Gay pastor holds wedding banquet in Malaysia - Latest news around the world and developments close to home - MSN Malaysia News ;..
He regularly returns to Malaysia and elsewhere in Asia to promote gay awareness.
Influential Malaysian religious figures and political conservatives remain vehemently opposed to the growing prominence of the country's gay community.
Authorities last year banned an annual gay-themed festival, featuring gay-oriented films, concerts and forums, while a prominent religious body in 2008 issued a fatwa against lesbian sex.
After Ngeo announced his wedding plans last year, Islamic Affairs Minister Jamil Khir Baharom denounced same-sex marriages as "extremism that... will create social problems".
Other officials and some Christian leaders also condemned Ngeo's nuptials.
Ngeo said gays should not let anything "paralyse us or scare us to silence".
"We should not be short-sighted and discouraged by unwanted backlash... We should not succumb to fear!" he said in his email.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Netvibes – Social Media Monitoring, Analytics and Alerts Dashboard
Netvibes – Social Media Monitoring, Analytics and Alerts Dashboard: Netvibes is the all-in-one dashboard intelligence platform for real-time social media monitoring, social analytics, brand sentiment, reputation management, team management, company intranets and community portals. The #1 dashboard solution for Fortune 500 brands, agencies and enterprises." ;.. WAY TO VISUALIZE ...
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Arianna Huffington: Dear Class Of 2011: Good Luck... You're Really Going To Need It!
Arianna Huffington: Dear Class Of 2011: Good Luck... You're Really Going To Need It! ;.. A SILVER LINE REALLY ...There is, however, a silver lining to graduating in such tough economic times. Conventional wisdom says that today's graduates are going to be less likely to take chances, less likely to pass up the safe bird in the hand, but, in fact, there is now a higher premium on taking risks and following your dreams, creating your job instead of just looking for one.
The road ahead is definitely rockier than the Class of 2011 imagined it would be. But while this may be the most debt-burdened graduating class in history, it's also the most tech-savvy, the most connected, and the most engaged.
This year's graduates need to embrace this, and build on it, looking for innovative ways to do well for themselves while doing good for others. And, while they're at it, they should use these attributes to help hold our leaders accountable, and keep them from turning away from the mess they've made -- with so many missed opportunities and perverted priorities.
The death of cash - Fortune Tech
The death of cash - Fortune Tech ;.. FORTUNE -- Café Grumpy is the kind of hipster hangout that wouldn't deign to trumpet itself. Tucked away on a quiet street in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, it's easy to miss. There's no sign out front, just a frowning face stenciled on a large shop window. And yet when I walked in for the first time, I immediately felt like one of the regulars. "Charge it to Miguel," I told the barista after ordering a cappuccino, and charge it he did -- to my phone. Not that I ever pulled my iPhone from my pocket. Seconds after the barista tapped my order on Grumpy's minimalist register -- an iPad mounted on a stylish countertop stand -- my phone vibrated in my coat pocket, signaling that our transaction was complete. I couldn't wait to check that everything had worked as promised. (It had.) For the first time ever I was tickled by the act of paying for something.
The 7 Ugly Truths About Facebook | The Exchange - Yahoo! Finance
The 7 Ugly Truths About Facebook | The Exchange - Yahoo! Finance ; DROP of almost 50 %
4. Its stock price won't stop falling
Facebook's IPO was priced at $38 a share on May 17 and has pretty much sunk like a stone ever since, recently slipping under $20 a share for the first time, a 45 percent drop. What happened? Everyone has a theory — maybe the IPO was mishandled, maybe there was too much hype, maybe Facebook was just overvalued from the start — but the fact remains that the social network has lost about $43 billion in market cap in the past two months (half of its original valuation) and is already one of the worst performing social media IPOs to date.
Unfortunately for Facebook, the worst may be yet to come. Starting next month, nearly 1.7 billion more shares could start hitting the market as employees become freed up to start selling their holdings, which could more than quadruple the number of Facebook shares now trading.
5. Executives are leaving
As happens just about any time a startup goes public -- early employees stick around through the IPO, cash out and then move on to new things. At Facebook, however, several high-profile recent defections have raised questions about the company's leadership and its prospects going forward.
4. Its stock price won't stop falling
Facebook's IPO was priced at $38 a share on May 17 and has pretty much sunk like a stone ever since, recently slipping under $20 a share for the first time, a 45 percent drop. What happened? Everyone has a theory — maybe the IPO was mishandled, maybe there was too much hype, maybe Facebook was just overvalued from the start — but the fact remains that the social network has lost about $43 billion in market cap in the past two months (half of its original valuation) and is already one of the worst performing social media IPOs to date.
Unfortunately for Facebook, the worst may be yet to come. Starting next month, nearly 1.7 billion more shares could start hitting the market as employees become freed up to start selling their holdings, which could more than quadruple the number of Facebook shares now trading.
5. Executives are leaving
As happens just about any time a startup goes public -- early employees stick around through the IPO, cash out and then move on to new things. At Facebook, however, several high-profile recent defections have raised questions about the company's leadership and its prospects going forward.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Flixmaster wants to remake online video - Fortune Tech
Flixmaster wants to remake online video - Fortune Tech ;.. FLIXMASTER ...pause or stop. Now a small company called Flixmaster is trying to make the online viewing experience more interactive. How? By providing easy-to-use tools that let publishers and consumers embed more hands-on features into videos.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post ;.. HALF ONLY .. So now everyone is wondering -- what happens to the U.S. economy in the second half of the year. Does it pick up from the meager 1.5% GDP growth in the second quarter or does it slide down further in a pattern that could suggest we are slipping into recession?
A diverse group of Wall Street advisors and other economists remain bullish that the economy is going to pick up because of strong auto sales, a strengthening of the housing sector, a modest fall in gasoline prices, and the possibility that the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will initiate new quantitative easing to boost both the European and the U.S. economy.
I don't think this optimism is justified when stacked against evidence in the GDP data that the economy is slowing. While you still see auto sales and housing picking up, overall consumer spending came in at a weak 1.5 percentage points in the second quarter. Exports are still positive, but clearly slowing because of weakness in Europe and the falling euro. Business capital spending is still growing, but the rate of increase is decelerating. Similarly, a lot of the second quarter growth was due to inventory rebuilding which is not likely to continue into the third quarter. Wells Fargo projects 1.2% GDP in the third quarter, which amounts to a "stall speed" that could go negative in response to any policy shock or political blunder.
The stall speed scenario is obvious in the slowdown in earnings forecast for the third quarter. Strong corporate earnings have been one of the bright spots in the struggling U.S. recovery, supporting some modest hiring and substantial capital expenditures, particularly for high-tech products designed to increase productivity. Now, however, the slowdown in revenues due to the slow growth abroad and the squeeze on profit margins from a variety of sources have many firms cutting their earnings projections for the third quarter, with a majority of them suggesting S&P earnings will slip into the red.
My discussion with a wide range of corporate CEOs also supports the stall speed scenario. The majority of them have seen a deceleration in their orders in June and July partly because of the euro crisis, but also because growth in China and immerging markets has been slowing as well. Auto sales have been a standout exception to this trend, but even that critical sector is beginning to show some stall speed fatigue.
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post ;.. Romney's "Five Point Plan to Grow the Economy" that he touts on his website, is primitive economics almost beyond belief. It returns us to 19th-century government of the few, by the few, with few regulations or insurance against the kinds of events that brought on the Great Depression and Great Recession, for starters.
Conservatives in general and Mitt Romney don't seem to understand the most basic concept of modern economics -- insuring against major disruptions -- that is indispensable to run a modern economy. Insurance isn't only about insuring the many to protect the most vulnerable -- whether against physical disasters such as the Midwest drought, or financial disasters such as the Great Depression, or catastrophic illness. It is really about all of our citizens being for one, and one for all. It is why we tax ourselves to pay for a government, because government is really the protector of last resort against the most basic risks in a world grown increasingly complex and uncertain.
Modern economies can't do without it, yet Romney says he opposes most modern forms of protection in his five-point plan by continuing to reduce taxes that would starve government of revenues, as well as cap spending on regulation enforcement. He would also repeal the Affordable Care Act that insures 30 million more Americans. Instead he proposes more of GW Bush's 'Ownership Society' which seeks to return us to the era of laissez faire -- free, unregulated markets that existed 100 years ago. And we know what institutions which evaded or ignored modern financial regulation did to financial markets.
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