The marketing machine behind Lily Allen’s new record It’s Not Me, It’s You, due out February ‘09, is in full swing and it’s certainly got my attention. Her video for the first single “The Fear” puts the foul mouthed popster in an Alice in Wonderland world complete with living presents and balloon festooned dancers.

Lily Allen - The Fear (video)

Bonus! Here’s one of the tracks that didn’t make the cut for the new record and if it’s any indication of what actually did make the cut then I cannot wait to hear the rest.

Lily Allen - Who’d Have Known (mp3)
[See post to listen to audio]

Links: Official Site | on Last.fm | on MySpace

The first sign of a government retreat on airport expansion came yesterday with the announcement that a decision on whether to build a new runway at Heathrow would be delayed until the end of January.

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=493851f7796c7a3400e7ad29maxX=224maxY=315" border="0" alt="qilu.jpg" title="qilu.jpg" width="224" height="315" /It's official: Former Yahoo (YHOO) tech star Qi Lu has been named to head up Microsoft's (MSFT) Online Services Group. The job puts Lu in charge of web search and online advertising for Microsoft and Windows Live./p pRumors Lu was a contender for the job have been circulating since a report on a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081204/former-yahoo-tech-star-qi-lu-likely-to-be-named-microsofts-digital-head-by-next-week/"AllThingsD/a this morning. /p pA big day of change for Microsoft. The company also said Brian McAndrews, SVP of Microsoft's Advertiser Publisher Solutions Group, would be leaving the company. McAndrews was said to be vying for the job that went to Lu./p pThe full release:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Microsoft Corp. today announced that Dr. Qi Lu will join the company as president of the Online Services Group. Dr. Lu will lead Microsoft's efforts in search and online advertising and all the company's online information and communications services. Dr. Lu will report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.br /br /Lu most recently served as executive vice president of Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for development efforts around Yahoo!'s Web search and monetization platforms. Dr. Lu left Yahoo! in August 2008 after 10 years of service.br /br /'I am tremendously excited to welcome Qi to Microsoft,' Ballmer said. 'Dr. Lu's deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities and hard-working mentality are well-known in the technology industry, and Microsoft will benefit from his addition to our executive management team.'br /br /'I am genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead for Microsoft to make an enormous impact on the online industry,' Dr. Lu said. 'Microsoft has built a great foundation for its search and advertising technologies and put an amazing team of researchers and engineers in place to drive the next wave of innovation in online services. I'm looking forward to working with them to help transform the way people and businesses use the Internet to find and share information.'br /Before his most recent role at Yahoo!, Lu was vice president of engineering responsible for the technology development of Yahoo!'s Search and Marketplace business unit, which includes the company's search, e-commerce, and local listings of businesses and products.br /Before joining Yahoo! in 1998, Dr. Lu was a Research Staff Member at IBM Almaden Research Center. Before IBM, Dr. Lu worked at Carnegie Mellon University as a Research Associate, and at Fudan University in China as a faculty member. Dr. Lu holds 20 U.S. patents, and received his bachelor of science and master of science in computer science from Fudan University and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.br /br /Lu's first day at Microsoft will be Jan. 5, 2009. In his role running the Online Services Group, he will oversee several groups including the Advertiser Publisher Solutions business, managed by Scott Howe who was promoted to corporate vice president; the Online Audience business, managed by Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi; OSG Research Development, managed by Senior Vice President Satya Nadella; and OSG Finance, managed by Rik van der Kooi who was promoted to corporate vice president.br /br /With the successful integration of aQuantive now complete, Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive and senior vice president of Microsoft's Advertiser Publisher Solutions Group, has decided to transition out of Microsoft, and will do so over the next several months, serving in a consultative capacity to Steve Ballmer and Qi Lu during that time.br /br /'Brian McAndrews built a world-class business for advertisers and publishers and led the successful integration of aQuantive into Microsoft, setting the foundation for our next phase of growth,' Ballmer said. 'While I am sorry to see Brian leave the company, I respect and understand his decision and wish him nothing but the best in the future.'br /br /'I also want to congratulate Scott and Rik on their well-deserved promotions and look forward to their leadership in the Online Services Group alongside Qi, Yusuf and Satya,' Ballmer said.br /br /As part of today's announcement, several teams will move to further align resources. The field sales organizations in the Online Services Group will move to Microsoft's centralized Sales, Marketing and Services Group led by chief operating officer Kevin Turner. This group, called Consumer Online, will be led by Corporate Vice President Darren Huston and will include the Global Advertising Sales and Services organization, led by vice president Bill Shaughnessy./p p /p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YuP-xJtJ_ZcHQoExgwJdm6seqdE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YuP-xJtJ_ZcHQoExgwJdm6seqdE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=rXQFlbWa"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=rXQFlbWa" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=p1Hmvooz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=zWPnp8L3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=pRiX0vW7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=BDKSxZYb"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=BAYhUkos"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=UjKrJNIr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/BWcjoMFR028" height="1" width="1"/

pThe FBI has released a brief report describing the risk to the US infrastructure posed by thieves who target the copper that makes up much of our piping and wiring. The problem seems to be that stealing copper creates damages far out of proportion to the price of the material./ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081204-fbi-widespread-copper-theft-puts-us-infrastructure-at-risk.html"Read More.../a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8W7QnoHy5dCT4p411y0OK2JOyg8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8W7QnoHy5dCT4p411y0OK2JOyg8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=RhcnbwTu"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?i=RhcnbwTu" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=tbG2xenT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=YBOQ6rdK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=41" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~4/76JDWBzvlGg" height="1" width="1"/

pThe FBI has released a brief report describing the risk to the US infrastructure posed by thieves who target the copper that makes up much of our piping and wiring. The problem seems to be that stealing copper creates damages far out of proportion to the price of the material./ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081204-fbi-widespread-copper-theft-puts-us-infrastructure-at-risk.html"Read More.../a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8W7QnoHy5dCT4p411y0OK2JOyg8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8W7QnoHy5dCT4p411y0OK2JOyg8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=RhcnbwTu"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?i=RhcnbwTu" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=tbG2xenT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=YBOQ6rdK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=41" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~4/76JDWBzvlGg" height="1" width="1"/

pThe FBI has released a brief report describing the risk to the US infrastructure posed by thieves who target the copper that makes up much of our piping and wiring. The problem seems to be that stealing copper creates damages far out of proportion to the price of the material./ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081204-fbi-widespread-copper-theft-puts-us-infrastructure-at-risk.html"Read More.../a/p

A few years ago I held an event each year to raise money for the Child's Play Charity that puts videogames into the hands of kids staying at children's hospitals. We called it, in proper rock style, Fuuml;nde Razor. We're now in our fourth year, and thanks to help from friends in the industry mdash; Kotaku, Game|Life, Rock Gamer, Gizmodo, not to mention tons of game and gadget manufacturers mdash; we've raised thousands of dollars that we give over in its entirety to Child's Play. We've even moved beyond our original New York event to add a Denver and San Francisco event, all next Wednesday evening. (Location and times over on FundeRazor.com. [There's a similar event on Tuesday in Chicago.]) Prizes will vary a little bit from event to event (a lot of what we bring in are review items and such that all we bloggers have in our closets) but here's a partial list of what you can expect to win in the raffle or as door prizes at all three cities' events. It really is a blast. If you make it to the NYC event, come tell me hi! And if you can't make it out to any of the nights (or even if you can), please consider donating to Child's Play anyway. They're amazing. All the prizes that you could maybe possible win but if not you can still drink beer and play Rock Band [Offworld!]...br style="clear: both;"/gt; a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=39efd85015e9875a2f63905a79755a4bamp;p=1"gt;img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=39efd85015e9875a2f63905a79755a4bamp;p=1" border="0" /gt;/agt;

Shares of Red Hat Inc. climbed Thursday after a Jefferies analyst upgraded the software distributor, noting its 100 percent recurring revenue stream, which puts it in a good position to weather the 2009 "spending storm."div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=K9SZO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=K9SZO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=EbDgo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=EbDgo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=w2SVo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=w2SVo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ibtimes/tech/~4/475021708" height="1" width="1"/

On the December 3 broadcast of ABC's World News, national correspondent Chris Bury falsely claimed that "Ford, Chrysler, and GM pay union workers more than $73 an hour in wages and benefits." In fact, according to General Motors, which reportedly puts its current hourly labor costs at around $69, the figure is based not only on current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for current retirees, as Media Matters for America has noted.

Bury described the alleged $73 an hour pay rate as "the big stuff" that the United Auto Workers "did not offer to give back" as a concession to keep GM, Chrysler, and Ford from falling into bankruptcy. But the Associated Press reported that GM "says its total hourly labor costs dropped 6 percent this year from pre-contract levels, from $73.26 in 2006 to around $69 per hour," and according to a GM spokesman, "The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees."

Bury joins numerous other media figures who have advanced the falsehood that U.S. autoworkers employed by General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler earn $70 or more per hour in wages and benefits.

From the December 3 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:

BURY: But the union did not offer to give back the big stuff: pay and benefits that remain a fundamental problem. Ford, Chrysler, and GM pay union workers more than $73 an hour in wages and benefits. Japanese plants here shell out just over $44. For GM, that translates into $1,500 more per car than Toyota has to pay.

DAVID COLE (chairman, Center for Automotive Research): That's like trying to run a marathon, and your competition is wearing track shoes and a great track outfit, and you're wearing galoshes and an overcoat and carrying a bowling ball.

BURY: That competitive gap will shrink dramatically when big cuts in pay and benefits kick in over the next few years, but that's too late. Today the union chief bristled at blaming autoworkers.

RON GETTELFINGER (president, United Auto Workers): Are we going to take a look at what's happened to our economy, to the housing crunch, to the Wall Street bailout, and the failures on Wall Street? Those are the things that we need to look at.

BURY: The concessions may not be enough to stem the bleeding, but they may help convince Congress that Detroit is serious about changing its ways, and today, President-elect Obama suggested he is warming to the bailout plan.

It's an expectedly cryptic announcement, but it looks like the whimsical folks at Violet have finally seen fit to offer a follow-up to their original and less-than-affordable dal internet-connected lamp, with the all new dal:dal lamp apparently on track for a release early next year. As before, the lamp will change colors to relay different information, or, as Violet puts it, convert the "world's ebb & flow and endless stream of events into halos of living colours and audio micro-messages." No exact release date just yet but, according to GeekLifeBlog, it'll set you back €59, or about $75.

[Via GeekLifeBlog]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Violet announces dal:dal internet-connected lamp originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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div align="center"a href="http://www.violet.net/daldal-the-lamp-which-turns-the-internet-into-lights.html"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/violet-daldal-12-04-08.jpg" alt="" //abr / div align="left"It's an expectedly cryptic announcement, but it looks like the whimsical folks at a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/violet"Violet/a have finally seen fit to offer a follow-up to their original and less-than-affordable a href="http://www.engadget.com/2004/05/21/the-wifi-lamp/"dal internet-connected lamp/a, with the all new dal:dal lamp apparently on track for a release early next year. As before, the lamp will change colors to relay different information, or, as Violet puts it, convert the "world's ebb amp; flow and endless stream of events into halos of living colours and audio micro-messages." No exact release date just yet but, according to GeekLifeBlog, it'll set you back euro;59, or about $75.br /br /[Via a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgeeklifeblog.com%2Fdaldal-la-lampe-internet-par-violetamp;hl=enamp;ie=UTF-8amp;sl=framp;tl=en"GeekLifeBlog/a]br //div /divpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/gadgets/" rel="tag"Misc. Gadgets/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/household/" rel="tag"Household/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/violet-announces-dal-dal-internet-connected-lamp/"Violet announces dal:dal internet-connected lamp/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:46:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.violet.net/daldal-the-lamp-which-turns-the-internet-into-lights.htmlRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/violet-announces-dal-dal-internet-connected-lamp/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1391504/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/violet-announces-dal-dal-internet-connected-lamp/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/vBhf_DxUGknlpL2KuEtEUCJnw6E/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/vBhf_DxUGknlpL2KuEtEUCJnw6E/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=Kv5GBdmE"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=Kv5GBdmE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=EAbCvKfr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=EAbCvKfr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/iFDAS5QIDls" height="1" width="1"/

Listen up, paranoid readers. SanDisk has just introduced what it's calling "the first secure USB flash drive to fully support Apple Mac OS X computers." The new Cruzer Enterprise was designed to meet unique USB security / compliance needs by implementing a "hardware-based 256-bit AES USB encryption solution that puts mandatory access control on all files as protection against theft or loss of the drive." Of course, Windows environments are also supported, and on both platforms users can log in / shut down access to the encrypted storage area, change and manage passwords, alter contact information (among other preferences), launch online support (woo!) and view current firmware and drive information. The drive is available in 1/2/4/8GB flavors (runs around $60 to $300) and plays nice with both OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard) on the Mac side.

Filed under: Storage

SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise: first secure USB drive fully compatible with OS X originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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a href="http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4433"img vspace="16" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/12-4-08-cruzerentleftcapbeh.jpg" //aListen up, paranoid readers. a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/SanDisk/"SanDisk/a has just introduced what it's calling "the first secure USB flash drive to fully support Apple Mac OS X computers." The new a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/07/sandisk-rolls-out-rsa-packin-cruzer-enterprise-flash-drives/"Cruzer Enterprise/a was designed to meet unique USB security / compliance needs by implementing a "hardware-based 256-bit AES USB encryption solution that puts mandatory access control on all files as protection against theft or loss of the drive." Of course, Windows environments are also supported, and on both platforms users can log in / shut down access to the encrypted storage area, change and manage passwords, alter contact information (among other preferences), launch online support (woo!) and view current firmware and drive information. The drive is available in 1/2/4/8GB flavors (runs around $60 to $300) and plays nice with both OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard) on the Mac side.pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/storage/" rel="tag"Storage/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/sandisk-cruzer-enterprise-first-secure-usb-flash-drive-fully-co/"SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise: first secure USB drive fully compatible with OS X/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:15:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4433Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/sandisk-cruzer-enterprise-first-secure-usb-flash-drive-fully-co/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1391083/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/04/sandisk-cruzer-enterprise-first-secure-usb-flash-drive-fully-co/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/xgBuVJ6iBeQY-0darzt4S8CkCEI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/xgBuVJ6iBeQY-0darzt4S8CkCEI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=pIEUwQv2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=pIEUwQv2" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=jpO7gouD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=jpO7gouD" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/Vj6zlORhomk" height="1" width="1"/

On the December 4 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle, and Mika Brzezinski debunked the false claim, advanced by many in the media, that autoworkers employed by U.S. auto manufacturers receive $70 or more per hour in wages and benefits.

After Democratic strategist Bob Shrum noted that "there's this one crazy statistic" that autoworkers are "paid 70 bucks an hour," Barnicle said: "The $77 an hour thing is not true. It's the compilation of all the benefits." Scarborough later added, "[J]ust so everybody knows, when we talk about $77 or $45, we're not only talking about the money, the benefits, everything else, retirement, we're also talking about the money to -- the legacy costs of the existing retirees." Shrum replied, "It's health care for ... people retired 25 years ago. I mean, that money's not going to anyone who's working there now." Brzezinski replied, "And they have a lot to carry with that." Scarborough concluded: "It's very misleading when you're talking about $77 an hour in labor costs. "

As Media Matters for America has noted, according to General Motors, the figure representing the hourly cost of labor to U.S. automakers -- a cost that GM puts at $69 -- includes not only current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for current retirees. Notwithstanding this fact, numerous media figures and outlets have advanced the falsehood that autoworkers receive $70 or more per hour in wages and benefits, some using it to blame autoworkers for the domestic auto industry's financial straits.

From the December 4 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

SHRUM: There may be a better way, and I think the far better way is for Congress to come up with a serious plan, have a serious oversight board. Remember here that we're not just beating up the unions. After all, these are the people who represent those folks in Detroit. Well, there's this one crazy statistic, have you seen it? That they're paid 70 bucks an hour for auto workers?

BRZEZINSKI: Well, yes. This is debatable.

SHRUM: It's not true. It's --

BARNICLE: The $77 an hour thing is not true. It's the compilation of all the benefits.

SHRUM: Right. And the benefits of the retirees and the pensions of the retirees. It's actually about $28 an hour.

BRZEZINSKI: Really. OK, now we --

SCARBOROUGH: The thing is, even on that point, if you're comparing the $77 to the $45 that foreign automakers do, even that is only a two-year deal because they've already made corrective measures.

BRZEZINSKI: Renegotiated.

SCARBOROUGH: So, that $77 figure goes down to $45, $46 in 2010.

BARNICLE: And new hirees, I believe -- don't hold me to this -- but under the new contract that starts January 1, new hirees are receiving like $18 or $19 an hour, so it goes down even further.

SCARBOROUGH: And again, just so everybody knows, when we talk about $77 or $45, we're not only talking about the money, the benefits, everything else, retirement, we're also talking about the money to -- the legacy costs of the existing retirees.

BRZEZINSKI: Well, yes.

SHRUM: It's health care for -- health care for people retired 25 years ago.

BRZEZINSKI: Exactly.

SHRUM: I mean, that money's not going to anyone who's working there now.

BRZEZINSKI: And they have a lot to carry with that.

SCARBOROUGH: It's very misleading when you're talking about $77 an hour in labor costs.

BRZEZINSKI: That's true.

Mac OS X only: Back in May Google released a Google Earth plug-in that integrated Google's popular 3D mapping application in your Windows web browser, and today the Google Geo Developers blog...

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/google-earth-mac-plugin.png" width="494" height="296" /Mac OS X only: Back in May a href="http://lifehacker.com/393760/google-earth-plug+in-puts-google-earth-in-your-browser"Google released a Google Earth plug-in/a that integrated Google's popular 3D mapping application in your Windows web browser, and today the Google Geo Developers blog announced that the Earth plug-in is now available for Macs. The Google Earth plug-in still isn't the most widely used plug-in around, but Google did create a new a href="http://earth-api-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/demos/puzzler/index.html"Puzzler game/a that uses the Google Earth plug-in (Windows and Mac) if you're looking to stretch its legs. The OS X Google Earth plug-in is a free download, works with both Firefox and Safari. div class="related"a href="http://code.google.com/apis/earth/"Google Earth Plug-in/a [Google Code via a href="http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-earth-in-your-browser-on-your.html"Google Geo Developers Blog/a]/div /p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=150529975745a709b20408150302e41fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=150529975745a709b20408150302e41fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=150529975745a709b20408150302e41f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sm4AShBe"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=TsNYf49Z"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6irFgXvV"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6irFgXvV" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=81LyyFre"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=81LyyFre" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/FgPZ5Te8adE" height="1" width="1"/

On the December 3 edition of CNN's Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer falsely claimed that an autoworker who belongs to the United Auto Workers "makes $73 an hour, on average, when you factor in all the benefits, compared to $48 an hour for nonunion autoworkers here in the United States." In fact, according to General Motors, the figure representing the hourly cost of labor to U.S. automakers -- a cost that GM puts at $69 -- includes not only current workers' hourly wages and benefits, such as health care and retirement, but also retirement and health-care benefits that U.S. automakers are providing for retirees, as Media Matters for America has noted.

CNN also aired the following graphic echoing Blitzer's falsehood:

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/songbird_newlogo.png"Earlier this week, the open-source music player built on Mozilla technology, a href="http://getsongbird.com/"Songbird/a, finally made its 1.0 release. After being in development for two years, this version feels like the kind of solid media player we've been expecting and hoping for all along. Although nothing is entirely bug-free, this release worked smoothly, with both performance and stability seeming greatly improved. Combine that with its extendibility through the the use of add-ons, and you'll find Songbird has a lot of promise as a worthwhile iTunes replacement. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12815amp;cb=12815' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12815amp;n=12815' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p h2What We Liked/h2 pWhen we looked at Songbird in the past, many readers were quick to point out a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/songbird-music-power-browser.php#comment-44853"the player's sluggish experience/a, a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/songbird-music-power-browser.php#comment-44757"tendency to crash/a, and a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/songbird-music-power-browser.php#comment-44705"bugs/a. Whatever negative experiences you had before that drove you away from the software, now is the time to get it another shot. /p pThis time around, the player felt fast, lightweight, and stable. It imported our iTunes library without a hitch, even the DRM-protected purchases and the accompanying metadata. /p pAs we played tracks, an add-on called a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/73"mashTape/a, one of the six default add-ons, let us delve into artist info, discography, links, news, and scroll through flickr photos and YouTube videos. Others that ship with the player out of the box include a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/106"Last.fm/a, a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1281"Concerts/a, and a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1205"SHOUTcast radio/a.#160; With these installed, you can sync your tracks to Last.fm's online service, check out upcoming concerts in the area, and stream music over the internet using the player./p p a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3082738564/" title="songbird_2 by sarahintampa, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/3082738564_5806700916_o.jpg" width="595" height="258" alt="songbird_2" //a p pIn addition, there are over a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/"70 add-ons/a available for download from the Songbird site, including the recommended add-ons like a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/1230"LyricMaster/a, which puts the lyrics to your favorite tunes in the Songbird sidebar and a href="http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/238"MediaFlow/a which introduces a visually appealing cover flow view of your music./p pSongbird is based on Mozilla's Gecko engine, the same engine that powers Firefox. And like Firefox, Songbird also allows for tabbed browsing and themes, as well as the above-mentioned add-ons. The customization and extendibility Songbird provides are really what make the software so compelling. /p h2What's Missing/h2 pOf course, in pointing out Songbird's strengths, we would be remiss if we left out its weaknesses, too. Major features found in iTunes are still missing from the 1.0 release. Songbird can't automatically download album art, watch folders, offer feed management, or rip CDs. The a href="http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Roadmap"roadmap/a promises these features are coming as is broader video support. However, considering it took the company two years to get to this point, some people may have trouble believing the promised February and April 2009 dates the roadmap lists. /p pFor iPhone and iPod Touch users, iTunes will still be necessary as only iTunes allows for syncing those devices and the installation of apps. Even iPod users have reason to worry that Songbird will break at some point given a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eff_to_apple_free_speech_isnt_a_dmca_violation.php"Apple's tendency to shut down attempts to reverse-engineer/a their software.#160;#160; /p p a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahintampa/3082738416/" title="songbird_1 by sarahintampa, on Flickr"img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3042/3082738416_3d8c9be1a3_o.jpg" width="460" height="395" alt="songbird_1" //a p h2Why Apple Should Be Scared/h2 pFocusing solely on the missing features that make Songbird feel incomplete is near-sighted to say the least. Fast-forward to next year and you'll have a lot less to complain about. Remember, too, that the web browser you know and love as Firefox 3 didn't start off complete with an awesome bar, integrated add-on installer system, and full-page zoom, either./p pWhat Songbird delivers is something Apple can't: a more open version of iTunes that runs on PC, Mac, emand /emLinux machines. Apple's locked-down and closed iTunes player lets Songbird comfortably find its niche as the open, alternative music player, much as Firefox became the alternative web browser.#160; If the company ever reaches the point where it can match every one of iTunes features and provide the customization aspect, the decision to switch will become a no-brainer. Why have less when you can have more? /p pToday's Songbird is no iTunes killer...at least not at the moment. We're just not there yet - maybe we'll never be - but we're definitely enjoying watching the company give it a try. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_apple_should_be_worried_about_songbird.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4nbtbYvb36YWWENWkg7r1QfA1TI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4nbtbYvb36YWWENWkg7r1QfA1TI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=QQ2mKDrp"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=ZI6HmSP6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=vFn28X7U"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=vFn28X7U" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=hlayM0v5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=hlayM0v5" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=SIMtn44u"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=SIMtn44u" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=s7NDuzRF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=YjVA27Ju"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/wF1mDwjQQdc" height="1" width="1"/

Many techies and regular users are drooling over the iPhone, even if the $199 price tag puts it a bit out of many folks' reach. However, Boy Genius Report says it's received a tip about a cheaper iPhone that could be headed to Walmart. How much cheaper? $99, the...