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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Economy has wildlife rescue on endangered list (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? The disabled grizzly bears Huck, Jake, Pete and Mike arrived after a drive-thru animal park closed in 1985.
Drifter the tiger came as a cub after being seized in a 1997 Chicago drug raid.
Booie, the smoking chimp, was brought here in 1995 at age 28 when he was no longer needed for testing vaccines at the New York University School of Medicine.
Through the years, 76,000 animals have come and gone ? all welcomed by Martine Colette, founder and director of the Wildlife WayStation, one of the first animal sanctuaries in the country and, at one time, the largest.
Some of Hollywood's biggest stars have rallied around the WayStation in the past decade. Still, the fate of its remaining 420 animals is endangered by a drop in donations, rising upkeep and food costs, and the inability to pay staff.
"If the WayStation does not find a way out from under the horrific financial burden it is currently facing, caused by the current recession and disastrous economic downfall, then all these animals that came to us for safe haven are in real jeopardy," Colette said last week.
It's a problem that extends well beyond the cages and enclosures on her property 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Times are hard for all nonprofits, especially donation-driven sanctuaries, said Adam Roberts, executive vice president of Born Free USA, a California-based animal welfare and wildlife conservation organization.
In recent months, the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio closed because of overcrowding and lack of money. A Florida man lived in a cage with two lions for a month to raise money for his rescue center.
In Ohio, a man released dozens of lions, tigers and other animals from a private preserve before killing himself. Sheriff's deputies had to track and kill nearly 50 runaway animals. Authorities aren't sure of his motive, but he and his wife owed at least $68,000 in unpaid taxes.
Colette, 69, seems like an unlikely rescuer.
Born in Paris, she traveled with her Belgian diplomat father when he went on safari. Friends, colleagues and customers of her Hollywood costume and design business knew she had been to Africa and Asia, and they were always bringing her unwanted or unsuitable animals.
"They'd say, `This ocelot is trying to eat our Chihuahua."
She took in her first animal in 1966 and a decade later found herself living with 50 animals in a three-bedroom house. Something had to give, so she sold her business, bought 162 acres in Tujunga Canyon in the Angeles National Forest and incorporated the Wildlife WayStation in 1976.
It was meant to be a place to treat and rehabilitate injured animals before returning them to the wild. But you can't release lions and tigers in this country and some animals were too sick to ever go back ? an eagle blind in one eye, the crippled grizzlies and the lab chimps.
She did not believe any animal in need should be turned away, no matter the problem, no matter the cost. It didn't matter if an animal was wild, tame, hurt or handicapped. Whether it was a hummingbird in a matchbox or 27 lions and tigers from an illegal game farm in Idaho, she embraced them all.
"When pot-bellied pigs were in demand, we had 146 come in at one time. There were a lot of ostriches when they were billed as the next white meat," she said.
For 35 years, Colette has had her hand out, gathering donations for her ever-changing stable of creatures. Hollywood has often rallied to her cause.
Betty White has been a supporter from the beginning. In 2001, Hollywood elite, including Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Russell Crowe, and Johnny Depp put together a CD called "Hollywood Goes Wild" to try and raise money for the WayStation. Sharon Stone made a YouTube plea for donations in 2009.
Colette's plea has never been as urgent as last week's.
She's had to lay off about a third of her staff, which has ranged from 42 to 50 people, and she wonders how she'll cover the $142,000 it costs a month to feed and care for the animals.
Problems extend to complying with environmental and permit regulations.
A decade ago, the WayStation had more than 1,100 permanent residents and 5,000 animals dropping in each year. But state officials banned public tours and barred the refuge from accepting new animals after waste was found in a stream and chimpanzees had contagious diseases.
A few years later, Los Angeles County refused to reissue its permit until roads were repaved, sewers replaced and electrical wiring upgraded.
The sanctuary acknowledged the environmental violations and started working on the expensive upgrades, tapping out its emergency fund.
Colette, who had hoped to retire, is open to a merger or partnership that would make money without exploiting the animals.
Someone suggested a wedding chapel on the picturesque grounds. Colette mused about a mountaintop restaurant.
"Everybody talks about how fabulous it is to come out here and listen to the lions roaring and the chimpanzees and tigers calling."
___
Online:
Wildlife WayStation, http://www.wildlifewaystation.org
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Motorola Xoom 2 review
So what now? Well, Motorola has recast its Xoom: it's made it faster, slimmer and lighter.
They've beefed up the disappointing screen found on the original, it's now a Gorilla Glass-coated IPS screen that promises 178-degree viewing angles. But Motorola has also cut more corners than the four you see before you -- ones that it hopes customers won't miss.
However, with a certain quad-cored, ICS-imminent transforming tablet already stealing the hearts of many an Engadget reader (and editor), does this slimline sequel do enough to make up for its past mistakes? Is there now enough in the Android market to make Google-powered tablets a viable alternative to the iPad? Is £396 ($620) now too much to pay for a 16GB Android tablet that's merely dual-core? We'll be sure to try and answer all these right after the break.
Continue reading Motorola Xoom 2 review
Motorola Xoom 2 review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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'Star Wars' Meets Doctor Seuss In Mashup Video
"Star Wars" mashups aren't exactly a rarity, but excellent parodies are a bit harder to come by. Today brings one such more-than-worthy entry, and just in time for the holidays!
The folks at OneMinuteGalactica (via Blastr) discovered a video called "The Sith who Stole Christmas," combining two of pop culture's all-time greatest villains?Darth Vader and [...]
The folks at OneMinuteGalactica (via Blastr) discovered a video called "The Sith who Stole Christmas," combining two of pop culture's all-time greatest villains?Darth Vader and [...]
Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/12/02/star-wars-meets-doctor-seuss-in-mashup-video/
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
Zynga seeks lower IPO value in tough market (Reuters)
(Reuters)- Zynga Inc is seeking a more modest valuation than Wall Street expected for its initial public offering, hoping to attract investors after a series of Internet stocks fell below their IPO price in recent weeks.
The social games maker, known for Facebook games like "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars," plans to sell 100 million new shares between $8.50 and $10 each, which will raise $925 million based on the midpoint of the range, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.
The deal values Zynga at as much as $9.04 billion, about a third less than the $14.05 billion valuation that the company cited in a filing two weeks ago.
"Given what's transpired in the markets over the several months and overall macro uncertainty, it seems like Zynga is trying to take a practical and prudent approach to the deal to make it seem more appetizing to investors," said Robert W. Baird & Co analyst Colin Sebastian.
Shares of high-profile Internet companies such as Groupon Inc and Pandora Media Inc have crashed below their IPO price, casting a shadow over other Web startups hoping to tap public markets.
At $925 million, Zynga's IPO would still be the largest from a U.S. Internet company since Google Inc raised $1.7 billion in 2004. Zynga is selling 11.1 percent of diluted shares in the offering.
The IPO has been hotly anticipated because it would be the first chance for most investors to get a piece of Facebook's growth, since the vast majority of Zynga's games are played on the social network. Facebook plans to go public in 2012.
But analysts say Facebook's user growth is slowing, and that has a knock-on impact on Zynga.
"The exponential growth with Facebook gaming we saw in the last two years is not going to happen and is definitely slowing," said Interpret analyst Michael Cai.
A Zynga spokesman declined to comment the IPO.
GROWTH CONCERNS
With more than 260 million monthly active users, Zynga publishes free games and makes money from selling virtual items -- such as tractors and weapons -- that players then use in games.
On average, less than 3 percent of Zynga's players pay for its games, according to M2 Research analyst Billy Pidgeon. "It remains to be seen how sustainable Zynga is with their conversion rate so small," he said.
The company is profitable, unlike Groupon and Pandora, but earnings are volatile because it has to spend on coming out with new games. Zynga reported a 43 percent drop in net income in the September quarter to $13 million, even as revenue jumped 80 percent to $301 million.
While Zynga's valuation has been cut from earlier estimates, Zynga would still be among the largest publicly traded U.S. game developers after it debuts on Nasdaq under the "ZNGA" ticker.
Video game developer Activision Blizzard Inc currently has the industry's highest market value, at $14.2 billion, followed by Electronic Arts Inc, at $7.7 billion.
Zynga Chief Executive Mark Pincus and Chief Financial Officer David Wehner will lead a roadshow to investors beginning Monday, with stops in cities including Chicago, Boston, New York, Denver and San Francisco.
Pincus, who started many companies before he founded Zynga, will hold a class of shares with 70 times more voting power than the common stock that will be sold in the offering.
Such concentrated voting power is rare and could put off investors, said Lise Buyer, founder of IPO advisory firm The Class V Group.
"Future shareholders should assume Zynga won't listen to them," Buyer said.
HAUNTED MANSION
In a video for the roadshow posted on the Web, Zynga executives showed off items that players can pay for, such as an airstrike in a game that cost 50 cents and a haunted mansion for $7.
The company also has a "highroller" membership that cost $5 a month for fans of its casino games -- a subscription model, if it takes off, would offer steadier growth potential.
"There are a lot of areas of growth for Zynga and we are aggressively executing in each area," Chief Operating Officer John Schappert said in the video.
To find new users, the company is focused on bringing its games to smart phones and tablets and away from Facebook, where it pays a 30 percent cut to have its games.
"Zynga rides on top of Facebook but Facebook is much larger and supports many other businesses besides Zynga like advertising shopping and search," said Pidgeon.
While Zynga was one of the first companies to build games for Facebook, it will be tougher to crack the mobile market, which is becoming crowded with deep-pocketed rivals from Walt Disney Co to Electronic Arts, analysts say.
Zynga aims to set its IPO price on December 15 and the stock is scheduled to trade on Dec 16.
Based on a fully diluted share count of 904 million, which includes existing shares and stock options, the IPO price values Zynga at $7.7 billion to $9.04 billion.
(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York and Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Dave Zimmerman)
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Iranian diplomats expelled from London arrive home
A female Iranian student holds a poster of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a demonstration to welcome Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran, at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, Iran, early Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. About 150 hard-liners gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the diplomats a hero's welcome but the Iranian government has reportedly opposed any high-profile welcome. Iran's official IRNA news agency says the diplomats plane landed at early Saturday morning. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A female Iranian student holds a poster of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a demonstration to welcome Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran, at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, Iran, early Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. About 150 hard-liners gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the diplomats a hero's welcome but the Iranian government has reportedly opposed any high-profile welcome. Iran's official IRNA news agency says the diplomats plane landed at early Saturday morning. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Female Iranian demonstrators hold posters showing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left in the posters, and late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, during a demonstration to welcome Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran, at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, Iran, early Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. About 150 hard-liners gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the diplomats a hero's welcome but the Iranian government has reportedly opposed any high-profile welcome. Iran's official IRNA news agency says the diplomats plane landed at early Saturday morning. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian diplomatic staff board an IranAir Airbus aircraft at London's Heathrow Airport before the aircraft departs for Tehran, Friday Dec. 2, 2011. Roughly two dozen Iranian diplomats and their dependents are leaving Britain on Friday, expelled by the U.K. government in retaliation for recent attacks on the British Embassy in Tehran.(AP Photo) UNITED KINGDOM OUT - NO MAGAZINE - NO SALES
Removal men carry packages from what is believed to be the residence of Iranian Diplomats into a removal lorry in London, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Britain ordered Iranian diplomats off its soil, pulled its diplomats out of Iran and backed new sanctions on the Islamic republic after Iranian protesters stormed and ransacked the U.K. embassy compounds in Tehran on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
A British police officer stands guard outside the Iranian embassy in London, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Britain ordered Iranian diplomats off its soil, pulled its diplomats out of Iran and backed new sanctions on the Islamic republic after Iranian protesters stormed and ransacked the U.K. embassy compounds in Tehran on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iranian diplomats expelled from London in retaliation for attacks on British compounds in Tehran arrived home Saturday, the official IRNA news agency reported, sealing Iran's most serious diplomatic rift with the West in decades.
About 150 hard-liners waiting with flower necklaces had gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad airport to give the roughly two dozen diplomats and their families a hero's welcome. But the Iranian government, apparently opposed to any high-profile display that could worsen the fallout, took the diplomats off unseen from a backdoor, reflecting Iran's own internal political rifts.
Tuesday's storming of the British Embassy and residential complex ? which the British government alleges was sanctioned by Tehran's ruling elite ? deepened Iran's isolation, which has grown over the decade-long standoff with the West over its nuclear program.
Germany, France and the Netherlands have recalled their ambassadors, and Italy and Spain summoned Iranian envoys to condemn the attacks.
It amounted to the most serious diplomatic fallout with the West since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy after the Islamic Revolution, and some Iranian political figures have voiced doubts over whether anything can be gained from escalating the diplomatic battle.
The obstruction of Saturday's welcome ceremony reflected the disagreements between hard-liners and the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which opposed downgrading relations with Britain and condemned the attack on Britain's embassy.
Iran's relations with Britain have become increasingly strained in recent months, largely due to tensions over Tehran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a key component of its nuclear program. The process is of deep concern internationally because it can be used to produce material for nuclear warheads in addition to reactor fuel. Iran insists its program is entirely peaceful.
Along with the United States and other nations in Europe, Britain has backed sanctions that have so far failed to push Iran to halt its enrichment program.
Hard-liners in Iran have said the embassy attack was an outpouring of the wrath of the Iranian people who believe Britain is a hostile country seeking to damage and weaken the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Mohammadian, a representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the attackers, saying they had targeted the "epicenter of sedition."
Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, approved a parliamentary bill into law requiring the Iranian government to downgrade relations with Britain. The government opposed it but said it would carry out the law.
The diplomatic freeze from Europe, including key trading partner Germany, further isolates Iran just weeks after a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency that alleged Iran was making strides toward mastering critical elements for atomic weapons.
The current breakdown in relations with the West could embolden hard-liners who want a tougher stance against the International Atomic Energy Agency, which they accuse of being manipulated by the U.S. and allies.
Britain's ambassador to Iran, Dominick Chilcott ? now back in Britain ? offered new details about the attacks, saying the experience had been "frightening."
"We had no idea how it was going to end," he said, describing how the mob trashed rooms, damaged furniture, scrawled graffiti and tore up a portrait of Queen Victoria, as staff took shelter in a secure area of the embassy.
"It felt like very spiteful, mindless vandalism, but it wasn't quite mindless," Chilcott said. "They removed anything that was electronic ? mobile telephones, personal computers ? anything that might give information about who you were talking to or what you were doing."
At one point, the intruders started a fire inside the chancery building, forcing the staff to leave the safe area, climb down a fire escape and exit the building. A small number of police escorted them to a building on the edge of the compound and told them to lie low.
"We turned all the lights out and we sat in the dark and we could hear the noise of the intruders going on around us," he said.
He said seven staff at a separate residential compound that was also attacked were seized and "quite roughly handled" by the invaders.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has led the accusations that the rioters had a green light from Iranian authorities, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard. On Thursday, he said the attacks were "clearly premeditated" by high-ranking officials.
Iranian government officials said the storming of the embassy by angry protesters was unexpected and Iranian police intervened to protect the British diplomats and get the attackers out of the buildings.
The demonstrations had been organized by hard-line groups on university campuses and Islamic seminaries and included denunciations of the latest sanctions on Iran over its nuclear efforts.
Such major anti-Western rallies are rarely allowed to occur without official approval and often include state-backed forces including a paramilitary group known as the Basij, which is part of the vast security network controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.
Images broadcast around the world showed demonstrators tearing down Union Jack flags, brandishing a looted picture of Queen Elizabeth II and tossing out looted documents.
The deepening tensions with Britain and others may also trigger further rifts within Iran.
For months, Iran's ruling system has ordered arrests and intimidation against political allies of President Ahmadinejad, who has sharply fallen from favor after challenging decisions by the head of the theocracy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad has remained silent since the attacks, but his supporters have raised questions about whether Iran's interests are served by a diplomatic battle with the West.
___
Associated Press writers David Stringer, Jill Lawless and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this report.
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