Britain's Perri Shakes Drayton believes she's on course for the 400m hurdles Olympic final after clocking a personal best of 53.77 seconds during victory at the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

In an all-star field, which included Olympic champion Melanie Walker and European Champion Irina Davydova, Shakes-Drayton thrived in front of a home crowd, running the second fastest time in the event in 2012; and breaking a two-year old personal best of 54.18 seconds.

The impressive final run before the Games propels the 23 year old into contention for a medal come the London Olympics, but the home town hurdler is setting herself a modest target.

Shakes-Drayton was in disbelief after running a big personal best at Crystal Palace.

"I think I've got make the final now but I've got to stay level headed and not let this race get to me too much," she said.

"I've run a personal best today. You know I just believed in myself. I thought it was an opportunity to run against the best, these girls have run some phenomenal times.

"I thought, let's focus on what I've got to do. We've done a lot of work this week with my coach and today went well.

"It was waiting wasn't it? I honestly didn't expect to run a personal best today," she added. "Conditions wise they weren't the best but the rain stopped, that's what I wanted, no rain. This is what I'm used to.

"It will give me confidence but I won't let it get to my head too much because with my event anything can happen so it could be my day one day and another persons day another, so today is was my day but I'm not going to take what happened today to much and get too ahead of myself."

As well as coming into form at just the right time, Shakes-Dryaton looked at home in front of a capacity Crystal Palace crowd.

More here:
London Olympics 2012: Perri Expects After Personal Best

The National Reconnaissance Office is so intent on extracting confessions of personal or illicit behavior that officials have admonished polygraphers who refused to go after them and rewarded those who did, sometimes with cash bonuses, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation found.

The disclosures include a wide range of behavior and private thoughts such as drug use, child abuse, suicide attempts, depression and sexual deviancy. The agency, which oversees the nations spy satellites, records the sessions that were required for security clearances and stores them in a database.

Even though its aggressively collecting the private disclosures, when people confess to serious crimes such as child molestation theyre not always arrested or prosecuted.

Youve got to wonder what the point of all of this is if were not even going after child molesters, said Mark Phillips, a veteran polygrapher who resigned from the agency in late May after, he says, he was retaliated against for resisting abusive techniques. This is bureaucracy run amok. These practices violate the rights of Americans, and its not even for a good reason.

The agency refused to answer McClatchys questions about its practices. However, its acknowledged in internal documents that its not supposed to directly ask more personal questions but says it legally collects the information when people spontaneously confess, often at the beginning of the polygraph test.

After a legal review of Phillipss assertions, the agencys assistant general counsel, Mark Land, concluded in April that it did nothing wrong. My opinion, based on all of the facts, is that managements action is legally supportable and corrective action is not required, he wrote.

But McClatchys review of hundreds of documentsincluding internal policy documents, memos and agency e-mailsindicates that the National Reconnaissance Office is pushing ethical and possibly legal limits by:

n Establishing a system that tracks the number of personal confessions, which then are used in polygraphers annual performance reviews.

n Summoning employees and job applicants for multiple polygraph tests to ask about a wide array of personal behavior.

n Altering results of the tests in what some polygraphers say is an effort to justify more probing of employees and applicants private lives.

Read more:
US spy agency accused of illegally collecting personal data

Updated: Friday, 13 Jul 2012 22:11 Perri Shakes-Drayton (bottom right) celebrate as she crosses the line in a personal best time

World champions Dai Greene and Mo Farah tonight found themselves overshadowed by British team-mate Perri Shakes-Drayton in the Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

Olympic team captain Greene had been hoping to break Kriss Akabusi's 20-year-old British record of 47.82 seconds in the 400 metres hurdles, but could only finish second behind Puerto Rico's Javier Culson in 48.10secs.

And although Farah enjoyed a comfortable victory over 5,000m, the performance of the night came from Shakes-Drayton in the women's 400m hurdles, with the Londoner storming to a surprise win in 53.77s.

Former Olympic champion Sally Gunnell is the only British athlete to have run faster and Shakes-Drayton's time was also joint second fastest in the world this year, taking 0.41s off her personal best set when winning European bronze in Barcelona two years ago.

European champion Irina Davydova of Russia was second and Jamaica's Kaliese Spencer third, with Beijing Olympic champion Melaine Walker more than 1.7s behind Shakes-Drayton in fourth.

The 23-year-old, who had been ranked just 21st before the race, said: "I'm over the moon with the time. I thought it was an opportunity to race the best girls which I haven't had this year.

"I thought 'Come on girl, pull your socks up, you have to go for it', and I sure went for it. I just believed in myself and reminded myself what I've done. I've had a good day at the office.

"It gives me confidence knowing that my training is going well but I'm not going to let it get to me too much. I'm still going to remain level-headed because it's not finished yet."

Greene had looked back to his best in Paris last week, clocking a new personal best of 47.84 to miss Akabusi's record by just 0.02s, but he again had to settle for second place behind Culson tonight.

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Shakes-Drayton steals limelight

By Tom Gibbs - July 13, 2012 | Tickers: BBY, CBS, COST, FB, VLKAY.PK | 0 Comments

Tom is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Following a clearing up of Facebooks (NASDAQ: FB) IPO debacle the stock has recently risen nearly 30% from its post-IPO low there are now a slew of other enterprises with enough confidence to offer their own shares on the public market. In addition to online travel search engine Kayak Software and network-security firm Palo Alto Networks Inc., iconic guitar and other musical instrument manufacturer Fender has recently set the price of its soon-to-be offered shares. Is it worth looking into?

Company & IPO Information

Fender has had an eventful 66-year operating history. Founded in the mid-1940s by Leo Fender, the corporation was eventually acquired by CBS (NYSE: CBS) twenty years later. Put through a series of massive cost cuts and placed alongside other uncomplimentary firms during CBSs acquisition streak (also included the New York Yankees in 1964), Fenders image for quality took a huge hit from a prolonged era of uncharacteristically shoddy products. Fender company management eventually bought out the enterprise in 1985, revitalized the brand, and sold nearly half of the firm to private equity firm Weston Presidio in the early 2000s.

Finally jumping into the public arena, Fender will be selling 10.71 million shares 7.1 million issued by Fender and 3.6 million from Weston Presidios 42% ownership stake. With an estimated per share price target between $13-$15, the corporation hopes to raise as much as $160.7 million and plans to use the majority of the proceeds to pay down its ~$247 million debt burden. Total leverage should be reduced from around 4.7x EBITDA to 3.2x EBITDA (both trailing twelve months) following the debt payment.

Products & Distribution

Fender is obviously known best for its long history of outfitting musicians with quality electric, acoustic, and bass guitars, but the large breadth of its total product portfolio is rather surprising. After acquiring Kaman Music in 2007, the corporation was ample to rapidly expand with the added Jackson, Guild, Ovation, Gretsch, Eddie Van Halen, and Takamine brands. Fenders portfolio of fretted instruments, amps, percussion instruments, and accessories (strings, picks, cables, straps, etc.) now caters to beginner and professional musicians alike with price points from below $200 to the mid-$20,000s.

Fenders finished product is distributed to end-consumers through a variety of channels. Nearly 60% of the corporations sales are derived from its independent channel, which is comprised of more than 13,000 smaller and independently owned music stores. Another 25% is pushed through larger retailers and the corporations own direct channel online. Large, multi-unit musical instrument retailers like Guitar Center (which itself represented around 15.5% of sales over the past three years) and Sam Ash comprise the bulk of this secondary channel, although other big box names including Costco (NASDAQ: COST) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), which began rolling out in-store music centers nearly five years ago, do push product to more amateur consumers. The remainder of the corporations sales, especially in emerging markets where Fender has a small but growing presence, are driven by a distributor channel whereby equipment wholesalers sell products to smaller instrument retailers.

Recent Performance

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Will a Fender Investment Strum a Positive Chord in Your Portfolio?

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire -07/12/12)- Today, COGECO Inc. (CGO.TO) ("COGECO" or the "Corporation") announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2012, ended May 31, 2012, in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS").

For the third quarter and first nine months of fiscal 2012:

"We are satisfied with the favourable results obtained for the third quarter of fiscal 2012. The cable subsidiary continues to grow and most of our performance indicators are on target with our objectives. These solid results demonstrate that with strong cost controls and a dynamic marketing strategy, Cogeco Cable continues to grow in this highly competitive industry," stated Louis Audet, President and Chief Executive Officer of COGECO Inc.

"Overall, we are pleased with the financial results of our radio division's activities. The recent BBM surveys confirm our strong leadership in the Montreal market as well as the good performance of our radio stations across the province. We are pursuing the integration of Metromedia as planned, which will serve to enhance our media offering to advertisers", added Mr. Audet.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Forward-looking information may relate to COGECO's future outlook and anticipated events, business, operations, financial performance, financial condition or results and, in some cases, can be identified by terminology such as "may"; "will"; "should"; "expect"; "plan"; "anticipate"; "believe"; "intend"; "estimate"; "predict"; "potential"; "continue"; "foresee", "ensure" or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. In particular, statements regarding the Corporation's future operating results and economic performance and its objectives and strategies are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain factors and assumptions including expected growth, results of operations, performance and business prospects and opportunities, which COGECO believes are reasonable as of the current date. While management considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to the Corporation, they may prove to be incorrect. The Corporation cautions the reader that the economic downturn experienced over the past few years makes forward-looking information and the underlying assumptions subject to greater uncertainty and that, consequently, they may not materialize, or the results may significantly differ from the Corporation's expectations. It is impossible for COGECO to predict with certainty the impact that the current economic uncertainties may have on future results. Forward-looking information is also subject to certain factors, including risks and uncertainties (described in the "Uncertainties and main risk factors" section of the Corporation's 2011 annual MD&A) that could cause actual results to differ materially from what COGECO currently expects. These factors include technological changes, changes in market and competition, governmental or regulatory developments, general economic conditions, the development of new products and services, the enhancement of existing products and services, and the introduction of competing products having technological or other advantages, many of which are beyond the Corporation's control. Therefore, future events and results may vary significantly from what management currently foresees. The reader should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While management may elect to, the Corporation is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation), and does not undertake to update or alter this information before the next quarter.

As described in note 1 to the condensed interim consolidated financial statements for the three and nine-month periods ended May 31, 2012, Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"), which were previously used in preparing the consolidated financial statements, were replaced on the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS") on January 1, 2011. The Corporation's condensed interim consolidated financial statements for the three and nine-month periods ended May 31, 2012 have therefore been prepared in accordance with IFRS. Comparative figures for 2011 have also been restated.

All amounts are stated in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. This report should be read in conjunction with the Corporation's consolidated financial statements and MD&A for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2011 included in the Corporation's 2011 Annual Report. It should also be read in conjunction with the Corporation's condensed interim consolidated financial statements and MD&A for the first quarter of fiscal 2012 as well as the information on the adjustments to the fiscal 2011 financial figures upon adoption of IFRS, explained in Note 19 of the condensed interim consolidated financial statements for the three and nine-month periods ended May 31, 2012.

Corporate strategies and objectives

Read the rest here:
Solid Performance Across the Board for COGECO Inc.

WASHINGTON One of the nations most secretive intelligence agencies is pressuring its polygraphers to obtain intimate details of the private lives of thousands of job applicants and employees, pushing the ethical and legal boundaries of a program thats designed instead to catch spies and terrorists.

The National Reconnaissance Office is so intent on extracting confessions of personal or illicit behavior that officials have admonished polygraphers who refused to go after them and rewarded those who did, sometimes with cash bonuses, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation found.

The disclosures include a wide range of behavior and private thoughts such as drug use, child abuse, suicide attempts, depression and sexual deviancy. The agency, which oversees the nations spy satellites, records the sessions that were required for security clearances and stores them in a database.

Even though its aggressively collecting the private disclosures, when people confess to serious crimes such as child molestation theyre not always arrested or prosecuted.

Youve got to wonder what the point of all of this is if were not even going after child molesters, said Mark Phillips, a veteran polygrapher who resigned from the agency in late May after, he says, he was retaliated against for resisting abusive techniques. This is bureaucracy run amok. These practices violate the rights of Americans, and its not even for a good reason.

The agency refused to answer McClatchys questions about its practices. However, its acknowledged in internal documents that its not supposed to directly ask more personal questions but says it legally collects the information when people spontaneously confess, often at the beginning of the polygraph test.

After a legal review of Phillips assertions, the agencys assistant general counsel, Mark Land, concluded in April that it did nothing wrong. My opinion, based on all of the facts, is that managements action is legally supportable and corrective action is not required, he wrote.

But McClatchys review of hundreds of documents including internal policy documents, memos and agency emails indicates that the National Reconnaissance Office is pushing ethical and possibly legal limits by:

Various national security experts, including those who support the use of polygraph in general for security screening, said they were disturbed by what McClatchy found, especially considering that the number of polygraph screenings has spiked in the last decade.

Theres a narrow jurisdiction for a polygraph program, which is to promote security, said Steven Aftergood, a senior analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, a nonpartisan research center that tracks intelligence policies. When agencies exceed their authority, they not only violate the privacy of employees, they corrupt the entire process.

More here:
US spy agency accused of illegally collecting personal data from applicants, employees

ATLANTA, Ga., July 11, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - RH Laboratories and California Exotic Novelties (CEN) have announced a partnership that will bring select products from Dr. Laura Berman's line of personal massagers to retailers in the food, drug, and mass merchandiser channels for the family planning set.

Dr. Laura Berman is a world-renowned sex and relationship expert. She's published several best-selling books, and has appeared on many network shows including The O'Reilly Factor, The Talk, and The Dr. Oz Show. Her advice has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, and nearly every women's magazine. Berman also has her own show, In The Bedroom, on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Dr. Berman collaborated with the CEN team to design and develop every product in her line, drawing on her vast knowledge and experience with real-life clients. RH Labs will penetrate the market with three of Berman's best-selling products. The products will be sold in retailer's family planning section, alongside condoms and lubricants.

"Dr. Berman's line is unique in that it's the first publicly endorsed line of personal massagers," says Joshua Maurice, President of RH Labs. "There's nobody else in the world with her reputation or her expertise, so her support gives these products a huge competitive edge over other brands in the marketplace."

The products are expected to hit shelves beginning in the third quarter of this year.

About RH Laboratories

RH Laboratories manufactures RockHard Weekend, an all-natural male sexual performance enhancer as well as Pandora, an all-natural sexual enhancer for women. RH Laboratories is constantly using innovative techniques to promote their products not only as supplements but also as a lifestyle. In addition to the products RH Labs manufactures, they are the exclusive distributor of Forgiven, the world's first alcohol metabolizer.

This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/RHLabs/DrBermanLine/prweb9683243.htm

See the original post:
RH Laboratories Named Exclusive Distributor of Dr. Laura Berman's Personal Massagers for Food, Drug and Mass Channels

The scoop: MyCloud Mini personal cloud server, by Akitio, about $104

What is it? The MyCloud Mini is a network-attached storage device (without the actual storage - you have to install either a 2.5-inch internal HDD or attach a USB external storage drive) that connects to a router to provide file storage that can be accessed via the cloud, either through a browser or mobile device. Once connected, the browser-based software includes the ability to share content to friends (or via social networks), as well as stream content (photos, music, videos) from across the Internet (aka the "cloud").

Why it's cool: If you plan to use this as a centralized storage unit for your personal content that can be accessed by multiple devices within a home network, the MyCloud Mini can handle this task. Connecting to the device is quite easy through a browser - just login to myakitio.com and type in the name of your server (initially, you type in the media access control address, but then you can change it) in order to connect. The interface via the browser is very Mac-like, with colorful icons and easy-to-understand locations for accessing content stored on the drive.

You can also connect to the MyCloud Mini via mobile app - I tried the iOS app on the iPhone, but there's also an Android app available. The app makes accessing the unit easier - you don't have to remember the Web address, and once you login initially, you can have the device remember your password and have it go right to the file area. The app also adds some additional functionality - for example, a camera app lets you take photos with the iPhone and store the images directly to the MyCloud Mini - saving space on the iPhone.

Likewise, a Voice Memo app lets you record audio with the phone and save the audio file (.AIF format) to the cloud server. In addition, you can also easily download files from the server to the mobile phone at the push of a button. Akitio has done a really good job with the mobile app.

Some caveats: With network-attached storage (NAS) functionality built directly into new wireless home routers, it might be easier to attach an external drive to the router in order to access the same functionality. I found it annoying that I needed to attach my own storage to the unit - there are home NAS units that already have storage built in. Streaming media content from the MyCloud Mini, even over the local wireless network, was tedious - I never got videos to play correctly (it would start and then just stop), and even streaming music had lag and burps. While I didn't attach other devices to the network, such as a TV or Xbox, I'd be afraid that those devices would have similar problems.

The instruction guide and setup manual are also very sparse - casual users are likely to be frustrated quickly, although IT pros might be able to get through all of the features without too much pain. There's some really good potential here - the software and mobile apps shine, but the streaming speed over a local network and the cloud needs to be improved. If Akitio can bundle this with a hard drive and make those performance improvements, consumers might be impressed with a device that can provide them with centralized storage for their media content.

Grade: 2.5 stars (out of five)

The scoop: MovieNite streaming media player, by D-Link, about $80.

What is it? Like similar units from Roku and Western Digital, the D-Link MovieNite box connects to your TV and Internet connection, providing you with access to Internet movies, music and TV services, including Netflix, Pandora, YouTube and Vudu.

See the original post here:
Personal cloud server needs work; MovieNite streams movies & more

By: Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers Published: July 11, 2012 Updated: July 11, 2012 - 7:40 AM

One of the nations most secretive intelligence agencies is pressuring its polygraphers to obtain intimate details of the private lives of thousands of job applicants and employees, pushing the ethical and legal boundaries of a program thats designed instead to catch spies and terrorists.

The National Reconnaissance Office is so intent on extracting confessions of personal or illicit behavior that officials have admonished polygraphers who refused to go after them and rewarded those who did, sometimes with cash bonuses, a McClatchy investigation found.

The disclosures include a wide range of behavior and private thoughts such as drug use, child abuse, suicide attempts, depression and sexual deviancy. The agency, which oversees the nations spy satellites, records the sessions that were required for security clearances and stores them in a database.

Even though its aggressively collecting the private disclosures, when people confess to serious crimes such as child molestation theyre not always arrested or prosecuted.

Youve got to wonder what the point of all of this is if were not even going after child molesters, said Mark Phillips, a veteran polygrapher who resigned from the agency in late May after, he says, he was retaliated against for resisting abusive techniques. This is bureaucracy run amok. These practices violate the rights of Americans, and its not even for a good reason.

The agency refused to answer McClatchys questions about its practices. However, its acknowledged in internal documents that its not supposed to directly ask more personal questions but says it legally collects the information when people spontaneously confess, often at the beginning of the polygraph test.

After a legal review of Phillips assertions, the agencys assistant general counsel Mark Land concluded in April that it did nothing wrong. My opinion, based on all of the facts, is that managements action is legally supportable and corrective action is not required, he wrote.

But McClatchys review of hundreds of documents including internal policy documents, memos and agency emails indicates that the National Reconnaissance Office is pushing ethical and possibly legal limits by:

Establishing a system that tracks the number of personal confessions, which then are used in polygraphers annual performance reviews.

Originally posted here:
National Reconnaissance Office accused of illegally collecting personal data

The managers for the world's largest bond fund have some explaining to do.

The newly minted PIMCO Total Return ETF (exchange traded fund) outperformed the PIMCO Total Return mutual fund over the last four months by more than 3 percent. The outperformance by the ETF has created a stir because both investment vehicles have the same manager and an identical investment strategy.

The flagship fund for the Pacific Investment Management Co., better known as PIMCO, is the 25-year-old Total Return Fund, which is a bond mutual fund with $263 billion under management as of July 9, 2012. In late February, PIMCO created an exchange-traded fund, the PIMCO Total Return ETF, which has the same strategy and manager as its older and much larger sibling, but that's where the similarities end.

The performance of the two funds highlights the structural differences in ETFs and mutual funds and also how fund size and age can play a role in performance. As of July 9, 2012, the Total Return ETF has only $1.8 billion under management, a fraction of its mutual fund equivalent.

In an article by Bloomberg Businessweek, fixed income manager with DoubleLine Capital, Bonnie Baha, when referring to PIMCO's performance was quoted as saying that "it is very difficult to beat the market when you are the market." She goes on to say, "Once you get to a certain size, your ability to add value is constrained almost by definition."

Baha added, "If you believe in the efficient-market theory, the bigger you get the more difficult it is to add value because your choices are more limited."

While Baha's statement may be conventional wisdom for equity mutual funds, bond funds generally aren't thought to have the same issues. The size of the credit market is much larger than the equity markets. According to the Securities Industry and Financial Association, the size of the U.S. bond market is just under $37 trillion to date, making the Total Return Mutual fund's holdings a fraction of the market.

So why were the returns so different?

For starters, the ETF holds about 300 securities and the mutual fund holds more than 19,000. The mutual fund uses derivatives to simulate an investment holding or to hedge its losses, while ETFs are not allowed to use certain derivatives.

According to a recent Financial Times article, PIMCO's Total Return mutual fund holds credit default swaps which serve as an insurance policy against certain bonds if they default. The cost of the credit default swap acts as a drag against performance relative to the ETF, which can't hold such instruments. If the credit market begins to undergo defaults, it is possible the unhedged Total Return ETF would see greater losses than its mutual fund equivalent.

The rest is here:
Personal Finance: PIMCO returns differ from similar accounts