to her new album, it didn't take long for her to seamlessly groove back in time, performing one of her '90s gems, "Human Nature." The already funky, synthesized tune got an even funkier update, as Madonna utilized the vocoder trend with her background vocals. The unapologetic anthem was highlighted by a video that showed Madonna being watched by a security camera in an elevator; as the song went on, Britney Spears' image intertwined with her blonde musical mentor, looking frightened and frail under the camera's lens before striking a decidedly confident pose at the song's end.It's a testament to Madonna's musical chops that her new music blended so expertly with some of her greatest hits: Elements of "4 Minutes" were mashed up with "Vogue" for a flashback that managed to be both classic and cutting edge. While she sang many of her classics, such as "Like a Prayer," "La Isla Bonita," and "Ray of Life," those moments weren't relegated to short renditions during the retrospective medley part of the show, like many veterans do. They were given full attention with colorful, dazzling displays and new arrangements that made them seem as exciting and fresh as when they first made their debut. "Get Into the Groove" was re-imagined with the help of a DJ, a double-Dutch playing Madonna and cartoons by the late Keith Haring. During one of her many guitar-playing moments, she gave a rocked out performance of "Borderline" to the feverishly energetic crowd.While the "Sweet & Sticky" tour would have been a triumph in any year, it was particularly impressive coming off her somewhat lackluster "Confessions" two years ago, which seemed more like a labored, carefully designed exercise than a joyful performance.Not so this time around. Instead of performing at the crowd, she was performing for and with them, bringing them into her world with warmth and appreciation. Even when she scolded the few in the audience who weren't on their feet with unprintable language, she was jovial and endearing.Jabs at Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin - "Sarah Palin is not in my show!" were not daggers, and she even added, "Nothing personal." And the one preachy moment - in which she implored the audience to "save the world" through a series of video images that interspersed the world's atrocities with her ideas hopeful images, including Democratic candidate Barack Obama - wasn't as over the top as might be expected (with the exception of the interloping of video of Republican candidate John McCain in with world dictators and Adolph Hitler).With her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year and her 50th birthday, it would have been easy for Madonna to turn her latest tour into some kind of nostalgia show. It probably would have been an enjoyable experience nonetheless.But then again, it wouldn't have been Madonna - the consummate artist who always stretches the limits, exploring new ideas to stay relevant. On Saturday, she proved to be more than relevant - she's still music premier performer.On the Net:http://www.madonna.com

Beyonce Writes A Letter To Fans, Saying She Has 'Taken Risks' On Upcoming LP

'It's me, and I am so excited to share it with the world,' she says of November 18 album.

Beyoncé's third solo LP is just a month and a half from release, but aside from some teases promising collaborations with Justin Timberlake and producer Sean Garrett (Usher, Fergie), not much is known about the singer's still-untitled album, set to drop November 18.
Will the R&B fave debut a new sound? Will she invite other famous friends into the fold? Just what does the diva have in store for us anyway?
"My music will explain it all," Beyoncé wrote in a letter to fans, released Thursday (October 2) by her label, Columbia Records.
"I have worked on this album for close to one year. I have taken the time so I can create my sound. Something that says who I am at this stage in my life," she wrote. "I have poured my heart and soul into it. It is my baby. It is the most time I have spent on any project since my first records as a member of Destiny's Child when I was 15 years old."
Of course, a lot has changed for B in the dozen years since: fame, apparent marriage and, not least of all, a burgeoning film career that continues with the upcoming "Cadillac Records" and "Obsessed." If details on the album have been especially scarce, it's specifically because of all those diverging multitudes, not despite them, the singer wrote.
"I have recorded over 70 songs and have created a sound that reveals all of me. I am in a different place right now, and I wanted people to see the many sides of me," Beyoncé continued in the letter. "The music is upbeat for the dance, fun side, and it is reflective, passionate and serious for the personal side. I have taken risks here. I am not afraid. ... There is no label or tag on my sound. It's me, and I am so excited to share it with the world."
It was previously announced that two tracks from the album, "If I Were a Boy" and "Single Ladies," will be released in advance of the LP on October 7.