Strong Finish Gives Paulson Fund Winning Year

Rick Maiman/Bloomberg News John A. Paulson.

John A. Paulson, that Midas of the subprime era, has done it again.
Two years after Mr. Paulson pulled off one of the greatest trades in Wall Street history, with a winning bet against the overheated mortgage market, he has managed to salvage a poor year for his giant hedge fund with a remarkable come-from-behind showing.
Defying those who said his subprime success was an anomaly, Mr. Paulson appears to have scored big on bets he made on companies that would benefit from an economic rebound.
In less than three months, his flagship fund, the Paulson Advantage Fund, has turned a double-digit loss into a double-digit gain. At mid-December, the fund, which was worth $9 billion at the start of the year, was up about 14 percent, according to one investor in the fund who provided confidential figures on the condition of anonymity.
It is a remarkable turnabout for Mr. Paulson, whose winning gamble against the housing market plucked him from obscurity and transformed him into one of the most celebrated money managers in the business.
What precisely propelled the sharp rebound in Mr. Paulson’s hedge fund is unclear. A spokesman for Paulson & Company declined to comment, and regulatory filings of significant changes made to Mr. Paulson’s funds typically lag behind by several weeks.
But it is clear that several of Mr. Paulson’s largest stakes — in Hartford Financial Services, MGM Resorts and Boston Scientific — went on a tear in the final quarter of the year, with gains of 16 percent, 30 percent and 26 percent, respectively.
“Several of his general investment themes this year came to fruition,” the investor in the Paulson Advantage Fund said.
Mr. Paulson stands out in what may go down as a lukewarm year for many hedge fund managers. The average return for funds through the end of November was 7.1 percent after fees, according to a composite index tracked by Hedge Fund Research of Chicago. Investors would have done better buying a low-cost mutual fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, which rose 7.8 percent during that period.
With volatile markets creating uncertainty for hedge fund managers this year, some investors are surprised that these funds did even that well. But they expect the funds to continue to attract money from investors, particularly state pension funds seeking higher returns to offset their budget shortfalls.
“When investors look back at the year they’re going to be pretty happy,” said David T. Shukis, a managing director of hedge fund research and consulting at Cambridge Associates, which oversees $26 billion in hedge fund assets for clients.
But the lackluster performance has other people wondering: are hedge funds worthwhile? The high fees and muted returns — and a long-running federal investigation into insider trading in the industry — has cast a cloud over a business that long defined Wall Street wealth.
“A client told me the other day that paying these ridiculous fees for single-digit returns, then worrying about these investigations — it’s just not worth it,” said Bradley H. Alford, chief investment officer at Alpha Capital Management, which invests in hedge funds. “A lot of these things you can sweep under the rug when there are double-digit returns, but in this environment it’s tougher.”
This year, bets by hedge fund managers were whipsawed by the stock market “flash crash” in May; the European debt crisis; frustration with the Obama administration over what many in the business viewed as anti-Wall Street rhetoric; and the Federal Reserve’s unusual strategy of buying bonds in the open market to hold down interest rates.
“It was an interesting year where you had to have a couple of gut checks,” said David Tepper, founder of Appaloosa Management, whose Palomino fund, which invests largely in distressed debt, was up nearly 21 percent at the end of October, according to data from HSBC Private Bank.
“If you had those gut checks, looked around and made the right decisions, you could make some money,” Mr. Tepper added.
There are still many hurdles for the industry to clear, including the insider trading investigation, lingering difficulty in raising money, and the liquidity demands from investors still fuming over lockups in 2008 that denied them access to their cash.
Some hedge fund notables will probably remember 2010 as a year they would like to write off. For instance, Harbinger Capital, run by Philip A. Falcone, was down 13.8 percent at the end of November, according to HSBC’s data.
But the Third Point Offshore fund, run by Dan Loeb, was up 25 percent for the year through November after it made successful bets on one of Europe’s largest media operators, ProSieben, and Anadarko Petroleum, according to a report obtained from an investor in the fund.
Other big names also fared well. SAC Capital Advisors, run by Steven A. Cohen, was up about 13 percent in its flagship fund, one of his investors said.
A handful of other usual suspects turned out solid performances this year too, according to investors in their funds: David Einhorn notched a 10.5 percent return at his Greenlight Capital hedge fund through November, raising the fund’s total to $6.8 billion.
And after two consecutive years of losses, James Simons, the seer of quantitative hedge funds, was up 17 percent in his two public Renaissance funds, which now collectively manage $7 billion.
The figures reflect performance after fees through November, and do not take into account the strong market rally in the final month of the year, some investors noted.
For many, being in the right sectors of the market — distressed debt and emerging markets, for instance — paid off handsomely.
“If you look at how some of the distressed managers performed, you’re seeing some really good returns among a number of funds,” said David Bailin, global head of managed investments at Citi Private Bank.
Bets on distressed debt produced a return of more than 19 percent as of the end of October for the Monarch Debt Recovery Fund, overseen by a pair of former Lazard managers. Similarly, Pershing Square, a fund run by William A. Ackman, was up 27 percent after fees through the end of November.
Mr. Ackman’s big win was a bet on the debt of General Growth Properties, a developer that emerged from bankruptcy last month.
It was a bumpy year for Mr. Paulson who, besides making a huge bet on gold — which rose 30 percent — also took large stakes in several companies he believed would benefit from a sharp recovery in the economy, including banking and financial services companies.
But as the economic recovery sputtered along, Mr. Paulson’s portfolio sank, prompting some critics to claim that his funds had become too big to manage. Some of Mr. Paulson’s investors asked for their money back around midyear.
At one point this summer, in fact, other hedge fund managers were selling short stocks Mr. Paulson held in his funds, betting that redemption requests would flood in and that he would be forced to sell down some of his big positions, according to a hedge fund trader at another firm who declined to be named for fear of damaging business relationships. He said investors were making similar bets against stocks held by Mr. Falcone’s Harbinger fund.
As recently as the end of September, Mr. Paulson’s flagship Advantage Plus fund was down 11 percent. As of last week, the fund was up more than 14 percent for the year. (His clients are mostly institutions that invest a minimum of $10 million in the fund.)
Patience paid off for Mr. Paulson as many bets he made late last year and early this year finally shot higher in the last quarter.
This year, Mr. Paulson bought 43 million shares of the gambling company MGM, whose shares have soared more than 30 percent since the end of September. A bet of 40 million shares in the cable giant Comcast has risen 22 percent this quarter. Shares of Boston Scientific, of which Mr. Paulson owns 80 million shares, have skyrocketed 26 percent, and his 44 million shares of Hartford Financial Services climbed 16 percent in the quarter.
One of Mr. Paulson’s newer positions, a stake in Anadarko Petroleum, moved up 20 percent in the quarter.
With the last-minute rally, Mr. Paulson saved himself from being the headliner among flat funds this year. Most were not so fortunate, with many hedging against their stakes late in the year, expecting that stocks would end the year down. That move, some say, probably limited their gains.
“Psychology is such a fragile thing,” said William C. Crerend, the chief executive of EACM Advisors, which oversees a $3.6 billion fund for Bank of New York Mellon.

Time to Turn the Cultural Page

Critics, reporters and editors of The New York Times have scanned the cultural horizon of the months ahead, and several offerings have caught their eyes. The creative minds behind the satiric animated series “South Park” take on Broadway with “The Book of Mormon,” a musical history of the founding of the Mormon Church, opening on March 24, while the actor Brian Bedford brings Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest” to the Roundabout Theater Company on Jan. 13. The Metropolitan Opera production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China” arrives on Feb. 2, with the director Peter Sellars making his Met debut. The exciting New York City Ballet dancer Sara Mearns should take on new roles, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will take its final bows.

Which of these will be topping our lists and yours a year from now? We’ll just have to wait and see. JULIE BLOOM

Theater

NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL

The crashing, crushing and smashing sounds that regularly emanate from “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — the accident-prone $65 million musical now (and perhaps forever) in previews — have all but drowned out the advance word on a show that, in a Spidey-free season, would surely have some of the loudest buzz on Broadway. That’s “The Book of Mormon” (opening March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater), a singing, dancing history of the founding of the Mormon Church that also tells the parallel story of two contemporary disciples who go to spread Joseph Smith’s gospel in Uganda.

Since this “Book of Mormon” is the brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the brilliant and routinely obscene “South Park” cartoon series, it is likely to feature words you would not hear in a Salt Lake City Sunday school. But it is also likely to have a high quotient of traditional (well, make that warped-traditional) American musical-comedy pizzazz and enthusiasm.

Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone, lest we forget, have shown an unexpected affinity for old-style Broadway razzmatazz, not only in the song-studded “South Park” series, but also in three feature-length films: the early, cheerfully gory “Cannibal! The Musical” (1993) and the better-known “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” (1999), whence came the Oscar-nominated song “Blame Canada,” and “Team America: World Police” (2004), which featured an acute send-up of “Rent.” (There are those — and they are not insane — who regard “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” as the great movie musical of the late 20th century.)

For “The Book of Mormon,” Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have enlisted the collaboration of the composer Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) and the director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (“The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Spamalot”), Broadway veterans who know that, in musicals, parody and sincerity are by no means mutually exclusive. Still, could a couple of guys from the world of cartoons become the new Comden and Green? Don’t rule out the possibility. It’s been a decade since I saw “Bigger, Longer and Uncut,” and I’m still humming the tune of a song whose title is unprintable in these pages. BEN BRANTLEY

Previews for the musical begin on Feb. 24, with a March 24 opening, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, 230 West 49th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200.

BROADWAY REVIVAL

Although she disappears for one of the three acts of Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest,” Lady Bracknell is such a delicious role that it is hardly surprising that actors — male ones, that is — are willing to brave the constrictions of Victorian corsets to deliver the peerless series of elaborately phrased acid aphorisms that drop from her disapprovingly curled lips.

The estimable classical actor Brian Bedford undertakes the role in the Roundabout Theater Company’s Broadway revival of Wilde’s scintillating comedy, maybe the greatest in the English language since Shakespeare’s day, now in previews at the American Airlines Theater.

Mr. Bedford has spent much of his stage career performing classical roles at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, although his Broadway appearances — in Molière and Shakespeare, Coward and Stoppard — number more than a dozen, beginning with Peter Shaffer’s “Five Finger Exercise“ under the direction of John Gielgud in 1959. Mr. Bedford also directs the production, which originated at the Stratford Festival last year. Some of the Broadway cast is new, but when I caught the show at Stratford, Mr. Bedford’s doughty, formidable Lady Bracknell alone made the production a highlight of the season.

I anticipate taking renewed delight in this curious but heavenly matching of actor and role when the production opens next month. CHARLES ISHERWOOD

The revival, now in previews, opens on Jan. 13 at the American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org.

NEVERLAND IN THE VILLAGE

The cynical theatergoer might say that "Peter and the Starcatcher" is a shrewdly conceived mirror of Broadway’s reigning prequel. Based on the popular adventure novel by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry, about Peter Pan’s young, swashbuckling self, the show could be pitched in three words: “Wicked” for boys.

But the creative team that Disney Theatricals commissioned to create its first straight play suggests that the production, which will be staged at New York Theater Workshop, is concerned less with cashing in on a proven formula than with freshening J. M. Barrie’s beloved orphan-as-hero myth. The book was adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, a Tony Award-winning author of “Jersey Boys,” and direction will be shared by Alex Timbers, who recently wedded emo to history in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and the actor Roger Rees, who will be replacing Nathan Lane in “The Addams Family” in March.

Originally presented in a workshop at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2009, the play-with-music reveals the precocious back story of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Captain Hook, Neverland and other well-known characters and locales. (Fans of the novel will notice that the title has been shortened to just one Starcatcher for the stage.) It will be refreshing to see the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up played by an actual (not-quite-a) boy: Adam Chanler-Berat, who plays Henry in the Broadway musical “Next to Normal,” will jump into the role of Peter after that show closes on Jan. 16.

The rest of the cast, which includes Christian Borle (“Legally Blonde”) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), will play some 50 roles, a challenge that should be familiar territory for Mr. Rees: he won a Tony Award for his performance in the character-teeming stage version of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.” ERIK PIEPENBURG

“Peter and the Starcatcher” is to run from Feb. 18 to April 3 at New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, East Village; (212) 279-2400, nytw.org.

OFF BROADWAY COMEDY

It almost goes without saying that Lynn Nottage’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Ruined” is something to anticipate. Intriguing, too, is word that her new play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” is a comedy set in Hollywood. But I’m especially looking forward to the production, which opens at Second Stage Theater (www.2st.com) in April, after getting a taste of what Kimberly Hebert Gregory can do with one of the roles.

During an excerpt from “Vera Stark” that was part of a November tribute to Ms. Nottage at Lincoln Center, Ms. Gregory read the role of Lottie, a struggling African-American actress in 1930s Hollywood frustrated that the only parts available to her are maids and servants. It’s not the lead — Second Stage hasn’t announced that casting yet — but in just a few juicy minutes onstage, Ms. Gregory demonstrated old-fashioned star quality. Vibrant and needlingly funny, she promises to be a terrific foil to whoever gets the title role. SCOTT HELLER

Dance

BALLET AND MORE

Can you determine history before it happens? If so, the most historic aspect of 2011 will be the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, after the death of Cunningham himself in July 2009. The 2011 second half of the company’s two-year “Legacy Tour” will take it to places in Asia and Europe as well as around the United States.

The tour will feature four groups of New York City performances. The Joyce Theater (March 22 to 27) will show “CRWDSPCR” (1993), “Quartet” (1982) and “Antic Meet” (1958). The Lincoln Center Festival will include an all-day bonanza (“Merce Fair”) on July 16 at the Rose Theater, featuring “Duets” (1980) and “Squaregame” (1976). A crowded Brooklyn Academy of Music season (Dec. 7 to 10) will present “Roaratorio” (1983), “Second Hand” (1970), “BIPED” (1999), “Pond Way” (1998), “RainForest” (1968) and “Split Sides” (2003). The company’s final three Events will occur at the Park Avenue Armory Dec. 29 to 31.

Yet other works (including, older than any of the above, the 1956 “Suite for Five”) will be seen elsewhere. The company is still superlative; this repertory contains more than 50 years of superlative choreography. Dance after 2011 will be greatly diminished.

To judge by her 2010 form, Sara Mearns — currently the great American ballerina of our time — will be the single local dancer to watch in ballet. I find myself longing not only to know what new roles will come her way at New York City Ballet, but also what her influence will be on other dancers in the company. (The troupe’s winter repertory season opens on Jan. 18 at the David H. Koch Theater.)

But it is outside ballet that the New York events for which I have most hope will occur: two local premieres by Paul Taylor in his City Center season (Feb. 22 to March 6) and three (one of them a world premiere) by Mark Morris (March 17 to 27) at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.

Outside New York, the rich dance fare at the Kennedy Center in Washington includes, at one end of the dance spectrum, the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet’s “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13), the ballet that, over the last 30 years, this company has often danced best.

That spectrum’s other end arrives a month later in the Kennedy Center’s “maximum INDIA” season. Its dance offerings (March 2 to 10) include Madhavi Mudgal and Alarmel Valli; Priyadarsini Govind and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble; the Daksha Sheth Dance Company; Ragamala Dance and Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company; and Malavika Sarukkai. To anyone who still assumes that “classical” in dance must mean ballet, this is the season that I would recommend as a corrective. ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Merce Cunningham Dance Company schedule: merce.org. The Paul Taylor Dance Company is in Manhattan, Feb. 22 to March 6; nycitycenter.org. New York City Ballet’s winter repertory season runs Jan. 18 to Feb. 27 at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center; nycballet.com. The Mark Morris Dance Group performs March 17 to 27 at the Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue, at Flatbush Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; markmorrisdancegroup.org. “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13) and “maximum INDIA” dance programs (March 2 to 10) are at the Kennedy Center in Washington; kennedy-center.org.

DANCE ON SCREEN

Even if “Black Swan” doesn’t win an Oscar (though I’m betting it does), there’s enough exciting dance on screen in 2011 to make you forget that wild little movie. Ballet is finally catching up to opera, with live screenings of performances of “Giselle” by the Royal Ballet on Jan. 19 and “Caligula” by the Paris Opera Ballet on Feb. 8, both at Big Cinemas Manhattan and at other movie theaters across the country. You can only hope that American dance companies will soon follow suit.

The 39th annual Dance on Camera Festival opens on Jan. 25 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and continues at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincon Center and other locations. Of the many diverse films on the lineup, I’m most looking forward to the world premiere of “Claude Bessy, Lignes D’Une Vie” (“Traces of a Life”), by Fabrice Herrault, a documentary about that French ballerina. The film includes rare performance footage of this Paris Opera Ballet étoile in works by Gene Kelly, Serge Lifar and Maurice Béjart.

I’m also eager to see how dance continues to push its way into popular culture with Emily Blunt’s starring as a member of the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in “The Adjustment Bureau,” which opens in March.

The Grammy Awards telecast on Feb. 13 is also sure to offer a few memorable dance moments; I’m thinking of you, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West’s twisted ballerinas. And then there’s the inevitably entertaining but cringe-inducing Paula Abdul’s “Live to Dance,” which makes its television debut on CBS on Tuesday.

But the event I’m most anticipating is the premiere of Wim Wenders’s “Pina,” a 3-D tribute to the choreographer Pina Bausch. The two collaborated on this work until her death in 2009, when Mr. Wenders halted production. Thankfully, he decided to complete the film after her company and fans encouraged him to do so.

It will have its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and the trailer, which has received much love on Twitter, features dancers performing Bausch’s signature dramatic sequences in gorgeous dreamscapes: on city streets, in open fields and on the beach. It’s a vision I imagine Bausch would have loved. JULIE BLOOM

The Dance on Camera festival opens on Jan. 25 and will have screenings at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and other locations; dancefilmsassn.org.

Screens

FILM

In the movie universe, the first worth anticipating in the new year is “Season of the Witch.” For one thing, who doesn’t love that Donovan song, though this film, due next Friday, apparently has nothing to do with it? And for another, who doesn’t love finding out whether Nicolas Cage’s latest career choice is yet another crash-and-burn?

Since winning the best actor Oscar in 1996 for “Leaving Las Vegas,” Mr. Cage has seemingly been choosing roles by throwing darts at a script-covered wall, resulting in a fair number of clunkers but also the occasional interesting project. “Season of the Witch” could be either.

Mr. Cage plays a 14th-century knight who is assigned to transport a suspected witch to an abbey. There are bloody battles, supernatural goings-on and special effects. There are also lines of dialogue that, at least from the available trailers, sound as if they were cut and pasted from a book of action movie clichés. Treacherous waters indeed.

Then, on Feb. 11, comes what is surely the best title of the winter, “Gnomeo & Juliet.” This 3-D animated comedy from Touchstone gives Shakespeare’s play a ridiculous twist: the stars are garden ornaments that, like the characters in “Toy Story,” come to life when humans aren’t looking. (One, Fawn, is described this way on the film’s Web site: “Fawn is a Bambi gone wrong. A cute concrete deer with a foul mouth and a bad attitude.”)

Emily Blunt provides the voice of Juliet, James McAvoy is Gnomeo, and Elton John’s music gives the whole thing a beat. Breathless reports have indicated that the soundtrack will also include a new song: a duet performed by Mr. John and Lady Gaga. NEIL GENZLINGER

TELEVISION

The winter television season begins on Saturday, and as it unfolds, you will not be able to escape the news that Paula Abdul is back (in “Live to Dance,” Tuesday on CBS) and that the “Jersey Shore” crew has vacated Miami and returned to its natural habitat (Thursday on MTV). Even more unavoidable will be the fuss over Oprah Winfrey’s new network, which you can find, starting on Saturday, wherever you used to watch the Discovery Health Channel.

Hidden in the shadows of newsmakers like those will be a number of entertaining returning shows, at least four this coming week in the science fiction-fantasy category alone. Back from the dead on BBC America is the time-traveling scary-monster series (9 p.m. on Saturday), which was canceled after its third season but rescued when the British channel ITV found partners to share the costs of production.

The monsters are reptilian alien invaders — but quite nice to look at when they’re wearing their human skins — in ABC’s Saturday-matinee adventure which begins its second season on Tuesday (9 p.m.). There’s an amusing synopsis of Season 1 at abc.com.

Syfy brings back two shows with different futures. The BBC’s dark fantasy “Merlin,” a stolid but effective retelling of Arthurian legend in which Merlin and Arthur are teenagers, begins its third American season (10 p.m. next Friday), with a fourth already ordered back in Britain.

And the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel, “ which was canceled this fall before it could complete its first season, will burn off the last five episodes in a marathon from 6 to 11 p.m. on Tuesday. (If you want to be surprised by how the writers resolve the show’s multistranded, overly elaborate story, don’t do any Googling — the release of the final episodes on DVD means that it’s easy to stumble on complete synopses of the action.) MIKE HALE

VIDEO GAMES

As a group, the roster of new video games scheduled to be released in the first months of 2011 simply does not compare to the sensational game bounty of early 2010. That’s the bad news. The good news is that even though the overall lineup is thinner, there are plenty of games that are still expected to shine.

Two observations arise. First, Sony appears scheduled to release more major exclusive games for the PlayStation 3 over the next few months than Microsoft (for the Xbox 360) and Nintendo (for the Wii) combined. Second, Electronic Arts is publishing a raft of big titles in the next few months, while other third-party publishers (like Activision Blizzard and Take-Two) are lying relatively low.

The games with anticipated release dates are listed in chronological order. The games without dates are at the end.

LITTLEBIGPLANET 2 Publisher: Sony, for PlayStation 3. Expected Jan. 18. The first LBP let you create your own “platforming” levels, where you run and jump past obstacles. This sequel aims to go much further and become a game-creation authoring tool.

DEAD SPACE 2 Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Jan. 25. The science-fiction horror setting Dead Space is probably the best new franchise E.A. has developed in recent years. Dead Space 2 had better not suffer a sophomore slump.

BULLETSTORM Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Feb. 22. The name should say it all. Big guns, lots of lead and over-the-top mayhem are the themes here.

KILLZONE 3 Sony, for PS3. Feb. 22. More high-octane shooter action, to be released the same day as Bulletstorm. Killzone’s science fiction should be more realistic, self-coherent and tactical, if no less intense, than its competition that day.

DRAGON AGE II Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. March 8. The sequel to one of the finest single-player role-playing games yet, Dragon Age returns gamers to a sprawling fantasy world of swords and sorcery. (N.B.: The original Dragon Age can easily take more than 100 hours to complete.)

MLB 11: THE SHOW Sony, for PS3. March 8. I almost never get excited about sports games, but MLB 11 has me curious because it is expected to use both the PS3’s motion-sensitive Move controller wand (say, as a virtual bat), as well as 3-D technology on suitable televisions. With the right gear, it could be a living-room batting box.

MICHAEL JACKSON: THE EXPERIENCE Ubisoft, for 360 Kinect. Early 2011. Ubisoft released this dancing game for other systems in November, but I have no interest until I can try it on Microsoft’s Kinect system, which can actually see and detect your body movements. Only then will we know which is really the king of Kinect dance games.

RIFT Trion Worlds, for Windows. Early 2011. The pretenders have come and gone, but Rift looks like the best competition the venerable World of Warcraft has had since WOW remade online gaming in 2004. It definitely looks better than WOW. But does it play better? Millions will be waiting to find out. SETH SCHIESEL

Music

OPERA

Not just opera buffs, but contemporary-music enthusiasts, theater fans and even students of politics are surely looking forward to the Metropolitan Opera premiere production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China” (Feb. 2 to 19). Though it has taken too long for this milestone 1987 work to reach the Met, the company is doing it up right. The production (introduced at the English National Opera) is by the director Peter Sellars, in his Met debut. The enticing cast includes the baritone James Maddalena, in his Met debut, as Nixon, a role he created. The composer will conduct.

Though “Nixon in China” should be the big news at the Met in the first months of 2011, I am looking forward to the company’s revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s stylish production of Tchaikovsky’s dramatically complex, musically magnificent opera “The Queen of Spades,” starring the charismatic soprano Karita Mattila as Lisa and the powerhouse tenor Vladimir Galouzine as Ghermann, with the brilliant Andris Nelsons conducting (March 11 to 26).

Among forthcoming recitals a standout is the pianist Jeremy Denk’s program at Zankel Hall (Feb. 16). Playing both books of the daunting, dazzling piano études by the colossal Gyorgy Ligeti, who died in 2006, would be formidable enough. But Mr. Denk will follow up with, oh, a little thing by Bach, the “Goldberg” Variations.

So far this season Met-goers have had chances to see James Levine at work, conducting with insight and assurance as he continues to mend from major health problems. Now audiences in the New York area will see how Mr. Levine is faring as the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, when he brings his Boston band to town for three well-conceived programs at Carnegie Hall (March 15 to 17).

On the first, the superb violinist Christian Tetzlaff is soloist in a Mozart rondo, Bartok’s Second Concerto and a new concerto by the brilliant British composer Harrison Birtwistle. The second is devoted to Mozart and Schoenberg, including concertos by each composer played by the master pianist Maurizio Pollini. For the final program Mr. Levine tackles Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

As the director Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s “Ring” unfolds at the Met, another Lepage theatrical work, “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables,” will be presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a co-production with the Canadian Opera Company (March 1 to 6). Here, Stravinsky’s opera “The Nightingale” is performed, along with shorter Stravinsky works, bound together by pan-Asian puppetry, spectacle, singing, dancing and, reportedly, 20,000 gallons of water. ANTHONY TOMMASINI

“Nixon in China” is at the Metropolitan Opera House Feb. 2 to 19, and “The Queen of Spades” is there March 11 to 26; metopera.org. Jeremy Denk is at Zankel Hall on Feb. 16, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is at Carnegie Hall, March 15 to 17; carnegiehall.org. “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables” is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, March 1 to 6, bam.org.

JAZZ

The heap of first-class improvised music in New York over the next month alone looks so good that I feel badly for everyone everywhere else. First, there’s WINTER JAZZFEST (winterjazzfest.com), next Friday and Jan. 8, spread across five clubs within a few cold steps of one another in Greenwich Village. Here is current New York jazz in context and enactment, situation and story: groups like the saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo’s Agogic, a quartet including the trumpeter Cuong Vu; the pianist Orrin Evans’s Captain Black Big Band; the trumpeter Shane Endsley’s Music Band; and the drummer Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys.

THE SAXOPHONIST STEVE COLEMAN will play that festival, at Le Poisson Rouge on Jan. 8, with Five Elements — don’t miss it — but he also appears at the Jazz Standard (jazzstandard.net) in a trio led by the drummer Jeff (Tain) Watts, on Jan. 18 and 19.

And look what else:

THE RETURN OF DAVE HOLLAND’S OVERTONE QUARTET, with Chris Potter, Jason Moran and Eric Harland, at Birdland from Wednesday to Jan. 9 (birdlandjazz.com).

A BIG-BAND TRIPLE BILL at Littlefield on Thursday (littlefieldnyc.com) is put on by the indefatigable promotion outfit Search and Restore, with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Fight the Big Bull and the Millennial Territory Orchestra.

THE SMART AND FLEXIBLE FRENCH SINGER CYRILLE AIMéE, in a band with the clarinetist Anat Cohen and the pianist Spike Wilner, at Smalls (smallsjazzclub.com) on Jan. 9.

THE GUITARIST JIM HALL in a band with the saxophonist Greg Osby, at Iridium (iridiumjazzclub.com) on Jan. 10.

FLY, the supremely cool-headed trio of Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard, at the Jazz Gallery (jazzgallery.org) on Jan. 11.

THE POLISH TRUMPETER TOMASZ STANKO’S QUARTET — subdued, intense — with Chris Potter as guest, at the Jazz Standard Jan. 13 to 16.

A CONCERT CALLED ‘713>212,’ built around the bloc of great Houston musicians in the New York jazz scene (Jason Moran, Leron Thomas, Eric Harland, Jamire Williams, Robert Glasper, etc.), at 92Y Tribeca (92ytribeca.org) on Jan. 14.

THE GUITARIST JOEL HARRISON, playing Paul Motian’s music arranged for a string septet, at Joe’s Pub (joespub.com) on Jan. 23.

LINDA OH, a dynamic young bassist, with her ensemble and the Sirius String Quartet at the Jazz Gallery on Jan. 28.

CHARLES LLOYD’S QUARTET at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (jalc.org) on Jan. 29.

The daily rounds are where it’s at. BEN RATLIFF

CLASSICAL MUSIC

By now just about everyone has noticed that the youngest generation of classical composers has been invigorating the art by pushing it toward the more experimental (“indie”) corners of pop and jazz. And while some listeners may find this an alarming development, it is worth noting that until relatively recently, art music and popular forms have had clear and direct links.

The Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall will shine a bright spotlight on these musicians, starting with a free seven-hour marathon on Jan. 17 (Missy Mazzoli, Cory Dargel, Andrew Prior and Jefferson Friedman are among the featured composers) and ending with a concert by So Percussion and Bobby Previte with Zeena Parkins, DJ Olive and the singer Jen Shyu, on March 28.

Among the ensembles performing at the festival is Alarm Will Sound, which will join forces with Face the Music, a talented student group, for a performance of Steve Reich’s “Tehillim” on Jan. 30. Elsewhere — at Zankel Hall, on March 10 — Alarm Will Sound will present “1969,” an ambitious program it has been working on in recent seasons. A theatrical piece, it imagines a fictional meeting between John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and includes Matt Marks’s orchestral arrangement of the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” and works by Luciano Berio and John Orfe. At the other end of the musical spectrum, the Boston Early Music Festival — a biennial explosion of concerts, lectures, master classes and symposiums that run from morning until after midnight — will take over churches, schools and concert halls all over Boston from June 12 to 19. Besides the concerts, by period-instrument and historically inclined vocal groups from around the world, the festival fills an exhibition hall with instrument makers, publishers and record labels, all showing their wares. And though the full schedule has not yet been announced, the festival’s centerpiece is a production of “Niobe, Regina di Tebe,” Agostino Steffani’s 1688 opera about the Theban queen whose pride enraged the gods. ALLAN KOZINN

Is 2011 the Year of the Blockbuster Tech I.P.O.?

For technology start-ups, the initial public offering has long lost the sheen of the dot-com era, when it seemed like anyone with an idea could go public. At the peak of the bubble, the Silicon Valley factory was in overdrive, pumping out hundreds of I.P.O.’s. a year.

In the wake of the financial crisis, there were just 45 offerings of tech companies in 2010, according to investment firm Renaissance Capital. The year before, only 16 debuted.

Now, Silicon Valley could see a modest return to the prerecession days — and even a hot brand-name initial offering from the likes of Groupon, Facebook or Zynga analysts say.

“If the equity markets remain stable, I expect a solid I.P.O. market,” said Peter Falvey, co-head of technology investment banking for Morgan Keegan. “We could see 20 percent more deals by value and by number.” Mr. Falvey and others also see increasing odds for a “Death Star explosion” — a blockbuster, multibillion dollar offering from a major Internet company. That theory gained credence on Thursday, when DealBook reported that that social-buying site Groupon is preparing for to I.P.O. at the end of 2011.

Silicon Valley is waking from a deep slumber.
The credit crisis paralyzed the technology I.P.O. market, as investors shunned unproven ventures. Only 20 companies went public from 2008 to the end of 2009, according to data from Renaissance Capital.

Meanwhile, initial offerings have become less attractive to young entrepreneurs who do not want to be burdened with the costly bureaucratic challenges of going public, including increased regulatory scrutiny, constant filings and high investment banking fees.

Instead, more founders are delaying initial offerings in favor of additional venture capital. Facebook raised more than half a billion dollars from the Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies. As DealBook noted, Groupon is negotiating with Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley for another round of financing that could be as large as $950 million.

Still, several analysts say I.P.O.’s may be regaining favor again, thanks to the improving stock market and a better economic environment.

“We may be nearing an inflection point,” said Paul Bard, a vice president at Renaissance Capital. “Companies are feeling good about their businesses, the buy side is more interested in growth and new money is coming into the market. When you have those three things happening in concert, that creates the potential for a very vibrant market for tech I.P.O.’s.”

The market may also be supported by the steady flow of Chinese companies, looking to go public on American exchanges. Eleven technology companies based in China had initial public offerings in the United States this year, including DangDang, an online retailer that experienced higher-than-expected demand in its debut, raising $272 million.

After a sluggish start, I.P.O. performance and pricing has picked up in the second half of this year. The shares of technology companies that have recently gone public are up 50.3 percent from their initial offer price, according to Morgan Keegan.

Although there are a few well-known names in this group, including the electric-car marker Tesla, the vast majority are little known, small-cap stocks. And some have done very well.

Shares of the software maker RealPage, which began trading in August, have roughly doubled. RealD, the 3-D technology company that went public in July, is up 60 percent.

The average first-day increase in share price was 18 percent, said Mr. Bard, adding that the recent rally would encourage small and midsize tech start-ups to take the plunge next year. He says he expects 2011 I.P.O. activity for technology stocks to match the levels of the years preceding the recession. In those years, the market averaged 53 public offerings a year with a value of $9.6 billion, according to Renaissance Capital.

There are 22 companies in the tech I.P.O. pipeline, including the Web chat service Skype, which many predict will be a billion-dollar offering.

The latest parlor game, however, is placing bets on whether Internet companies like Groupon or Facebook, which already have multibillion-dollar valuations, will join the fray. There has been significant demand for these Web darlings in the secondary markets, private exchanges that match buyers and sellers, including former employees looking to sell their stock. Facebook, at the center of the frenzy, is trading at an implied valuation of $42.4 billion, according to SharesPost. Although the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has said that he is in no rush to go public, the company may face increased pressure in the near term. As more investors pile into Facebook shares, often through special investment pools, the company could soon surpass 500 shareholders. That milestone would subject the company to a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would require Facebook to register with the S.E.C. and submit financial results.

As DealBookreported, the S.E.C. has started to ask for information about secondary-market trading in the shares of Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn. If Groupon or Facebook, or one of their peers, do go public in 2011, Mr. Falvey said it would be a game changer for the industry.

“There’s a chance that you get that Death Star I.P.O. in the tech market that draws huge attention to I.P.O.’s,,” he said, “the kind of attention we haven’t seen since the tech bubble burst in 2000.”

Tipsy Tow and MTA Offer Alternative to DUI

LOS ANGELES -- New Year's revelers who revel too much have several options to taking a potentially deadly chance of driving while intoxicated.

The Auto Club is offering free tows on New Year's Eve to early New Year's Day to keep intoxicated drivers off the streets.
  Callers simply dial 800-400-4 AAA and tell the operator, "I need a Tipsy Tow." The tow truck will take the driver's car to a residence within seven miles. The Tipsy Tow program will be available starting 6 p.m. today until 6 a.m. New Year's Day in all of the 13 counties the Auto Club serves.

Also, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is offering free rides on Metro buses and trains on New Year's Eve so people won't drink and drive.

No fare will be charged starting 9 p.m. New Year's Eve through 2 a.m. New Year's day.

"Zombie" Satellite Resets Self, Comes Back to Life

I

t sounds like something out of a bad B-movie but a "zombie" satellite that was thought to be dead recently powered back on. The Galaxy 15 communications satellite broke down in outer space earlier this year and reset itself this week. When it was down, it still transmitted signals as its communication center was not down, according to satellite operator Intelsat.

“We are now receiving telemetry from Galaxy 15’s Baseband Equipment (BBE) command unit and the satellite is accepting commands from the ground,” Intelsat posted in the FAQ section of its website.

The batteries to the satellite were charged as the unit is solar powered.

“Once initial diagnostic testing has been completed, we will attempt to capture earth lock and stop the drift of the satellite,” the company stated. “This phase could take as long as two weeks to complete.” For months, Intelsat operators were unable to control the rogue satellite and feared the signals it transmitted out would interfere with other satellites.

“After we complete the initial diagnostic tests on Galaxy 15 and the drift of the satellite stopped, we expect to relocate the satellite to an Intelsat orbital location where we will assess the viability of the payload, and conduct extensive in-orbit testing to determine the functionality of every aspect of the spacecraft,” the company added on its FAQ page.

If Intelsat decides that Galaxy 15 is fully recovered and viable for use, the unit could operate until 2020.

is hank green awesome

The Green brothers were looking for a way to communicate long distance but they have caused an online sensation. The popular YouTube channel Vlogbrothers was founded by brothers John and Hank Green in 2007 as a way for them to communicate visually to each other. But the YouTube channel has grown into much more. For the past three years, the brothers Green have been bringing “awesome” to the online community.
You may not have heard of Nerdfighteria, but it is a real place. It is the home of the “Nerdfighters,” or followers of the popular YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers.The Green brothers and their YouTube followers have their own language.  Dig, if you will, a few of the  Nerdfighter-isms:
“Nerdfighter” – “A person who…is on the inside…instead of bones and organs and stuff, actually made of awesome.” – Hank Green
“Nerdfighteria” – Where Nerdfighters can voice their thoughts and feelings
“DFTBA” – “Don’t forget to be awesome.”
“World Suck” – The bad stuff going on in the world
“…Stuff on heads” – “When you put stuff on your head, it makes you feel better about life.” – John Green
“Giant Squid of Anger” – “…A YouTube troll.” – Hank Green (AKA: someone who posts unhappy and unnecessary comments on videos featured on YouTube.)
“Secret Sibling” – A person who makes a video response to a Vlog Brothers video
“In Your Pants” – “Secret Sibling” Maureen Johnson discovered that if you add the words “in your pants” to the end of a book title, the book becomes much funnier.
“The Yeti” – John’s wife
“The Katherine” – Hank’s wife

ball drop 2011

Times Square Ball Drop will be happening in just a few minutes and it will officially be the start of a brand new year, the year 2011. We have received many wishes for 2011 and we would like to share them to everyone. We had also asked some fellow revelers here at New York Times Square while watching Dick Clark’s Rockin New Years Eve 2011.
“I hope that my brother will not be bullied anymore at school this year. Bullying is still one of my major concern as a parent,” said Jane Angle from Oklahoma City.
“We hope that President Obama will finally be signing a Tier 5 Extension Bill this New Year. I came here to Times Square to feel the celebration but still 2010 had been one of the worst year for our family,” said Bryan Jones, a former construction worker from Iowa.

“Despite the economic crisis we manage to overcome it because we are a nation united. We always have trust in God and this year there is one wish that I ask and that is God Bless America!,” said Martha Miles from Florida.

“My son is in Afghanistan and if there is one wish I want to really say that would be for the war there to end and for my son to come home alive,” said Jacob Terrance from Brooklyn, New York.

“New Year brings new hope for everyone and I hope that my daughter who was diagnosed to have brain tumor will still be well,” Dorothy Simons from Illinois said.

City State Times received close to 200 wishes for the New Year’s celebration here at Times Square and we are oping that all the good wishes and those that they truly deserved will really come true. As 2010 end let us sing together the symbolic and traditional song for New Year. Let us all sing and celebrate the Times Square Ball Drop 2011 with the Aud Lang Syne. Happy New Year everyone!

dick clark s rockin new years eve 2011

It's a yearly tradition, and has been for decades, and this year is no exception as Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve 2011 is in full swing. At least it is on the East Coast and will hit the television stations on the West Coast in a couple of hours.
The highlights for this years edition of the famous Ball Drop 2011 edition included performances from pop sensation Ke$ha and Taio Cruz.
The broadcast features Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark in New York Times Square along with Jenny McCarthy. While Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas takes care the West Coast countdown broadcast.

Black-eyed peas recipe: Good luck for 2011, served with bacon and Fergie

It's a New Year's tradition in homes across the country and especially the South: If you want to have good luck in the coming year, eat some black-eyed peas on Jan. 1.

And just to be clear, we're talking about actual black-eyed peas. We do not endorse the cooking and eating of Fergie, Will.I.Am and Co.

In addition to supposedly bringing luck (legumes are representative of money, and the black-eyed pea tradition in this country dates to the Civil War), the following recipe sounds like a pretty nice hangover cure. It's got a little bit of spice, good amounts of starch and protein courtesy of the main ingredient and the best post-bender fix of all, bacon.

This recipe is courtesy of the Food Network's Tyler Florence. Enjoy.

Spicy Black-Eyed Peas

Ingredients

2 slices thick-cut bacon, sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled
5 dried red chiles, broken up
2 bay leaves
1 pound dried black-eyed peas
1 quart low-sodium chicken stock
2 tomatoes, quartered
1/4 bunch fresh thyme, leaves removed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, juiced
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

In a large pot over medium heat, add bacon and render until crisp. Remove the bacon to the paper towel-lined plate. To the same pot with rendered bacon fat, add the garlic, chiles, bay leaves, and dried peas and stir to combine. Pour in the chicken stock and add the tomatoes. Simmer over medium-low heat for 1 hour until peas are tender.

Transfer about 1 to 2 cups of the peas to a blender and puree until smooth. Place the blended peas back into the pot and stir to incorporate. Add the thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Place in a serving dish and dress the peas with the lemon juice, green onions, cilantro and bacon before serving.

And, OK, if you're eating black-eyed peas, you might as well listen to the Black Eyed Peas.

Cincinnati, Arkansas Tornado Kills Three

CINCINNATI, Ark (LALATE) – A tornado striking Cincinnati, Arkansas has killed as at least three people today. Cincinnati’s tornado set down in seasonably warm temperatures. Winds from the Gulf brought temps as warm as 70 degrees Thursday.

Local weather reports immediately warned residents of pending tornado activity on Friday. Nine minutes after tornado alerts were issued, a significant tornado set down at 6 am local time.

The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management says damage is widespread.

Highway 16 in sections of Benton County was closed Friday. A fire station in Cincinnati suffered a collapsed roof. The last reported tornado on New Years Eve was in 1975.

Washington County EMS has yet to release the name of the victims. 18,000 Ozarks Electric customer are back with power midday after outages earlier Friday.

skirvin crying baby

I receive many requests for the Skirvin Hotel in downtown OKC. Travelers seeking a room that has a little more to offer outside the luxury accommodation. ...The crying sound stopped. I hopped out of bed and turned on every other light in the room. I turned on the television and jacked up the volume. Then I grabbed my BlackBerry and Googled “Skirvin crying baby.” A slew of results came up. ...At night- see if you can hear talking, movement or a baby crying. Granted, there could be a real live baby/family in the room next to you, use common sense. The key to witnessing something paranormal at the Skirvin hotel is to not ...skirvin crying baby · cincinnati arkansas · cincinnati ar · inspirational new years quotes · black eyed peas recipe · auld lang syne lyrics · first night boston · elaine mellencamp · are banks open on new years eve ...That night, we were kept awake by a baby crying. Great, we thought, we finally get away from the cries of our own baby and we have to listen to another one. It cried and cried. Someone pick that baby up already! I was screaming in my ...and I can hear her baby crying. -A little poem I wrote back in the 90s. *Addendum: I got the feeling that her name really isn't Effie but rather "Julia", but hey, John told me her name was Effie, so go figure. Also, like many hotels, ...I also stayed at The Skirvin on my wedding night. my wife and I stayed on the 8th floor and heard a baby crying off and on, all night. My wife and I called the front desk to complain and they said they wasn't a baby staying in the ...According to LegendsofAmerica.com, the woman was a maid who had an affair with W.B. Skirvin, the oilman. Skirvin locked the maid, and their baby conceived out of wedlock, in a room and wouldn't let her out. She was driven into a depression and killed herself. As a result, guests report hearing a female ghost propositioning male guests, seeing a nude woman in the shower, hearing sounds of a baby crying and witnessing items moving on their own. As for the Knicks, ...Legend has it that the Skirvin Hilton in downtown Oklahoma City is haunted by the ghost of a chamber maid who leapt to her death from the tenth floor over 70 years ago, while holding her illegitimate child that was fathered by the hotel's founder. In order to exact their vengeance, the crying baby and the sexy whore spirit kept Eddy Curry awake all night and that's why his DNP led to an 18-point New York loss. Or something. This is not the first time a home team has used ...Rumor has it that Skirvin had an affair with a maid who became pregnant and was subsequently confined to a room on the top floor to prevent the scandal from leaking out. After the baby was born, the woman became so depressed at her imprisonment that she took ... All three spirits are said to still linger in the hotel, and staff claim to have heard weeping and crying coming from the couple's former room even when it's empty. 14. The Inn at Merridun (Union, South Carolina) ...

Twins’ Facebook Fight Rages On

SAN DIEGO — Some people go to court hoping to win millions of dollars. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have already won tens of millions. But six years into a legal feud with Facebook, they want to give it back — for a chance to get more.


The Winklevosses — identical twins and Harvard graduates — say that they, along with another Harvard student, Divya Narendra, had the original idea for Facebook, and that Mark Zuckerberg stole it. They sued Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg in 2004, and settled four years later for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares.

They have been trying to undo that settlement since, saying they were misled on the value of the deal. But it has not been an easy decision.

As recently as Thursday, the brothers considered dropping their effort to unwind the agreement, and went as far as drafting a statement to that effect, according to people close to the case. They decided, though, to keep fighting. Their argument is that Facebook deceived them about the value of the shares, leaving them with far less than they had agreed. Whatever their value at the time of the deal, Facebook’s shares have soared since, putting the current worth of the settlement, by some estimates, at more than $140 million.

Next month, the twins and Mr. Narendra plan to ask a federal appeals court in San Francisco to undo the deal so they can pursue their original case against Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg, and win a richer payday. They could, though, lose it all. Still, they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle — and vindication.

“The principle is that they didn’t fight fair,” said Tyler Winklevoss during an interview at a pub here recently. “The principle is that Mark stole the idea.”

His brother, Cameron, chimed in, “What we agreed to is not what we got.”

Facebook denies it did anything improper and says the Winklevosses simply suffer from a case of “settlers remorse.”

To make matters more complicated, the twins are also at war with the lawyers who helped them win the settlement. The brothers fired them, accused them of malpractice and refused to pay them. A judge recently found for the lawyers, and ordered the twins to pay the 20 percent contingency fee, or $13 million. For now, the money and shares remain in an escrow account.

Yet their battle with Mr. Zuckerberg is what has had them riled up. When they talked about him, and told their version of the founding of Facebook, they helped finish each other’s sentences, easily reciting every last detail of a tale they have evidently told time and again.

“It shouldn’t be that Mark Zuckerberg gets away with behaving that way,” Cameron Winklevoss said.

The company declined to make Mr. Zuckerberg available for an interview, and Andrew Noyes, a spokesman, said Facebook would have no comment “beyond was is already in our appellate briefs.” In the past, Mr. Zuckerberg has denied he stole the Facebook idea from the Winklevosses, saying they planned a dating site, not a social network.

The twins, who are 29, recently told portions of their story in a “60 Minutes” interview for CBS. They grew up in affluence in Greenwich, Conn., were varsity rowers at Harvard and competed in the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008. They now live here in San Diego, where they are training for the 2012 London Olympics.

They are as physically striking and imposing as they appeared in the film, “The Social Network, where they were portrayed by one actor, Armie Hammer. They are 6-foot-5 , and their frames are lean and muscular, shaped by years of rowing.

For the interview, they wore hoodies and jeans, and only the variation in the hoodies — one zippered with a Ron Jon Surf Shop emblem, one a pullover with a Quicksilver logo — helped to tell them apart.

As they talked about the Facebook case, no detail was too small to omit, from where they first met Mr. Zuckerberg (the Kirkland House dining room) to the layout of Mr. Zuckerberg’s dorm room, to the content of the e-mails he had sent them after they asked him to do computer programming for a Web site called Harvard Connection. They recited arcane facts about the valuation of private companies and even quoted from the Securities Act of 1934, which they say Facebook violated when it drew up the settlement.

In addition to a bigger payday, the twins say they want a court to reconsider their original claims about Facebook’s founding, pointing to instant messages on the subject sent by Mr. Zuckerberg to various friends. The messages have come to light since the brothers signed the deal. But they say Facebook executives and board members have known about the messages since 2006, and played dirty by concealing them when they negotiated the settlement.

“If you take all those documents, it is a dramatically different picture,” Tyler Winklevoss said.

Facebook declined to comment on the messages. In prior interviews, Mr. Zuckerberg said he had regretted sending some of them.

Lobbyist’s Client List Puts Him on the Defensive

 

WASHINGTON — After decades of work for some of this country’s most powerful lobbying firms, Lanny J. Davis, the lawyer who once helped defend President Bill Clinton from impeachment, is suddenly scrambling to defend himself.  Since leaving the White House, Mr. Davis has built a client list that now includes coup supporters in Honduras, a dictator in Equatorial Guinea, for-profit colleges accused of exploiting students, and a company that dominates the manufacture of additives for infant formula. This month, he agreed to represent the Ivory Coast strongman whose claims to that country’s presidency have been condemned by the international community and may even set off a civil war.

Mr. Davis withdrew from his $100,000-a-month contract with Ivory Coast on Wednesday night, saying that the embattled government refused to accept his suggestion to talk to President Obama. Still, his role in West Africa has stoked growing criticism that Mr. Davis has become a kind of front man for the dark side, willing to take on some of the world’s least noble companies and causes.

Many lobbying firms have clients with checkered records. Indeed, those are the people who need help the most in Washington. But many activists — and even some government officials — said the list of clients in Mr. Davis’s firm stood out.

“You look at who he represents, and the list is just almost unseemly, tawdry,” said Meredith McGehee, a lobbyist for California WIC Association, which represents agencies that serve poor women with infant children, and who faced off against Mr. Davis this year in the fight over baby formula, which his client won. “It is an illustration of what most of the American people think of as wrong with Washington.” Mr. Davis says he is aware of the criticism, particularly since his representation of Ivory Coast became an issue. And he is pushing back with some of the same message-molding that earned him a label as a “spinmeister par excellence.” He says he’s lining up State Department officials, members of Congress and business leaders to testify about how much he has helped them.

Mostly, however, he’s single-handedly flooding the zone, writing long, detailed responses to reporters and columnists, and making himself available to anyone interested in directly hearing his side of his story.

“My credibility is the only thing I have,” he said in a long, emotional interview on Thursday. “If I defend people in indefensible, corrupt acts, then I lose everything I have, and I’m just another gun for hire. But when I see that I can help get out the facts, and improve people’s lives, and peacefully resolve conflicts, then I feel an obligation to do so.”

The 65-year-old native of Jersey City said his client list reflected his philosophy that everyone deserved a voice, particularly companies and causes that challenged conventional wisdom or the public’s sense of the politically correct. In his career, he has not only embraced controversy, but has also sought it out, portraying himself above all as a crisis manager committed to peacefully resolving conflicts.

That is essentially how Mr. Davis explains his decision to work for the self-declared president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to accept that he lost his country’s presidential election this month, despite the sanctions and threats of force by his African neighbors.

“I felt great pressure that I could accomplish the avoidance of bloodshed by convincing this man to seek a fair hearing, and to stand down if the result didn’t go his way,” Mr. Davis said, referring to Mr. Gbagbo. Later, he added, “I thought I could do some good.”

He similarly explained his work as one of three foreign agents for the government of Equatorial Guinea, which has been governed for three decades by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Rights groups and anticorruption activists have accused Mr. Obiang of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from his tiny oil-rich West African state, while most of its people scrape by in dire poverty. “I’m a liberal Democrat,” Mr. Davis said, referring to his work for Mr. Obiang. “I’ve been a liberal Democrat all my life. I haven’t changed my values. But what am I supposed to do if the leader of a country comes to me and says he wants to get right with the world, and get right with the United States? Am I supposed to say no, and let him go on doing what he’s doing? Or should I try to help him get right?”

Obama administration officials say Mr. Davis is on the wrong side of some of these fights.

E.P.A. Limit on Gases to Pose Risk to Obama and Congress

WASHINGTON — With the federal government set to regulate climate-altering gases from factories and power plants for the first time, the Obama administration and the new Congress are headed for a clash that carries substantial risks for both sides.
While only the first phase of regulation takes effect on Sunday, the administration is on notice that if it moves too far and too fast in trying to curtail the ubiquitous gases that are heating the planet it risks a Congressional backlash that could set back the effort for years.

But the newly muscular Republicans in Congress could also stumble by moving too aggressively to handcuff the Environmental Protection Agency, provoking a popular outcry that they are endangering public health in the service of their well-heeled patrons in industry. “These are hand grenades, and the pins have been pulled,” said William K. Reilly, administrator of the environmental agency under the first President George Bush.

He said that the agency was wedged between a hostile Congress and the mandates of the law, with little room to maneuver. But he also said that anti-E.P.A. zealots in Congress should realize that the agency was acting on laws that Congress itself passed, many of them by overwhelming bipartisan margins.

President Obama vowed as a candidate that he would put the United States on a path to addressing climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants. He offered Congress wide latitude to pass climate change legislation, but held in reserve the threat of E.P.A. regulation if it failed to act. The deeply polarized Senate’s refusal to enact climate change legislation essentially called his bluff.

With Mr. Obama’s hand forced by the mandates of the Clean Air Act and a 2007 Supreme Court decision, his E.P.A. will impose the first regulation of major stationary sources of greenhouse gases starting Jan. 2.

For now, administration officials are treading lightly, fearful of inflaming an already charged atmosphere on the issue and mindful that its stated priorities are job creation and economic recovery. Officials are not seeking a major confrontation over carbon regulation, which offers formidable challenges even in a less stressed economic and political climate.

“If the administration gets it wrong, we’re looking at years of litigation, legislation and public and business outcry,” said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified so as not to provide an easy target for the incoming Republicans. “If we get it right, we’re facing the same thing.”

“Can we get it right?” this official continued. “Or is this just too big a challenge, too complex a legal, scientific, political and regulatory puzzle?”

The immediate effect on utilities, refiners and major manufacturers will be small, with the new rules applying only to those planning to build large new facilities or make major modifications to existing plants. The environmental agency estimates that only 400 such facilities will be affected in each of the first few years of the program. Over the next decade, however, the agency plans to regulate virtually all sources of greenhouse gases, imposing efficiency and emissions requirements on nearly every industry and every region.

Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the E.P.A., has promised to pursue a measured and moderate course. The agency announced last week that it would not even begin issuing standards for compliance until the middle of 2011, and when it did so the rules would not impose unreasonable costs on industry.

But the reaction in Congress and industry has been outsized, with some likening the E.P.A. to terrorists and others vowing to choke off the agency’s financing for all air-quality regulation. A dozen states have filed suit to halt the new greenhouse gas rules, with one, Texas, flatly refusing to comply with any new orders from Washington.

Two federal courts, including one this week in Texas, have refused to issue restraining orders halting the implementation of the new rules. But both left open the possibility of finding the new rules unsupported by federal law.

Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is set to become chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was not convinced that greenhouse gases needed to be controlled or that the E.P.A. had the authority to do so.

“This move represents an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs — unless Congress steps in,” Mr. Upton wrote this week in a Wall Street Journal opinion essay.

His co-author was Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group financed by Koch Industries and other oil companies that has spread skepticism about global warming and supported many of the Tea Party candidates who will join the new Congress.

Mr. Upton has proposed a moratorium on all global warming regulation until the courts have ruled definitively on the legality of federal action on the issue, decisions that are probably years away.

Others in Congress, including Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Representative Nick J. Rahall II, both Democrats from West Virginia, have proposed a two-year delay in regulation by the E.P.A. while Congress comes up with its own rules. Virtually no one expects action on climate change legislation in the next Congressional session.

White House officials have said that they will recommend that Mr. Obama veto any measure that restricts the administration’s power to enforce clean air laws.

So the stalemate continues.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are already falling faster than any current legislative or regulatory proposal envisions, because of the recession-driven drop in demand for electricity. Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector, by far the largest source of total emissions, fell to about 5,400 metric tons in 2009, down from 5,800 metric tons the year before, and they are likely to fall even further this year. Demand for electricity in 2009 fell by the largest amount in six decades and is almost certain to slip further in 2010. When demand for power begins to rebound with the economy, emissions are expected to rise more slowly than in the past, in part because utilities are using fuel more efficiently and switching to cleaner-burning natural gas for part of their electricity generation. But such moves will not take the place of the across-the-board reductions in emissions that will be required to meet the administration’s target of a 17 percent reduction in emissions over 2005 levels by 2020.

And it is that broader mandate that has set off such intense opposition from industry and its allies in Congress. “Early next year we’re going to have a very serious debate on whether the E.P.A. should be allowed to unilaterally go forward and restructure the American economy,” Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in an interview. “As the president looks to 2012, his message has to be job creation, and this kind of regulation is inconsistent with that,” he said. “The public has a long memory. Anything viewed as hurting the opportunity to create jobs will not be well received.”

Disgraced ex-Israeli president convicted of rape

 Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape Thursday, a dramatic fall from grace for a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a symbol of achievement for Jews of Middle Eastern origin.
The disgraced politician, who had rejected a plea bargain that would have kept him out of jail, will likely be sentenced to four to 16 years in prison. The verdict was seen as a victory for the Israeli legal system and for women's rights in a decades-long struggle to chip away at the nation's macho culture, which once permitted political and military leaders great liberties.
"The court sent two clear and sharp messages: that everyone is equal and every woman has the full right to her body," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. But he added that it was "a sad day for Israel and its citizens."
The Tel Aviv District Court found Katsav, 65, guilty of two counts of raping an employee in 1998, when he was Israel's tourism minister. It also convicted him of lesser counts of indecent acts; sexual harassment involving two other women who worked for him when he was president, from 2000 to 2007; and obstruction of justice.
Katsav denied all allegations, claiming he was a victim of a political witch hunt and suggesting he was targeted because he is a Sephardic Jew — a Jew of Middle Eastern origin. But in Thursday's ruling, the three-judge panel said his version of events was "strewn with lies."
A somber Katsav left the courtroom without commenting, surrounded by his legal team, security guards and family members. His wife, Gila, didn't appear in court.
He was ordered to surrender his passport while awaiting sentencing on a date that was not immediately set. Late Thursday, he was holed up in his home with his family.
Israel's presidency is a largely ceremonial post, traditionally given to elder statesmen as a reward for a lifetime of public service. Winning the office capped a career in which Katsav became a model of success for Sephardic Jews, who for decades were a Jewish underclass in Israel relative to the well-off, European-rooted establishment.
Katsav's world began to crumble late in his presidency when he complained that a female employee was trying to extort him. The woman went to police with her side of the story, detailing a series of sexual assaults. Other women came forward with similar complaints.
According to the indictment, Katsav forced one woman to the floor of his office at the Tourism Ministry in 1998 and raped her. Later that year, he summoned her to a Jerusalem hotel to go over paperwork and raped her on the bed in his room. The indictment alleged that Katsav tried to calm his victim by saying: "Relax, you'll enjoy it."
The indictment alleged that he harassed two women while he was president, embracing them against their will and making unwanted sexual comments. He also was charged with obstruction of justice: The indictment said Katsav tried to persuade one of the women to change her testimony.
Under heavy public pressure, Katsav resigned in 2007, two weeks before his term expired, under a plea bargain that would have required him to admit to lesser charges of sexual misconduct. But in a dramatic reversal, Katsav subsequently rejected the deal and vowed to clear his name in court.
Around that time, he held a bizarre news conference in which he lashed out at prosecutors and the media and denied any wrongdoing. His erratic behavior, in which he shook in anger, waved a computer disc that he said proved his innocence and screamed at reporters, raised questions about his state of mind. www.wdalaw.com
The Israeli public has closely followed the case's twists and salacious details.
The conviction of a former president on rape charges — virtually unheard of anywhere in the developed world — was the latest victory for women's rights groups against the male-dominated military and political establishment.
In the early years of the state, some male leaders were known for womanizing and freewheeling ways, though that culture has gradually changed.
Women's rights groups had rallied against Katsav. On Thursday, hundreds of women stood outside the courtroom holding signs against him and chanting: "The whole nation knows Katsav is a criminal."
Emmanuel Gross, a law professor at Haifa University, said the verdict was a testament to the independence of Israel's legal system. "Our judiciary is not afraid of anyone," he said. "It is one of our greatest strengths."
In recent years, a former finance minister was sent to prison for embezzling funds, a justice minister was convicted of forcibly kissing a female soldier, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to resign to face corruption charges. His trial is still in court.
Katsav was born in Iran and immigrated to Israel as a child, growing up in immigrant tent encampments and then in Kiryat Malachi, one of the failed "development" towns that Israel's earliest governments built to populate the desert. Katsav, who is married and has five grown children, still resides in Kiryat Malachi, a hardscrabble town in southern Israel.
Katsav was elected mayor of Kiryat Malachi at the age of 24 — becoming the youngest mayor in Israel's history. He rose through the ranks of the rightist Likud Party to hold a series of Cabinet posts before parliament selected him to be president in 2000. He engineered the upset victory over Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres by rallying ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties behind him.
Katsav's presidency was largely uneventful. In one of his moments of glory, he shook hands and chatted briefly with the president of archenemy Iran at the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. He also appealed for calm and unity during Israel's traumatic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip a few months later.
On Thursday, Katsav's son Boaz vowed his father would clear his name.
"We will continue to walk with our heads high and all the nation ... with God's help, will know that (my) father, the eighth president of the state of Israel, is innocent," he said.
But one of Katsav's lawyers, Avigdor Feldman, said his client had not yet decided whether to appeal.
Any appeal would likely focus on witness credibility — an area that Israel Radio legal analyst Moshe Negbi said Israel's Supreme Court rarely reverses.
"He has nothing to lose. He will probably appeal, but he doesn't have much of a chance," Negbi said.
A presidential pardon also appears unlikely because of the severity of the offenses. The office of Peres, who became president when Katsav resigned, declined to comment.

Geraldine Doyle; inspired Rosie the Riveter poster

  Geraldine Doyle, who as a 17-year-old factory worker became the inspiration for a popular World War II recruitment poster that evoked female power and independence under the slogan “We Can Do It!,’’ died Dec. 26 at a hospice in Lansing, Mich. She was 86. Her daughter, Stephanie Gregg, said the cause of death was complications from severe arthritis. For millions of Americans throughout the decades since World War II, the stunning brunette in the red and white polka-dot bandanna was Rosie the Riveter.

Rosie’s rolled-up sleeves and flexed right arm came to represent the newfound strength of the 18 million women who worked during the war and later made her a figure of the feminist movement.

But the woman in the patriotic poster was never named Rosie, nor was she a riveter. All along it was Mrs. Doyle, who after graduating from high school in Ann Arbor, Mich., took a job at a metal factory, her family said.

One day, a photographer for United Press International came to her factory and captured Mrs. Doyle leaning over a piece of machinery and wearing a red and white polka-dot bandanna over her hair.

In early 1942, the Westinghouse Corp. commissioned artist J. Howard Miller to produce several morale-boosting posters to be displayed inside its buildings. The project was funded by the government as a way to motivate workers and perhaps recruit new ones for the war effort. Smitten with the UPI photo, Miller was said to have decided to base one of his posters on the anonymous, slender metal worker.

For four decades, this fact escaped Mrs. Doyle, who shortly after the photo was taken left her job at the factory. She barely lasted two weeks.

A cellist, Mrs. Doyle was horrified to learn that a previous worker at the factory had badly injured her hands working at the machines. She found safer employment at a soda fountain and bookshop in Ann Arbor, where she met a young dental school student she would marry.

In 1984, Mrs. Doyle and her family came across an article in Modern Maturity magazine, a former AARP publication, that connected her UPI photo with Miller’s wartime poster.

The artist did take some liberties with Mrs. Doyle’s physique, her family said.

“She didn’t have those big muscles,’’ said her daughter Stephanie Gregg of Eaton Rapids, Mich. “She was busy playing cello.’’

According to her family, the original photo of Mrs. Doyle was featured on the cover of the 1986 Time-Life book “The Patriotic Tide: 1940-1950.’’

“You’re not supposed to have too much pride, but I can’t help have some in that poster,’’ Mrs. Doyle told the Lansing State Journal in 2002. “It’s just sad I didn’t know it was me sooner.’’

Geraldine Hoff was born in Inkster, Mich., and grew up in Ann Arbor, where her father was an electrician.

Her husband of 66 years, Leo H. Doyle, died in February. A son, Gary Doyle, died in 1980.

In addition to her daughter Stephanie, Mrs. Doyle leaves four children, Jacqueline Drewes of Eaton Rapids, Mich., Brian Doyle of Holt, Mich., Deidre Doyle of Fort Myers, Fla., Lauretta Doyle of Hollandale, Wis.; a brother; a sister; 18 grandchildren; and 25 great-grandchildren.

The “We Can Do It!’’ poster was scheduled to be displayed in Westinghouse facilities for only two weeks in February 1942. But as time passed, it took on a whole new life.

In the early 1940s, Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb composed the song “Rosie the Riveter.’’

Simple lyrics helped the tune become a staple on radio stations coast-to-coast: “All day long whether rain or shine, she’s part of the assembly line. She’s making history, working for victory, Rosie the Riveter.’’

After the song had become popular, the May 29, 1943, edition of the Saturday Evening Post cover featured a Norman Rockwell illustration of a muscular, red-headed riveter with the name Rosie painted on her lunch pail.

From then on, many people began to associate the hardworking female factory employee with the name “Rosie,’’ and so the title stuck to Miller’s poster.

Several women claimed to be the “real’’ Rosie the Riveter, including Rose Monroe, an aircraft parts worker who appeared in a propaganda film promoting war bonds.

In the decades since the poster’s creation, the image has evolved into a pop culture reference that generated scores of imitations.

In 1999, the US Postal Service issued a stamp based on the “We Can Do It!’’ poster.

For years, Mrs. Doyle made appearances in Michigan to sign posters, until her arthritis made her dependent on a wheelchair and unable to write.

While many people profited from the “Rosie the Riveter’’ image, Mrs. Doyle often said she never made a penny from it because she was too busy tending to her family and “changing diapers all the time.

grapefruit

Grapefruit Diet For Weight Loss This New Year

For this New Year 2011, everyone is going on a diet spree with the latest health foods and organic food that has come into the market. Most people add weight loss as the first point on their New Year Resolution list in order to follow it truthfully throughout the year.

Buzz up!
It is hard to believe that most of them do follow this weight loss tips and diet to get rid of that flab. So, to help your dreams come true by having the perfect zero figure, here are a few weight loss tips with the help of grapefruit. It is said that grapefruit is essential in a weight loss diet as it helps you to loose loads of that unwanted calories along with making you feel healthy. The Grapefruit is rich in proteins and minerals which belongs to that of the citrus family. It looks like an orange but grows in clusters like that of grapes, therefore it gets the name of Grapefruit.

The grapefruit diet has a lot of health aspects, it is useful for those who suffer from acidity as the grapefruit produces an alkaline reaction after digestion. The grapefruit diet is essential for pregnant women too as it helps them with reducing of water retention in the body and also brings down the swelling in their feet which usually occurs in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy.
Another great aspect of grapefruit is that it helps get rid of sore throat, so here is one home remedy which can be used to ward off a painful throat. Following the grapefruit diet,it will help in preventing cancer which is on a high rise, it reduces insomnia and by this it also helps to improve the immune system.

The grapefruit diet is as follows

1.Breakfast – Scramble or boil two eggs with bacon and wheat bread along with half a cup of grapefruit.

2.Lunch – A good healthy vegetable salad, a small non vegetarian side dish, along with another half cup of grapefruit.

3.Dinner – Good amount of vegetables in a salad, fish or chicken and half cup of grapefruit juice.

This grapefruit has been here for a long time since the 1930's and recently was used by actress Sophia Loren who introduced this Grapefruit diet to the younger generation for weight loss has worked wonders.

AAA offers free ride, tow tonight

TUSCALOOSA | While some New Year’s Eve partygoers may need to catch a ride home if they’ve had too much to drink, AAA Alabama wants to provide their cars a way home, too.

AAA is offering a free towing on New Year’s Eve through its Tow-for-Life program, which started 24 years ago.
Tuscaloose police said officers will be on the lookout for impaired drivers along with the Alabama State Troopers, although no increase in the number of officers on the road is planned.
The Tow-for-Life program is available to members and non-members of AAA. The program allows for a tow of up to 10 miles for free, but any distance longer than 10 miles will cost $2.50 per mile.
The program provides the driver and the vehicle a ride, and the driver must go home, not to another party or bar. Any passengers will have to find another way home.
Tow truck operators volunteer their time and equipment for the program. In Tuscaloosa, Pop and Sons Towing is the AAA provider.
To request the free tow on New Year’s Eve, call AAA Alabama at 800-222-4357 and ask for Tow-for-Life. The vehicle must be operable to qualify for a free tow.
The AAA operator will ask for the driver’s name, home address, telephone number and exact location of the vehicle and driver. A tow truck will be dispatched and upon arrival the wrecker driver will ask for identification and the keys to the vehicle.
The vehicle will be towed to the home of the driver or owner, if the owner is present. The program will operate from 6 p.m. New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. New Year’s Day.

irma nici

Beckham gets tough over sex story 

David Beckham

David Beckham has stepped up his fight against a prostitute who claims she slept with the soccer star, filing court documents officially declaring he did not have sex with Irma Nici.
The documents are part of Beckham's $US25 million ($A24.63 million) lawsuit against Nici and the publishers of In Touch Weekly magazine, who ran her story in September.
"I have never met Nici, let alone committed adultery or paid her for sex," he declared in the documents filed with a Los Angeles court on Tuesday.

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In his declaration, obtained by TMZ.com, the sporting hunk insists Nici "fabricated" the facts of her expose, and goes on to list them.
He denies "that in August 2007, I committed adultery with Nici and another prostitute by paying for sex with the two of them", and "that about a month later, I again committed adultery with Nici at the Claridges Hotel in London".
He also states that Nici's claims she slept with him "five times in total" are "unequivocally false".
"Irma Nici's statements have caused me and my family great anguish and emotional distress, and have adversely affected both my personal and professional life."

Laura Govan Abandoned! Gilbert Arenas Abandons Pregnant Girlfriend and Three Children

Laura Govan, the fiancé of basketball star Gilbert Arenas, has been left without any money for herself or her three children, according to her publicist Laura Wright.

After Arenas departed from the Washington Wizards for the Orlando Magic in December, it seems that the star has cut off funds and communication from Govan, who is currently pregnant with their fourth child. “[Govan] has not heard from Arenas the whole month of December,” said Wright in an e-mailed statement. “Govan and the children feel like they have been abandoned.”

Wright added that Govan wasn’t even left with money for Christmas presents.

“[Govan was left]  with no money to purchase food or Christmas gifts.” The pair, who had gone through a famously tumultuous 9-year courtship—intermittent stormy breaks up and reunions, custody battles and an elaborate marriage proposal—apparently broke up this time around Thanksgiving.

Although Arenas, 28, and Govan, 31, didn’t announce their separation, Arenas hinted that trouble was brewing when he recently told reported that he had been staying with Wizards teammate Nick Young for about a month.

auld lang syne lyrics

Auld Lang Syne (The Good Old Days) is a song traditionally sung at midnight when horns are blown, confetti is thrown, and a general party atmosphere is created to ring in the New Year with happiness and hope for a bright and prosperous year. The outgoing year is often represented by an elderly man known as Father Time and the new year is represented by a baby known as Baby New Year.
Robert Burns wrote the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne in the 1700's. 
 
Auld Lang Syne
Robert Burns
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine;
we've wander'd mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne
We two hae paidled i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne
And here's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne 
 

MMXI

  Google’s New Doodle: MMXI for the New Year
MMXI? What is Google’s Secret code in their new doodle logo? If you have tried to figure out what the mysterious google doodle is with no avail. Here is the answer for you! The image consists of ‘GMMXLE’, a code. But the image is googles way of ushering in the New Year.
To find out more keep reading after the jump!

The code is 2011 written in roman characters with a G and E at the beginning and the end, to add to the puzzle. Only the middle four letters are altered with the roman characters.