15 Cheesy Christmas Music Videos on YouTube

1. “Last Christmas” – Wham!

What would a cheesy Christmas music video roundup be without George Michael — and his mullet, covered by a furry, snow-covered hood? If you like this video, just wait until you see the a cappella Norwegian version.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 Adorable Animals Feeding Other Animals [VIDEOS]]

Now that the turkey has been picked apart and you’ve survived another Black Friday, it is now officially acceptable to listen to Christmas music. If you’ve been secretly listening to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” since early November, crank it up!

One of the best — or worst, depending on your perspective — parts about the holidays is how we embrace corniness. The lyrics are cheesy, the wardrobe is tacky and some traditions are silly.

[More from Mashable: Rebecca Black Shows Off Hidden Talent in New Music Video]

To kick off the season, here are the 15 cheesiest holiday music videos we could find on YouTube. Which is your favorite? Share your pick in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, ronnie44052

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

'Dallas' star Larry Hagman dies in Texas

J.R. Ewing was a business cheat, faithless husband and bottomless well of corruption. Yet with his sparkling grin, Larry Hagman masterfully created the charmingly loathsome oil baron — and coaxed forth a Texas-size gusher of ratings — on television's long-running and hugely successful nighttime soap, "Dallas."

Although he first gained fame as nice guy Major Tony Nelson on the fluffy 1965-70 NBC comedy "I Dream of Jeannie," Hagman earned his greatest stardom with J.R. The CBS serial drama about the Ewing family and those in their orbit aired from April 1978 to May 1991, and broke viewing records with its "Who shot J.R.?" 1980 cliffhanger that left unclear if Hagman's character was dead.

The actor, who returned as J.R. in a new edition of "Dallas" this year, had a long history of health problems and died Friday due to complications from his battle with cancer, his family said.

"Larry was back in his beloved hometown of Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved the most. Larry's family and closest friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday," the family said in a statement that was provided to The Associated Press by Warner Bros., producer of the show.

The 81-year-old actor was surrounded by friends and family before he passed peacefully, "just as he'd wished for," the statement said.

Linda Gray, his on-screen wife and later ex-wife in the original series and the sequel, was among those with Hagman in his final moments in a Dallas hospital, said her publicist, Jeffrey Lane.

"He brought joy to everyone he knew. He was creative, generous, funny, loving and talented, and I will miss him enormously. He was an original and lived life to the fullest," the actress said.

Years before "Dallas," Hagman had gained TV fame on "I Dream of Jeannie," in which he played an astronaut whose life is disrupted when he finds a comely genie, portrayed by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.

Eden recalled late Friday shooting the series' pilot "in the frigid cold" on a Malibu beach.

"From that day, for five more years, Larry was the center of so many fun, wild and sometimes crazy times. And in retrospect, memorable moments that will remain in my heart forever," Eden said.

Hagman also starred in two short-lived sitcoms, "The Good Life" (NBC, 1971-72) and "Here We Go Again" (ABC, 1973). His film work included well-regarded performances in "The Group," ''Harry and Tonto" and "Primary Colors."

But it was Hagman's masterful portrayal of J.R. that brought him the most fame. And the "Who shot J.R.?" story twist fueled international speculation and millions of dollars in betting-parlor wagers. It also helped give the series a place in ratings history.

When the answer was revealed in a November 1980 episode, an average 41 million U.S. viewers tuned in to make "Dallas" one of the most-watched entertainment shows of all time, trailing only the "MASH" finale in 1983 with 50 million viewers.

It was J.R.'s sister-in-law, Kristin (Mary Crosby) who plugged him — he had made her pregnant, then threatened to frame her as a prostitute unless she left town — but others had equal motivation.

Hagman played Ewing as a bottomless well of corruption with a charming grin: a business cheat and a faithless husband who tried to get his alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Gray), institutionalized.

"I know what I want on J.R.'s tombstone," Hagman said in 1988. "It should say: 'Here lies upright citizen J.R. Ewing. This is the only deal he ever lost.'"

On Friday night, Victoria Principal, who co-starred in the original series, recalled Hagman as "bigger than life, on-screen and off. He is unforgettable, and irreplaceable, to millions of fans around the world, and in the hearts of each of us, who was lucky enough to know and love him."

Ten episodes of the new edition of "Dallas" aired this past summer and proved a hit for TNT. Filming was in progress on the sixth episode of season two, which is set to begin airing Jan. 28, the network said.

There was no immediate comment from Warner or TNT on how the series would deal with Hagman's loss.

In 2006, he did a guest shot on FX's drama series "Nip/Tuck," playing a macho business mogul. He also got new exposure in recent years with the DVD releases of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Dallas."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Saturday morning in a statement that Hagman's role as J.R. helped the city gain "worldwide recognition."

"Larry is a North Texas jewel that was larger than life and he will be missed by many in Dallas and around the world," Rawlings said.

The Fort Worth, Texas, native was the son of singer-actress Mary Martin, who starred in such classics as "South Pacific" and "Peter Pan." Martin was still in her teens when he was born in 1931 during her marriage to attorney Ben Hagman.

As a youngster, Hagman gained a reputation for mischief-making as he was bumped from one private school to another. He made a stab at New York theater in the early 1950s, then served in the Air Force from 1952-56 in England.

While there, he met and married young Swedish designer Maj Axelsson. The couple had two children, Preston and Heidi, and were longtime residents of the Malibu beach colony that is home to many celebrities.

Hagman returned to acting and found work in the theater and in such TV series as "The U.S. Steel Hour," ''The Defenders" and "Sea Hunt." His first continuing role was as lawyer Ed Gibson on the daytime serial "The Edge of Night" (1961-63).

He called his 2001 memoir "Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales about My Life."

"I didn't put anything in that I thought was going to hurt someone or compromise them in any way," he told The Associated Press at the time.

Hagman was diagnosed in 1992 with cirrhosis of the liver and acknowledged that he had drank heavily for years. In 1995, a malignant tumor was discovered on his liver and he underwent a transplant.

After his transplant, he became an advocate for organ donation and volunteered at a hospital to help frightened patients.

"I counsel, encourage, meet them when they come in for their operations, and after," he said in 1996. "I try to offer some solace, like 'Don't be afraid, it will be a little uncomfortable for a brief time, but you'll be OK.' "

He also was an anti-smoking activist who took part in "Great American Smoke-Out" campaigns.

Funeral plans had not been announced as of Saturday morning.

"I can honestly say that we've lost not just a great actor, not just a television icon, but an element of pure Americana," Eden said in her statement Friday night. "Goodbye, Larry. There was no one like you before and there will never be anyone like you again."

___

Associated Press writers Erin Gartner in Chicago and Shaya Mohajer in Los Angeles, and AP Television Writer Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this report.

Read More..

Psychotherapy’s Image Problem Pushes Some Therapists to Become ‘Brands’

Illustration by Matt Dorfman. Photograph by Jens Mortensen for The New York Times.

In the summer of 2011, after I completed six years of graduate school and internship training and was about to start my psychotherapy practice, I sat down with my clinical supervisor in the Los Angeles office we’d be sharing. It had been a rigorous six years, transitioning from my role as a full-time journalist always on tight deadlines to that of a therapist whose world was broken into slow, thoughtful hours listening and trying to help people come to a deeper understanding of their lives. My supervisor went over the filing systems, billing procedures and ethical quandaries like whether to take referrals from current clients, but we never discussed how I would get these clients. I fully assumed, in what now seems like an astounding fit of naïveté, that I’d send out an e-mail announcement and network with doctors, and to paraphrase “Field of Dreams,” if I built it, they would come.

Except that they didn’t. What nobody taught me in grad school was that psychotherapy, a practice that had sustained itself for more than a century, is losing its customers. If this came as a shock to me, the American Psychological Association tried to send out warnings in a 2010 paper titled, “Where Has all the Psychotherapy Gone?” According to the author, 30 percent fewer patients received psychological interventions in 2008 than they did 11 years earlier; since the 1990s, managed care has increasingly limited visits and reimbursements for talk therapy but not for drug treatment; and in 2005 alone, pharmaceutical companies spent $4.2 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising and $7.2 billion on promotion to physicians, nearly twice what they spent on research and development.

According to the A.P.A., therapists had to start paying attention to what the marketplace demanded or we risked our livelihoods. It wasn’t long before I learned that an entirely new specialized industry had cropped up: branding consultants for therapists.

I couldn’t imagine hiring a branding consultant to lure people to the couch. Psychotherapy is perhaps one of the few commercial businesses that doesn’t see itself as one, that views financial gain as unseemly when connected to the delicate work of emotional insight. Moreover, the field is predicated on strict concepts of authenticity, privacy and therapist-patient boundaries. Branding was the antithesis of what we did.

But a couple of months after setting up my office and waiting for people to call, I found myself wondering — first idly, then deliberately, and always guiltily — about those branding consultants and how exactly they helped therapists like me. Sitting at my desk one morning when my appointment book looked particularly dismal, a combination of curiosity and desperation got the best of me. On Google, I came across a branding consultant named Casey Truffo. Her Web site’s home page spoke directly to my situation: “You are called to be a therapist. Are you also called to poverty?” I immediately dialed her number.

The first thing Truffo told me when I reached her in her Orange County office was that I shouldn’t feel bad about my empty hours; nowadays, she said, even established veterans were struggling. Yes, the economy was bad, but the real issue was that psychotherapy had an image problem.

She told me about a therapist named Sandra Bryson. In 2009, Bryson called for help after her successful Oakland-based practice of 25 years lost patients when she stopped taking insurance. According to Truffo, Bryson shared a problem common to therapists: “a blah-sounding message and no angle.” Bryson had always done well as a generalist — treating anything from depression to grief to marital issues — but Truffo urged her to find a specialty, one that “captured the zeitgeist but didn’t feel played out.” Bryson mentioned that she liked helping parents and had an affinity for technology, and voilà — suddenly she had a brand. Not as a clinician addressing typical parenting issues like boundary-setting, which Truffo called “generic and old-school,” but as an expert who helps modern families navigate digital media. She also became a sought-after speaker on so-called hot issues like screen time, cyberbullying and sexting, and Bryson told me her practice, which is based on “mostly deep work,” had become “more advice-driven.” Now her schedule is full, and her income has increased about 15 percent a year.

“Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore,” Truffo told me. “They want to buy a solution to a problem.” This is something Truffo discovered in her own former private practice of 18 years, during which she saw a shift from people who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves better to people who would come in “because they wanted someone else or something else to change,” she said. “I’d see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, ‘I want to change.’ ”

Read More..

Toyota on track to become world's bestselling automaker again

Toyota Motor Corp. appears poised to regain its position as the world's largest automaker, a remarkable turnaround after years of safety recalls, huge federal fines and the Japanese earthquake last year.

In short order, surging sales have put that all in the rearview mirror.

Toyota is likely to sell 9.7 million vehicles this year, surpassing second-place General Motors Co. by more than 1 million vehicles and setting a record for annual auto sales. That's generating huge profits, with earnings tripling in the latest quarter to $3.2 billion and sales surging almost 20% compared with a year earlier.

The U.S. — where Toyota's reputation suffered most through the recalls — is now a cash cow. Through the first 10 months of the year, the Japanese automaker sold more than 1.7 million cars and trucks in the country, a 30% gain and more than double the industry growth rate.

"Toyota has done some smart things," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive. "They have concentrated a lot of time and effort on the U.S., which is incredibly important because they make so much money here."

The Japanese automaker has launched 11 new or completely redesigned models in the U.S. in the last year, including new station wagon and commuter versions of its popular Prius hybrids. On Wednesday, the first day of the Los Angeles Auto Show, it will launch a new-generation RAV4 sport utility vehicle. The current model is an aging vehicle facing stiff competition from newly redesigned offerings such as Ford Motor Co.'s Escape and Honda Motor Co.'s CR-V.

Toyota has ramped up its factories in the U.S., opening a Corolla plant in Mississippi and expanding pickup truck manufacturing in Texas. And at the urging of Chief Executive and founding-family member Akio Toyoda, the automaker is looking to inject some panache into its historically bland styling, especially for its Lexus luxury division.

Toyota now accounts for 14.4% of the U.S. auto market, up from 12.6% during the first 10 months of 2011. In retail — not including rental and fleet sales — the Toyota brand is the biggest in the U.S., outselling GM's Chevrolet.

Lynne Thomas, a Santa Monica resident who works in the restaurant industry, bought a Toyota Prius C hybrid in October after considering other fuel-efficient vehicles including the Smart fortwo, Fiat 500 and Volkswagen Jetta.

"I love the mileage. I'm getting more than 50 mpg," Thomas said. "It fits my lifestyle completely. It is easy to park in this crazy city. I can put my bike in the back and drive somewhere and do an amazing bike ride. It works really well in stop-and-go traffic."

The company is expanding its factory network in the U.S. as part of a strategy to manufacture in regional markets and blunt the profit-eating consequences of the Japanese yen's strong exchange rate with the dollar. It has put $1.4 billion into U.S. factories and equipment in the last year, adding more than 2,700 jobs, on top of the 1,300 positions created in the U.S. the previous year.

The expansion comes after Toyota's controversial decision to close the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif., displacing nearly 5,000 workers in early 2010. Toyota shut the plant after GM, as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, pulled out of joint manufacturing there.

Toyota also is shipping more U.S.-built vehicles abroad. In the first 10 months of this year, it exported 74,000 U.S.-built cars to Canada and Mexico and 29,000 to overseas markets. It is sending Kentucky-built Camrys to South Korea and Indiana-built Sequoias to Saudi Arabia. Exports of U.S.-built Toyotas are on track to rise more than 50% this year.

Just three years ago, Toyota was the second-largest auto seller in America, with 17% of the market, and was closing in on a crippled GM, which was struggling with the stigma of bankruptcy and a federal bailout. But Toyota was derailed in a series of embarrassing recalls. In one high-profile accident, an improperly positioned floor mat in a sedan from Toyota's Lexus luxury division may have trapped the accelerator — causing the car to race down California Highway 125 near San Diego at more than 100 mph. The car crashed and burned, killing off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor and three members of his family.

That crash led to a safety investigation and recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix the floor mat problem. After a Los Angeles Times series on unintended sudden acceleration, Toyota issued millions more recall notices to fix sticking gas pedals and other issues. Then, two years ago, Toyota paid record federal fines of nearly $50 million for failing to promptly inform regulators of defects and for delaying recalls. At one point it had to halt much of its production of new cars in the U.S. to fix recalled vehicles.

Just as the automaker started to recover, it was hobbled by last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which upended Toyota's manufacturing even on American soil. Toyota's share of U.S. auto sales slid to 12.9%, well below GM's and Ford's.

Several factors have helped Toyota survive the recalls and disaster-related production shutdowns, said James E. Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor Sales, the automaker's U.S. marketing arm.

First, there was "the loyalty of our consumers as we went from the financial crisis to the recalls to the tsunami," he said. "They stayed with us for the entire time."

Lentz is thankful for customers such as Evan Rabinowitz of Sherman Oaks, who bought a Camry sedan in August.

"I didn't look at anything else because I never had an issue with my 2008 Camry. Going back to Toyota was a no-brainer," said Rabinowitz, who owns a fabric business. He said his previous Toyota was recalled twice to fix pedal issues, but that work was done quickly and well and didn't dissuade him from purchasing another Camry.

Read More..

Dave Roberts brings diversity to the San Diego County supervisors

DEL MAR — In January, when he joins the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Dave Roberts will be the only Democrat among four Republicans, the first Democrat on the board in more than two decades.

He will also be the first new supervisor in 18 years. And he will be the only one who is not a graduate of San Diego State. He has three degrees from American University in Washington, D.C.

He's also gay and married to a retired Air Force master sergeant. The two are adoptive parents to five former foster children, ages 4 to 17, who call them Daddy Dave and Daddy Wally.

With Roberts' election to a district representing a portion of San Diego and several seaside communities north of the city, diversity has arrived for the Board of Supervisors, long one of the region's most homogenous governing bodies.

"I'm going to bring some unique characteristics," Roberts, 51, said with a laugh during a family outing on the beach here.

Roberts hopes to concentrate on the same issues he focused on while serving on the Solana Beach City Council, where he is currently deputy mayor: regional fire protection, expansion of the San Dieguito River Park and "sensible" growth.

Roberts is a Democrat in the style of Republican-leaning northern San Diego County: fiscally conservative. He worked as a budget analyst for the Department of Defense and as a corporate vice president for the La Jolla-based defense contractor SAIC. He was a Republican until some in the GOP took exception to a gay man working in the Pentagon.

"The Republicans wanted me to be fired," Roberts said. "That's when I changed political parties."

Some of his first experience in government came from working as a staffer to Sen. Lowell Weicker, a Republican from Connecticut. "I learned from working for Sen. Weicker that you can make change if you're in the right place," Roberts said.

In 2009, Democratic party officials encouraged Roberts to seek the party's nomination to face incumbent Brian Bilbray (R-Carlsbad) in the 50th Congressional District.

On the verge of declaring his candidacy, Roberts was alerted by social workers about two children who needed a "forever" home. He decided that the adoption process took precedence over his political career.

Now there are five children in the two-story home in Solana Beach once owned by singer Patti Page: Robert, 17; Alex, 12; Julian, 8; Joe, 5; and Natalee, 4. Three of the children have taken the last name Roberts, and two took his spouse's last name, Oliver.

"We don't like double names," Roberts said.

Roberts and Wally Oliver, 55, have been together for 14 years. They had a commitment ceremony in 1998 and married in July 2008 in the brief period when county clerks in California were allowed to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

The family may soon expand.

"Wally would like a baby," Roberts said. "We're not Jewish, but we believe in the Jewish proverb: 'If you can save one soul, you can save the world.'"

During his race against a Republican opponent, Roberts was endorsed by the retiring incumbent, Pam Slater-Price. He has also begun discussions with Supervisor Dianne Jacob, possibly the most fiscally conservative member of the board.

He also looks forward to working with Supervisor Bill Horn, an ex-Marine who supported Proposition 8, the measure to ban same-sex marriage, and has said he opposes gays in the military. "He says things from time to time that remind me of my father," Roberts said.

For all of their fiscal conservatism, the supervisors have not dabbled much in social issues in a way that might satisfy some elements in the GOP. The board took no position on Proposition 8. Health clinics in gay neighborhoods and AIDS prevention programs are funded without controversy.

Roberts may be different in another respect from his colleagues: He will not be assigning a staff member to send out his Twitter messages. He sends out his own tweets — lots of them, on topics political and personal.

Last week, among many tweets, was one announcing that he has hired his predecessor's chief-of-staff, praising him for his "broad experience, management style and network of contacts."

And the next tweet: "Took the kids out for frozen yogurt at Seaside Yogurt in Del Mar for a treat."

tony.perry@latimes.com

Read More..

Marc Anthony comes to aid of Dominican orphanage

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Singer Marc Anthony is coming to the aid of an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

A foundation run by Anthony with music and sports producer Henry Cardenas plans to build a new residence hall, classrooms and a baseball field for the Children of Christ orphanage in the eastern city of La Romana. Anthony attended the groundbreaking ceremony Friday with his model girlfriend Shannon de Lima.

Children of Christ Foundation Director Sonia Hane said Anthony visited the orphanage previously and decided to help. His Maestro Cares Foundation raised $200,000 for the expansion on land donated by a sugar company. The orphanage was founded in 1996 for children who were abused or abandoned or whose parents were unable to care for them.

Read More..

Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.

The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.

The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”

In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.

“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.

After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.

The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.

In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.

“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.

Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”

Read More..

Poor management, not union intransigence, killed Hostess

Let's get a few things clear. Hostess didn't fail for any of the reasons you've been fed. It didn't fail because Americans demanded more healthful food than its Twinkies and Ho-Hos snack cakes. It didn't fail because its unions wanted it to die.

It failed because the people that ran it had no idea what they were doing. Every other excuse is just an attempt by the guilty to blame someone else.

Take the notion that Hostess was out of step with America's healthful-food craze. You'd almost think that Hostess failed because it didn't convert its product line into one based on green vegetables. Yet you only have to amble down the cookie aisle at your supermarket or stroll past the Cinnabon kiosk at the airport to know that there are still handsome profits to be made from the sale of highly refined sugary garbage.

It's true that the company had done almost nothing in the last 10 years to modernize or expand its offerings. But as any of the millions of Americans who have succumbed to Twinkie cravings can attest, there has always been something about their greasy denseness and peculiar aftertaste that place them high among the ranks of foodstuffs that can be perfectly satisfying without actually being any good.

Hostess management's efforts to blame union intransigence for the company's collapse persisted right through to the Thanksgiving eve press release announcing Hostess' liquidation, when it cited a nationwide strike by bakery workers that "crippled its operations."

That overlooks the years of union givebacks and management bad faith. Example: Just before declaring bankruptcy for the second time in eight years Jan. 11, Hostess trebled the compensation of then-Chief Executive Brian Driscoll and raised other executives' pay up to twofold. At the same time, the company was demanding lower wages from workers and stiffing employee pension funds of $8 million a month in payment obligations.

Hostess management hasn't been able entirely to erase the paper trail pointing to its own derelictions. Consider a 163-page affidavit filed as part of the second bankruptcy petition.

There Driscoll outlined a "Turnaround Plan" to get the firm back on its feet. The steps included closing outmoded plants and improving the efficiency of those that remain; upgrading the company's "aging vehicle fleet" and merging its distribution warehouses for efficiency; installing software at the warehouses to allow it to track inventory; and closing unprofitable retail stores. It also proposed to restore its advertising budget and establish an R&D program to develop new products to "maintain existing customers and attract new ones."

None of these steps, Driscoll attested, required consultation with the unions. That raises the following question: You mean to tell me that as of January 2012, Hostess still hadn't gotten around to any of this?

The company had known for a decade or more that its market was changing, but had done nothing to modernize its product line or distribution system. Its trucks were breaking down. It was keeping unprofitable stores open and having trouble figuring out how to move inventory to customers and when. It had cut back advertising and marketing to the point where it was barely communicating with customers. It had gotten hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions from its unions, and spent none of it on these essential improvements.

The true recent history of Hostess can be excavated from piles of public filings from its two bankruptcy cases. To start with, the company has had six CEOs in the last 10 years, which is not exactly a precondition for consistent and effective corporate strategizing.

The most recent and presumably final incumbent, Gregory Rayburn, had been with the company all of nine days before taking over in March when Driscoll, who earlier had been described in court papers as "key to … the future well-being" of the company, departed suddenly and without explanation.

Hostess first entered bankruptcy in 2004, when it was known as Interstate Bakeries. During its five years in Chapter 11, the firm obtained concessions from its unions worth $110 million a year. The unions accepted layoffs that brought the workforce down to about 19,000 from more than 30,000. There were cuts in wages, pension and health benefits. The Teamsters committed to negotiations over changes in antiquated work rules. The givebacks helped reduce Hostess' labor costs to the point where they were roughly equal  to or even lower than some of its major competitors'.

But the firm emerged from bankruptcy with more debt than when it went in — in with $575 million, out with $774 million, all secured by company assets. That's pretty much the opposite of what's supposed to happen in bankruptcy. By the end, there was barely a spare distributor cap in the motor pool that wasn't mortgaged to the private equity firms and hedge funds holding the notes (and also appointing management).

As management experts such as Peter Drucker have observed, the goal of a successful business must be to find and serve customers. Do that, and the numbers take care of themselves. The Hostess approach was entirely backward — meeting the numbers became Job One, and figuring out how to grow the business became Job None.

The post-bankruptcy leadership never executed a growth strategy. It failed to introduce a significant new product or acquire a single new brand. It lagged on bakery automation and product R&D, while rivals such as Bimbo Bakeries USA built research facilities and hired food scientists to keep their product lines fresh. At the time of the 2004 bankruptcy, Hostess was three times the size of Bimbo. Today it's less than half Bimbo's size. (Bimbo, which has been acquiring bakeries such as Sara Lee and Entenmann's right and left, might well end up with Hostess' brands.)

Hostess contended its biggest burden came from the multi-employer pension plans covering its unionized employees. Its contention is that these plans are designed so that when any employer goes out of business or otherwise withdraws, its obligations to its former workers are inherited by the companies that remain.

Consequently, Hostess says, a large portion of its required pension contributions benefit employees of other long-departed firms. This claim has been swallowed whole by Hostess' mourners, but it's fishy.

For one thing, many Hostess competitors contribute to similar plans, some at an even higher rate than Hostess. For another, the real problem is that for years the employers allowed the pension plan to become underfunded, either by skipping required contributions while they were in business or raiding the fund to pocket supposedly excess assets that proved to be not so excess. Hostess is guilty of the same practice.

In any event, the $989 million in pension liabilities Hostess ended up owing various union funds, according to its bankruptcy filing, didn't accumulate in secret, like termite damage. It accrued because Hostess and its sister bakeries judged their retirement obligations to be relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Now that the bill has come due, Hostess blames the workers for demanding what they were promised.

The record shows that Hostess' unions were willing to talk with management at virtually every stage to keep the firm alive. There are plenty of companies and industries in which such talks have been fruitful, including the auto industry. But they can succeed only when everyone is confident that the guys at the other side of the table are committed to the same goals.

In this case, the unions finally realized that the Hostess strategic plan started and ended with extracting yet another round of cutbacks from employees. To argue that capitulating might at least save thousands of jobs is to accept the corrosive mind-set that manufacturing workers should be glad they've got any job at all and take what they're offered.

The union members could see that their supposed management "partners" hoped to rescue their own investments by placing workers on a glide path to life on a minimum-wage existence, without pensions and without healthcare, after they had given and given again. You want to claim that they should have accepted the latest management demands as better than nothing instead of voting it down, OK. But you should ask yourself two questions: Where do you think this trend would have ended, and how much would you take?

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

Read More..

Middle East shifts may weaken Iran's influence with Palestinians

CAIRO — Iran for years has supplied Hamas with weapons as part of its own struggle against Israel, but the conflict in the Gaza Strip reveals a shift in regional dynamics that may diminish Tehran's influence with Palestinian militant groups and strengthen the hand of Egypt.

The longer-range missiles fired by Hamas over the last week — believed to be modifications of Iran's Fajr 5 missiles — startled Israel by landing near Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. A front-page story in Iran's conservative daily, Kayhan, boasted: "The missiles of resistance worked." Tehran would not confirm the weapons' origin, except to say it sent rocket "technology" to Hamas.

Instead, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters: "What is important is that the people of Palestine must be equipped to defend themselves, and it is the responsibility of all countries to defend the rights of the people of Palestine."

But the Gaza fighting erupted during a new era in the Middle East brought about by the rise of Islamist governments, notably in Egypt, that have replaced pro-Western autocrats. The political catharsis has spurred anti-Americanism, which Iran relishes, but it also has upset Tehran's regional designs.

In Syria — which along with the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah has been Iran's proxy opposing Israel — a revolt inspired by the "Arab Spring" could force President Bashar Assad from power and bring in a government less friendly to Tehran. Hamas angered Iran by opposing Tehran's continued support of Assad and siding with the Syrian rebels, who are mostly fellow Sunni Muslims.

Iran's immediate concern in Gaza is keeping Hamas from strengthening its ties to Arab capitals. This may be difficult, as evidenced by the fact that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which inspired the founding of Hamas and now is in charge of the Egyptian government, played a key role in brokering the cease-fire announced Wednesday.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is likely to press the militant group not to further agitate the region — and Egypt's many domestic problems — with sustained violence against Israel. But Egypt has been criticized for tacitly arming Hamas by not tightening its border with Gaza to stop weapons smugglers from Libya and Sudan.

"The Iranians [had] better understand the paradigm is shifting in the Middle East," said Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. and founding dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo. "Hamas needs Cairo tremendously. It really has no other interlocutor to deal with Israel."

But he added that the region is so fluid and unsettled that it is too early to predict winners and losers: "If there are peaceful resolutions, this will lead to a reduced Iranian role. If, on the other hand, you have an increased use of violence," he said, "then ultimately any player that has been supportive of a more aggressive posture will gain ground."

Iran characterized Hamas' rocket fire on Israel as part of an effort to keep the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off balance. Netanyahu has threatened to attack Iran's nuclear program, and some suggest the airstrikes on Gaza have been a warm-up exercise. Tehran viewed the Gaza conflict as a means to distract Israel and further inflame anti-Jewish sentiment in a region tipping increasingly toward Islamists.

"Hamas' ties with Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's current government are different from its ties with Iran," said Nader Karimi, a journalist and political analyst in Tehran. "In peace, when diplomacy is needed, Hamas is closer to Egypt at the expense of Iran. But when it's at war with Israel, Hamas' relations with Iran are more important."

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' political chief, acknowledged as much after the cease-fire was announced Wednesday. "Iran played a role in this achievement as well," he said. "We have differed with Iran on the Syrian issue, but we agree against the oppression and occupation of Zionists."

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt "let down Hamas in the current war," said Hamid Reza Taraghi, a conservative Iranian analyst who criticized Cairo for not opening Egypt's border with Gaza to supply Hamas with arms. "Hamas now realizes that Iran is the genuine supporter of the Palestinian cause."

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was suspicious of both Hamas and Iran. Mubarak, a close U.S. ally, had no formal ties with Iran for decades. Morsi visited Tehran last summer and indicated a change in tenor, even as he has angered Iran by condemning Assad's mass killings of Syrians.

But Egypt's domestic problems, including economic turmoil, the battle over a new constitution and gas and water shortages, are his steepest challenges. Morsi also is attempting to stem increasing instability in the Sinai Peninsula, where resurgent militant groups, some believed to be aided by Hamas, have killed Egyptian security forces and launched attacks at Israel.

Trouble in the Sinai jeopardizes Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel but plays into Iran's efforts. Analysts suggest that Cairo will work to rein in Hamas, and other rivals of Iran including Sunni Muslim Persian Gulf nations such as Qatar will also be more deeply involved. The emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, visited Gaza in October and promised $400 million in aid.

Egypt, however, poses the biggest obstacle to Iran's plans in Gaza. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood regard Cairo as the unquestioned regional mediator between the Palestinians and Israel.

"Egypt has historic, geographic and religious ties with Palestine and Gaza. These ties cannot be bought," said Sadegh Hosseini, an expert on Iranian politics. "Gaza is the backyard of Egypt. In recent years, we have seen that ideologically Hamas is another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Times staff writer Fleishman reported from Cairo and special correspondent Mostaghim from Tehran.

Read More..

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Apple Now Owns the iMessage Name]

Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?

If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.

[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]

That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.

All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.

The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.

Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen

What It Is

If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).

Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).

I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.

Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.

The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)

Not Packing a Punch

As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.

Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.

The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.

Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.

The Good

Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.

Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.

Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.

There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.

Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.

Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.

Staying Connected

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).

Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).

In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.

At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”

The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

Click here to view this gallery.

Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.

To Buy or Not to Buy

Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.

Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.

For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..