Regulators, investors turn up heat over Facebook IPO

(Reuters) - Two top U.S. financial regulators said on Tuesday the issues around the initial public offering of Facebook should be reviewed, putting fresh pressure on the company, its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, and the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Facebook shares closed 8.9 percent lower at $31, following an 11 percent plunge on Monday. At that price the company has shed more than $19 billion in market capitalization from its $38-per-share offering price last week.

Reuters reported late Monday that the consumer Internet analyst at lead underwriter Morgan Stanley cut his revenue forecasts for Facebook in the days before the offering, information that was not disclosed to the market before the stock was listed.

Facebook itself had urged analysts working for some of the 33 underwriters to lower their estimates ahead of the IPO, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the conversations that were held during the week prior to the IPO.

"Facebook changed the numbers. They didn't forecast their business right and they changed their numbers and told analysts," said another source at one of the underwriters with knowledge of the situation

The company had issued a revised prospectus on May 9 in which it cautioned about the possible negative impact of Facebook users shifting to mobile platforms, but the vague language fell well short of an explicit warning of lower revenues or earnings. Facebook has yet to make much revenue from mobile advertising.

The disclosure of lower forecasts to certain big institutional investors left both Facebook and Morgan Stanley open to accusations of selective disclosure. Many smaller investors who bought Facebook shares in the IPO were left in the dark.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.

"Morgan Stanley followed the same procedures for the Facebook offering that it follows for all IPOs," Morgan Stanley spokesman Pen Pendleton said in a statement. "These procedures are in compliance with all applicable regulations."

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which were also lead underwriters on the deal, and another underwriter, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, also all revised their estimates during Facebook's IPO roadshow, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The new estimates showed reductions in revenue and earnings projections for both the second quarter of 2012 and the full year, according to detailed figures reviewed by Reuters.

The issue of selective disclosure drew the attention of the main regulator of U.S. brokerages.

"That's a matter of regulatory concern to us and I'm sure to the SEC," said Richard Ketchum, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's chairman and chief executive. "And without saying whether it's us or the SEC, we will collectively be focusing on it.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said investors should be confident in investing, but she conceded there were questions to answer as well.

"I think there is a lot of reason to have confidence in our markets and in the integrity of how they operate, but there are issues that we need to look at specifically with respect to Facebook," she told reporters as she exited a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

The state of Massachusetts also said it would examine the issues. Secretary of Commonwealth William Galvin issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley in connection with its analyst's discussions with investors about Facebook.

A Los Angeles law firm filed a lawsuit seeking class action status against Facebook and its underwriters alleging inadequate disclosure of key information.

The legal issues surrounding the disclosure obligations of a pre-public company and its underwriters are murky, securities lawyers said. Public companies are subject to a rule known as Regulation Fair Disclosure, which requires that material information be disclosed to all investors at the same time.

But that rule would not apply to information that Facebook provided to its underwriters before it went public, according to securities law experts. Underwriters also may not have a legal obligation to disclose their proprietary research to all clients at the same time.

Adam Pritchard, a securities law professor at the University of Michigan and a former SEC enforcement attorney, said that in general, information disseminated pre-IPO cannot be inconsistent with what is provided in the prospectus. But Pritchard added that there is a big exception to these so-called "gun-jumping rules" for oral communications.

Facebook's guidance to analysts, and the subsequent revised estimates communicated to some investors, were delivered in telephone calls and conference calls rather than emails or written reports, the sources said. The conversations took place shortly after Facebook filed its revised prospectus.

The legal subtleties, though, did little to ease the anger of some investors and brokers who say the Facebook IPO now stands as an ugly example of a system rigged against the little guy.

"Night and day the institutional clients get things that we don't get," said a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney adviser who works with retail clients. "It's a huge issue for the entire industry."

STILL OVERVALUED?

With the stock falling on Tuesday, a debate continued over what the social networking company is really worth. Even with the company valued at about $85 billion at the market close Tuesday, compared with $104 billion at its IPO price, some experts say it is overvalued.

Thomson Reuters Starmine conservatively estimates a 10.8 percent annual growth rate - almost exactly the mean for the technology sector. On that basis, Starmine says the stock could be valued at $9.59 a share, a 72 percent discount to its IPO price.

Similarly, the company's price-to-earnings ratio remains lofty, even after the selloff. The $31 price implies a P/E of 60 for expected 2012 results, compared with Google's 13.3 for a similar rate of growth.

With Facebook shares not yet available for borrowing and thus all but impossible to sell short, bearish investors have sought out almost any related vehicle to bet against Facebook. Over the past three trading days, prices plunged on two closed-end funds that owned pre-IPO shares. Firsthand Technology Value Fund and GSV Capital Corp both dropped more than 25 percent even though their Facebook holdings make up only a small fraction of assets.

"Until investors can actually short Facebook, they have to keep shorting other things that can give them some sort of proxy for Facebook," said Thomas Vandeventer, manager of the Tocqueville Opportunity Fund, which owns shares of both the battered closed-end funds.

Brokers who over-ordered shares in the expectation that supply would be limited continued to complain they received too much stock to handle and were left in the dark about forecast changes.

Some big investors, though, protected themselves well. In a securities filing on Tuesday, Microsoft disclosed that it had sold 6.5 million shares at $37.58, meaning the software giant covered the cost of its original investment of 32.8 million shares for just $240 million in 2007, while still retaining most of the stake.

WEIGHING ON NASDAQ

Besides the pressure on Facebook and on Morgan Stanley, there is also an intense focus on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc, which has shouldered much of the blame for the trading failures that market participants believe contributed to the weak performance of Facebook shares on its debut on Friday.

A technical glitch delayed Facebook's market debut by roughly half an hour, and later delayed order confirmations.

The exchange has set aside money to compensate customers, but some on Wall Street are warning its ability to snag future big IPOs is at risk. Meanwhile, a suit filed late Tuesday in Manhattan federal court seeks class-action status for anyone who lost money due to Nasdaq mishandling an order.

"It's dreadful for the markets," former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt said of the IPO and its handling by banks and Nasdaq. "It's an event with long-lasting negative implications for an industry that can ill afford this kind of blemish, and the last chapter hasn't been written. Nobody looks good here."

But Nasdaq shareholders gave the company a pass on Tuesday.

At the exchange operator's annual meeting, which only lasted a few minutes, top executives did not get any questions about what went wrong with Facebook or what they were doing to correct it.

"While clearly we had mistakes in the Facebook listing, we still want to highlight the fact that it was the largest IPO ever and on Friday of last week, we processed over 570 million shares," Nasdaq Chief Executive Bob Greifeld said at the shareholder meeting.

(Additional reporting by Jed Horowitz, Edward Krudy, David Gaffen, Jessica Toonkel, Joe Giannone, Jonathan Spicer, Olivia Oran and John McCrank in New York, Ross Kerber in Boston, Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Alistair Barr, Alexei Oreskovic, Poornima Gupta and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Writing by Ben Berkowitz in Boston; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Edward Tobin, Maureen Bavdek, Steve Orlofsky, Robert Birsel)

les miles beyonce dance for you video beyonce dance for you video asu football asu football arkansas lsu storage wars

Diabetes: Increased Risk Factor For Heart Disease | Women's ...

Article by ROBYN KNAPP

Diabetes: Increased Risk Factor For Heart Disease ? Health ? Fitness

Search by Author, Title or Content

Article ContentAuthor NameArticle Title

Home
Submit Articles
Author Guidelines
Publisher Guidelines
Content Feeds
RSS Feeds
FAQ
Contact Us

Diabetes can be a real threat to the cardiovascular system. It comes on slowly and can wreak havoc with the bodies systems before the individual knows that they even have diabetes. Diabetes can cause harm not only to the cardiovascular system but the eyes, the nerves, the kidneys, and impede the healing process. A clinical sign that someone may have diabetes is that they may have a difficult time healing from the slightest of skin injuries. People that have diabetes are at a two to four fold increase to developing heart disease or having a stroke. The advantage that pre-menopausal women have over men is diminished when they have diabetes. (1)

According to Christopher Saudek, M.D professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimoore and past president of The American Diabetes Association (ADA)., ?having diabetes is such a strong risk factor for heart disease that it?s equivalent to already having had a heart attack,? Just why diabetes causes heart disease on such a destructive is unknown. Dr. Robert H. Eckel, M.K., professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Denver and past president of the American Heart Association., say ?It?s a complicated connection?.

From a physics standpoint, it can be seen that the heart is muscle and one that is reposonispible for pumping blood to the entire body. Since muscles need glucose to move and expend energy, it can be inferred what when there is a problem with he functioning of glucose iin the body, there will also be a problem with the heart as well.

There are those people that are insulin resistant. This implies that their bodies do not respond to insulin like other people. Insulin is responsible for putting sugar or glucose back into the cells instead of having it run rampant throughout the system. ?insulin resistance leads to vascular dysfunction, which indicate that there is an altering of the function of the blood vessels to respond normally to the bodies hormonal signals that tell veins to expand and or contract., notes, David M. Nathan, M.D., professor medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Massachusetts general hospital Diabetes Center. ?It also leads to systemic, inflammation, as measured by levels of C=reactive protein and inflammatory cytokines. In this scenario, when type 2 diabetes develops there is a system of cascading events that effects many systems and causing such untoward effects such as high blood pressure, kidney disease, and heart disease.

Given as such wide spread evidence on the effects of diabetes on the cardiovascular system and other body functions, the reality of taking precautionary health measures becomes important. An estimated two out of every three adults with diabetes have hypertension. Diabetic dyslipidemia requires frequent blood work so that the individual knows what their levels of good cholesterol (LDL) and bad cholesterol (HDL) are. When the two are out of sync, a condition called atherosclerotic heat disease can occur. These people are usually candidates for heart bypass surgery, since their arteries become clogged.

In summary, those people with diabetes should take an active role in controlling their disease process. They can do this by getting regular fasting blood glucose levels and having their HDL and LDL tested. Normal values of these cholesterol levels are as follows; total cholesterol should be under 200; LDL under 200 and HDL above 50 for women, 40 for men, and triglycerides below 150. if you?re LDL, HDL and triglyceride levels are also at desirable levels and you have no other risk factors for heart disease, total blood cholesterol below 200 mg/dL puts you at relatively low risk of coronary heart disease. Even with a low risk, however, it?s still smart to eat a health diet, avoid tobacco smoke and try to exercise daily? Have your cholesterol levels checked every five years or as your doctor recommends, and get regular fasting blood glucose levels. This preventative health maintenance should help increase your lifespan and provide many healthy and fulfilling years.

About the Author

Pass the Nursing Entrance Test the first time with our guide at Nurses Learning Center. Written by a Professor of Education for nurses, the guide has over 600 pages with details answers to every question.

Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines

whereby the original author?s information and copyright must be included.

ROBYN KNAPP

RSS Feed

Report Article

Publish Article

Print Article

Add to Favorites

Article Directory
About
FAQ
Contact Us
Advanced Search
Privacy Statement
Disclaimer

GoArticles.com ? 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Pass the Nursing Entrance Test the first time with our guide at Nurses Learning Center. Written by a Professor of Education for nurses, the guide has over 600 pages with details answers to every question.












Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines

whereby the original author?s information and copyright must be included.

april 4 santa monica college wisconsin primary dallas fort worth airport texas tornados seattle seahawks new uniforms wisconsin recall

Best SEO Services Company ? Social Media Guide

Dear internet entrepreneur, if you are looking for a SEO consulting services package, this article will help you crystallize your choice. Let me introduce you to a professional SEO marketing service that delivers quality Google SEO outcome. With packages from Affordable SEO you can have your site showing up for many keywords on Page ONE. With a one stop place for all your SEO help you can now increase your SEO rank building the natural way and the easy way. It is advisable to even an offline organization to build an online face to their businesses and make sure the websites are easily searchable on the internet. This is probably the only avenue for building an online corporate image, which is no longer a luxury but a defined need for businesses of all scales, genres and types. Professional SEO?s approach of integrating well developed and already successful internet marketing designs with quality Expert SEO to create the best SEO optimization services helps businesses touch higher leagues of performance. The dedicated professional SEO experts at Positioning SEO ensures your SEO optimization is planned and delivered the right way. Further, your site features in direct results at Yahoo, MSN and Google.

Relevant SEO content is key to bring in relevant traffic. Providing your web visitors with unique and interesting content may be a hard task for the already overworked website owner. Speaking of traffic, quality matters. Random traffic that you cannot monetize does not boost your sales situation so it is necessary to put in effort to develop a solid framework that ensures quality paying traffic to your site. This is achievable by going for keyword specific SEO link building with a professional SEO company that can make sure that your website feature in searches. This organic SEO process is time tested and reliable. Cheapest SEO Services is a professional SEO Company that offers quality SEO marketing services, SEO optimization services, and other expert SEO services. Their team is diverse and can provide expertise in most industries. They even research the topics to create an authority article for you to display on your website. They can submit your articles to press release agencies and also post them to Web logs to create a traffic stream also. Use one of the services below and also compliment it with another of our submission services to create a huge result.

Only experienced Search engine optimization SEO services that control significant online ?real estate? can deliver you the wanted result you desire for your website. A fantastic Expert SEO Services company such as affordable SEO services will be able to help you out with SEO consulting services as well as SEO marketing services. You need to partner with a firm that has a vast array of offerings covering every aspect of Search engine optimization SEO services. Their experts who are proficient in Google SEO services have the relevant expertise to ensure that your website is optimized with the best standards of ranking SEO services and also so that you get on top of search engine listings. To be noted, organic SEO services are great tools but over optimization may not be good for your site. It is advisable to seek assistance from expert SEO services for long term success.

Websites need a continual SEO optimization service to maintain and gain in SEO link building. Guaranteed SEO Services understand that many business owners can be busy and without an effective SEO plan they could be missing out on heaps more traffic and customers to their websites. They offer a range of packages both one off and on a subscription basis to take care of your site and have it performing its very best. Positioning SEO Services basically handles all the aspects of optimization SEO services and SEO consulting services. This is a fairly complex process for one person to cover alone because there is the content creation aspect, Cheap SEO copywriting, use of unique IPs, SEO link building, blog commenting and so on. That is why outsourcing SEO services is the best move but you must choose your partner carefully.

Getting inbound back links, otherwise known as Expert SEO back links, is an essential part of building link popularity for your site and pushing it to the top of search engine results pages. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo love back links. SEO promotion and SEO link building and are extremely important to the online success of any website. Google uses back links to index how relevant and important your site is for specific keywords. If you have lots of SEO back links from relevant quality sites, the search engines will automatically assume that your site is well worth looking at and will therefore index it higher in their page rankings or PR matrix. Avail of the amazing SEO Tips and SEO Tools at Cheapest SEO today. You will be glad you did.

To locate a lot more click here.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO

magic johnson jetblue pilot solicitor general neighborhood watch dennis rodman dodgers sale tami roman

Online Relationships Work From Free Dating Services ...

Posted on May 18, 2012 under Online Dating | 3 Comments

Single people usually gather at the bars to seek dates. This is the old traditional way to find dates. In the new way, single men seeking women at a free dating service because it is easy and costless. In fact, free online dating services have been emerged that help to create many online relationships. If you are a new single person who does not know anything about online dating services, then you should read some articles to understand about the service. Generally speaking, you create your personal ad by introducing about yourself. You can post your photo if you want to. In your description of your profile, you can write the likes and dislikes. Online dating services have other singles like you who post their personals dating ads. Either you or other singles can contact with each other when a match is found.

Many online relationships are generated by first met at these free online dating websites. Single women looking for men register their profiles at these sites. After a single woman found her date, she leaves the site. By this time, she can communicate with her date through phone, email, or other means. This rule applies the same for a single man. Sometimes, you contact with a single person and do not get a reply back, you need to understand that this one is seeing someone right now. This single lady may not want to delete her profile yet because she may come back to the dating site looking new single men, if the current relationship does not work out.

Free dating services are great because many online marriages created in recent years. It is so popular that most of famous websites have personal ads, including Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and others. There are single people everywhere. Singles keep looking for their dream mates at these dating sites. So, you will see new faces of singles who register at these free dating services every day. Online dating site is a fun place to seek dates. You can find a date online at the comfort of your computer, in the living room, in the bedroom, and every where in your house. For just a few clicks of your computer mouse, thousands of singles showing up in front of you like a movie.

Many singles worry whether online relationships last long? Statistics show that a compatible relationship that you meet online always lasts for long, compare with a date you meet at the bars or nightclubs. The main reason is online singles look carefully at the others? personal ads before making decision to contact them. A person you meet at the bar is usually happened by the sexual attract between two single people. That?s why free online dating websites create long term relationships and marriages.

Meeting an online date is easy and simple. All you have to do is to register at these free online dating sites and then start dating. Your other dream mate is waiting online to meet you so taking action right now is a must. Good luck!

Jenny Rogers

george zimmerman website edmund fitzgerald uss enterprise white house easter egg roll 2012 andy cohen andy cohen mozambique

Scott Walker gains ground in Wisconsin recall campaign

Brown Deer, Wisconsin

On Wednesday morning, Scott Walker slipped into a sheet-metal fabricating plant on an industrial street in Milwaukee's outskirts. Argon Industries is the kind of gritty, thriving small business Walker venerates: a 91-person outfit that added staff in a sluggish economy and now, on its 10th anniversary, boasts nearly $13 million in annual revenue. The Wisconsin governor crossed the factory floor, asking questions about the heavy machinery and inspecting racks piled with sheets of steel before a low-key press conference. "We're blessed to have him choose us," says Greg Clement, the company's president. Apart from the firm's employees and a few reporters, there was hardly anyone present.

The minimalist, almost stealthy campaign appearance is characteristic of Walker's approach to the June 5 recall election that could oust him from office or make him one of the Republican Party's brightest national stars. Beside the presidential contest, Walker's recall fight might be the most hyped race of 2012, a national flashpoint that is partly a referendum on Walker's slashing approach to public unions, and partly a dry run for two parties hoping to energize their bases in November. But his campaign has zero interest in political pageantry. It doesn't hold massive rallies. The location of its headquarters hasn't even been made public. For the most controversial governor in the country, the numbers are all that matter.

(PHOTOS: Political Pictures of the Week, May 5-11)

These days, the numbers look good for Walker. The public opinion polls, which registered a virtual dead heat in recent months, are beginning to inch in his favor. A Marquette Law School survey released May 16 has the incumbent up six points, a big swing from last month's virtual tie. It's one of at least five polls in recent days that showed the incumbent edging ahead.

But those weren't the figures Walker was trumpeting in Argon's dimly lit factory. The state had just released new quarterly census data that indicated Wisconsin gained 23,000 jobs in 2011, a far rosier portrait than prior reports suggested. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state had lost more jobs than any other in the first year of Walker's term. Walker's newly minted Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, has been pummeling the governor over jobs, and the new stats serve as armor against those blows. "The biggest issue they had is no longer an issue," Walker said, standing under a banner inscribed with Argon's mantra, Nothing is Impossible. "Everything they said about jobs is now contradicted by the facts."

Maybe. There are questions about the data's expedited release -- a seemingly political ploy to break good news that wasn't due until after voters trekked to the polls next month -- as well as its usefulness, since making comparisons to neighboring states won't be possible until they disclose their own stats next month. And new monthly data released the following day painted a grimmer picture. But with some three weeks before the election, Walker, 44, appeared better positioned to survive the Democratic onslaught than at any time since his law curbing collective bargaining for most public employees spurred 100,000 protesters to descend on the capitol in Madison and made him the top national target of an opposing party determined to teach the new breed of budget-cutting Tea Partyers a lesson.

As a campaigner, Walker's primary strength is message discipline. He has a knack for steering every question, no matter how far-flung, back to mind-numbing campaign boilerplate within a single sentence. But it is the discipline of his allies that has helped him open up ground on Barrett.

(MORE: Scott Walker on Tape: Budget Bill Was 'Divide and Conquer')

The GOP has made Walker's survival a signal priority. In a party whose divisions were laid bare during a bitter presidential primary, Walker earns lavish praise from Tea Partyers, corporate benefactors and top politicians alike. Mitt Romney called him a "hero"; wealthy businessman David Koch pledged to spend big to keep him in office. A quirk in Wisconsin law enabled Walker to raise unlimited funds during the roughly five-month period from the initiation of the recall process until an election date was set, and wealthy Republican benefactors poured more than $25 million into Walker's coffers, giving him a huge financial advantage over Barrett, who raised about $1 million. "As an organization, we have invested more resources in the state of Wisconsin than any other," says Luke Hilgemann, the Wisconsin director of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed national advocacy group that earlier this year pumped at least $700,000 into TV ads in Wisconsin.

As the Republicans folded together like Russian nesting dolls, the Democrats have been riven by conflicting interests. Labor unions pumped several million dollars into the losing campaign of Barrett's primary opponent, and the national party has been tentative about going all in. Meanwhile, Walker's allies built a state-of-the-art ground game to protect a politician so reviled by his opponents that they have taken to burning his campaign signs. "They can protest," Wisconsin GOP communications director Ben Sparks says of the Democrats. "They've got us beat on that. But that's about all they've got us beat on."

Wisconsin has a vaunted progressive strain. It was the first state to codify collective-bargaining rights in 1959, as well as the first to offer workman's compensation and unemployment insurance. But it is also the birthplace of the Republican Party, the home of the John Birch Society and the stomping ground of conservatives from Joe McCarthy to Paul Ryan. Among his supporters, there is a belief that Walker's recall would be a disaster. "If he gets recalled, you start asking, What's the point?" says Ken Friday, Argon Industries' director of operations. "The leechers who want to suck off the government have got to pay their fair share."

(MORE: Wisconsin Cheddar: How Scott Walker's Fundraising Windfall Could Decide the Recall)

RNC chair Reince Priebus was the head of Wisconsin's GOP before decamping for Washington, and he left behind a disciplined organization steeled by recent political combat, including state senate recall elections in 2011, state supreme court elections, a marquee U.S. Senate tussle in 2010, and a pair of tight presidential battles in 2000 and 2004. The Wisconsin GOP, which is running Walker's ground game, has opened 23 "victory centers," where volunteers have made more than 2 million calls to voters since January. "There's no question they're very organized. They're in lockstep," Erik Kirkstein, political director of United Wisconsin, which spearheaded the recall campaign against Walker, says of the Republicans. Says Tom Evenson, Walker's press secretary: "We've had now a solid campaign season in Wisconsin since 2010."

With only a tiny sliver of voters on the fence in the recall, Sparks thinks the election will be a simple test of who can do a better job of turning out their respective base. Right now, the Republicans are winning on that score. In the Marquette poll out this week, 91% of Republicans reported they were "absolutely certain" to vote, compared to 83% of Democrats and independents. Walker's approval rating, which has hardly moved during the pitched battle over his controversial reforms, also shows positive signs. Respondents were evenly split -- 38% to 37% -- on whether they supported his policies. Another 22% said they liked what he had done, but not how he had done it -- a figure that suggests they may be willing to forgive the means for the sake of the ends.

In an interview, Walker acknowledged that he had done a poor job explaining his "budget repair" bill, which included the collective bargaining restrictions, before forcing it through a split state legislature. "My problem was, I just rushed in to fix it before talking about it," he says. "Most people I talk to around the state, and most polls reflect this as well -- they like the results. There's more we could have done to fix the process."

As he juggles official campaign duties and vies to stay in office, Walker is still not talking to voters much. Rather than engaging in the elaborate political staging that often dominates this phase of hard-fought campaigns, his public appearances have consisted of small press gaggles at factories that have benefited from a manufacturing tax credit he put in place. On Thursday, he visited a cast-film company in Rhinelander and a plastics shop in Green Bay, where he played up the jobs data that favor him -- Barrett called the numbers a "political stunt" -- and dismissed the data that didn't.

Even if you grant Walker that argument, the incremental gains still leave the governor far off pace to meet the 250,000 jobs he promised to create in his first term. In a deft piece of spin, Walker says that his own survival would be the best thing for job growth in the state, because it would offer certainty for business owners fearful of new taxes under Barrett. "The victory in and of itself will be a major jump-start for jobs," he says. But Walker also says it would send a clear message to business owners and opponents alike: "These reforms will continue."

PHOTOS: Showdown in Wisconsin

View this article on Time.com

Most Popular on Time.com:

jeremy london jeremy london butterball turkey fryer butterball turkey fryer yale harvard dan henderson oregon ducks

Watch It: 'Battleship' Goes For A 'Drive'

Finally, a blockbuster that stands a shot at dethroning "The Avengers" (not that we're necessarily rooting for such an outcome) sails into the scene this weekend: "Battleship," the action flick starring Taylor Kitsch! Loosely Based on the board game of the same name, "Battleship" has already been invading theaters globally for weeks, but it's now [...]

houston texans houston texans texans lana del rey snl enemy of the state golden globe nominees joe philbin

Where Does Brandy's 'Behind The Music' Rank On All-Time List?

Singer reveals eating disorder, feelings about deadly car crash and secret affair with Boyz II Men singer.
By Gil Kaufman


Brandy on VH1's "Behind the Music"
Photo: VH1

For the past 15 years, VH1's "Behind the Music" has chronicled the ups, downs and back ups of countless musicians' lives and careers. The show has traced the roller-coaster of fame rides by the likes of everyone from Aerosmith to Vanilla Ice, Mötley Crüe, Milli Vanilla, Madonna, 50 Cent and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The formula is beyond predictable by now: wide-eyed musician(s) with prodigious talent has meteoric rise to fame, tragedy strikes in the form of drug addiction/death of close friend/label rip-off/career tank or any number of other obstacles, but not before said artist manages to rise above and make it back to the spotlight. Except when they don't, as in the case of such tragic figures as Aaliyah, the Notorious B.I.G. or Rick James.

But this week VH1 brought us the story of Brandy Norwood, the world-beating 1990s star whose resume of drama made for one of the most quintessential episodes in the show's long history. And, in another of the show's impressive traditions, Brandy opened up about some major issues that have never been dealt with in public in quite this way.

Like Missy Elliott revealing her serious health issues last year or Nas providing the most detail to date about his failed marriage to Kelis, Brandy put all her cards on the table, revealing for the first time that she hid her teenage affair with Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris from her family and fans for years, struggled with anorexia and bulimia as well as talking about her fake marriage to music producer Robert Smith that was concocted to cover up her out-of-wedlock child. The latter, she says, almost destroyed her career for good. She also discussed her reaction to the death of mentor and good friend, Whitney Houston, who died on Brandy's birthday in February, just days after Houston had given Brandy words of encouragement about her revived career.

The capper was her emotional discussion of the December 2006 car accident she caused on a California highway that took the life of a 38-year-old mother of two. "It was just one of those experiences you wish would never happen to anybody," she said. "That was one of the worst times of my life ... someone lost their life and now everyone is saying that I'm to blame." Though she escaped a manslaughter prosecution in the case, the incident clearly had a profound effect on the singer and her reaction provided one of the most emotional moments in the series' history.

"Still to this day people ... they know that that's a button," she said tearfully. "They know that they can call me a murderer, or call me someone that killed someone ... they know that that is a button for me."

This season has already seen a return to the tragic death of Aaliyah in a plane crash, Nas' struggle to deal with the death of his mother and the dissolution of his marriage, T-Pain's heartbreaking battle to break free of his domineering father, Akon's controversial car-boosting past and The Game's battles with his label and former mentor 50 Cent.

But of all the classic tragic stories of rappers and rock bands tested by death, drugs and disorder (Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Metallica, T.I., Motley Crue, Leif Garrett, Def Leppard and DMX), Brandy's stands out as one of the most emotionally wrenching stories of the modern pop era. And, thankfully for her, with a new album on the way and a steady relationship, as well as another hit single with pal Monica, Brandy's story appears to be conforming to the formula just fine.

Related Videos Related Artists

the civil wars paul mccartney duggar miscarriage roman holiday belize adele lyrics bruno mars

Star Castle finally finds a home on the Atari 2600, gets a redesigned cartridge

Image

Halo may have made its way to the Atari 2600, but wouldn't porting a retro game to this '70s-era console be more appropriate? MAKE Magazine has the skinny on former Atari dev Scott Williamson's port of the Cinematronics shooter Star Castle. Though Atari execs decided the title was too complicated to bring over in the '80s, Williamson took it upon himself to make that transition possible. The result of some serious coding is 8K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM's worth of good ol' space war. But he didn't stop there -- he redesigned the cartridge with a transparent casing and LEDs that flash during gameplay. Click through to the source link for the full step-by-step.

Star Castle finally finds a home on the Atari 2600, gets a redesigned cartridge originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MAKE Magazine  |  sourceStar Castle 2600  | Email this | Comments

cornucopia best buy black friday deals thanksgiving crafts matt cassel snowman playstation network down houston astros