AT&T to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion | The Wire | The Blaze

DALLAS (AP) — AT&T Inc. says it will buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $39 billion.

T-Mobile is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the United States.

via theblaze.com

Is this true?

2011 Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible: A Genuine Ragtop Road Monster, Leaks and All | Rumble Seat by Dan Neil - WSJ.com

Chevrolet reports that the new Camaro SS convertible, a ragtop version of America's hillbilly Veyron, weighs a mere 246 pounds more than the SS coupe. That's a very creditable figure but I wonder: Does that include water-weight gain?

I ask because as I was heaving the big bruiser around in the back roads of North Carolina, I heard a strange sloshing in the back. Concerned—had someone spilled his bong?—I pulled over to investigate. I raised the canvas top halfway and there, pooled in the lined recess behind the rear seatback, was about a pint of rainwater.

Dan Neil reviews the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro SS, a convertible version of the legendary Detroit muscle-car.

This puzzled and excited me. Puzzled because, surely, the engineers and designers who have so admirably decapitated the Camaro could have managed to keep the rain out. Actually, in many ways the convertible is a superior car. While the ragtop is a bit slower to 60 mph (4.9 seconds, compared with 4.6 for the coupe) and a half-second more leisurely through the quarter-mile (13.4 seconds), the retracted top cures the low-roof coupe's biggest functional liability: massive rear-quarter blind spots and desperately limited outward visibility. You know that tunnel-vision thing that happens right after you fall out of your tree stand? Like that.

Photos: Ragtop Road Monster

View Slideshow

General Motors

With a base price of $39,650, the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible is offered with either a direct-injection, 3.6-liter, 312-horsepower V6 or one of two 6.2-liter V8s.

So while the SS coupe might be a touch faster, it's actually harder to drive fast because it's so hard to see out of. Advantage, convertible. Also, given the car's slightly remote-feeling steering, it helps to be able to hear the tires moaning in a corner, the better to judge the available grip. Chevy's chassis boffins have reinforced the convertible so that it is at least as stiff as the coupe—despite its lacking the cross-bracing rigidity of a hardtop—and the shock and spring rates are just as flinty as the coupe's.

In fact, the convertible is mechanically almost a clone of the coupe. It's offered with either a direct-injection, 3.6-liter, 312-horsepower V6 or one of two 6.2-liter V8s: the 400-hp L99 engine (paired with the six-speed automatic transmission) or the 426-hp LS3 engine mated to the six-speed manual. The latter configuration—pleasingly snarly and bellicose, with a popping and slobbering exhaust note right out of "Beowulf"—is how my test car came.

View Full Image

General Motors

2011 Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible

• Base price: $39,650
• Price as tested: $42,080
• Powertrain: 6.2-liter, 16-valve pushrod V8 with port fuel injection; six-speed manual transmission; rear-wheel drive with limited-slip differential.
• Horsepower/torque: 426 hp at 5,900 rpm/420 pound-feet at 4,600 rpm
• Length/weight: 190.4 inches/4,116 pounds
• Wheelbase: 112.3 inches
• 0-60 mph: 4.9 seconds
• EPA fuel economy: 16/24 mpg, city/highway
• Cargo capacity: 10.2 cubic feet (top up); 5 cubic feet (top down)

The SS convertible will definitely get around a corner. I mean, it isn't particularly tidy—blame the 4,116-pound curb weight and the relatively high center of gravity. The car can get a bit pitchy as you squeeze the (awesome) brakes and you have to give it a half-sec to take a set in a corner. But then it puts its shoulder down, the summer radials take root, and the car arcs around in a heady display of angular momentum.

Compared with a lightweight open-top sports car like a Mazda MX-5, the SS convertible feels like swinging a sack of flour in a pillow fight. A lot of effort, but when you make contact, Pow!

More from the dynamics notebook: Not surprisingly for a front-engine V8 convertible, the SS ragtop is a little nose-heavy and the engineers have thoughtfully dialed in an additional degree of protective understeer, lest you, in an exuberant moment, wipe out your neighbor's display of wooden duck windmills. However, in the right gear and the right corner, you can bring the rear end around with the car's largess of pushrod torque (420 pound-feet at 4,600 rpm). All Camaros have limited-slip differentials, which is nice. You can also engage the Competition Mode, which allows more yaw angle before the car's stability control intervenes. All of these technical measures help you to more safely and confidently explore the limits of your SS convertible.

The "competition" in question, by the way, is Most Hated Man in the County.

And, of course, the Camaro also allows you to kill the traction control completely in order to perform clutch-dropping, tire-hazing, tail-dancing 50-foot burnouts. With the top down. In high-school parking lots. And they say there is no God.

I understand that these go-fast features are obligatory for the SS convertible. I likewise understand that none but the nuttiest will attempt to road-race this machine. No, this car is all about self-presentation, about the code, the metaphor, the ball-peen mentality of Camaro. And that brings us back to the aquarium I found under the top, and my excitement.

The Camaro is an imperfectly perfect design. If the designers had been the slightest bit rational, they would have insisted that the coupe's outward visibility be better and they would have done something about the absurd roof buttresses and postage-stamp backlight. But they didn't dial the design down; they dialed it up, so extravagantly in fact that when in the "Transformers" movie the car turns into a giant laser-belching robot, you miss the car because it looks cooler.

To effect the convertible, GM's designers insisted that the canvas roof retain exactly the same turret-style profile as the coupe roof. In order to do that, they extended the canvas-top mechanism below the beltline, thus creating the pocket for the pond to form. They certainly could have made life easier on themselves. I suspect, as they read this, they might wish they had.

But please, despairing designers, take heart. It's just a crummy seal. Easy to fix. The world is full of nominalized, fully rational cars with perfectly fitted convertible tops. This is not the mind space that Camaro needs to occupy. Instead, it wants to be the Harley-Davidson of sports coupes: slightly brutal, a little primitive, deeply nostalgic. And as someone who's owned a few vintage ragtops, I can tell you, nothing could be more authentic than a leaky top.

So the car will occasionally need a diuretic. Who cares?

Meanwhile, behold the power of the SS convertible. I was coursing along an interstate with the top down when I found myself overtaking a guy in a yellow SS coupe. He didn't notice me until I was right beside him and, until that moment, he was Master of the Universe. Then he looked over and his face fell off.

To qualify as a true performance car, the Camaro really needs more horsepower, a more cinched-down suspension, less weight, more evolved aero and better gearing. Stay tuned for next year's 550-hp Camaro ZL1. In the meantime, the SS convertible is the ultimate Camaro, as well as the world's quickest rain barrel.

via online.wsj.com

Cool!!

Aflac Cans Duck Voice After Tasteless Tsunami Quacks | The Blaze

As the shocking destruction and death toll mount in Japan following last Friday’s devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami, trademark loudmouth Gilbert Gottfried cracked a number of poor-taste jokes on Twitter that his employer, disability insurer Aflac, didn’t find funny.

“Af-lac!” has since canned the quack.

Here‘s a sampling of Gottfried’s sick (and lame) humor:

In other messages, the stand up comic used the recent tragedy to plug his new book.

On Monday, Aflac condemned Gottfried’s comments as “lacking in humor,“ adding they ”certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac.”

The company said it would soon start a nationwide casting call to find a new voice — and noted that it was already using a different voice in the Japanese market, where it is the No. 1 foreign insurer.

via theblaze.com

How stupid.

Obama Tells GOP: Nice Try on Health Care Records

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.

Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama's health insurance expansion.

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee "would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking" and could "implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests," White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

It's one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall's elections.

So far, they've been unable to repeal the landmark legislation they dismiss as "Obamacare." GOP efforts to deny administration agencies the money to carry out the law are running into unintended consequences, not to mention the sheer difficulty of tracking those dollars. Now it looks like oversight isn't going to be easy either.

"We are both concerned and disappointed by your response," the committee chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., wrote back to Bauer. "The American public deserves the information we have requested. The secret meetings conducted by (White House officials) are a perfect example of why transparency in government is so important."

Upton urged the White House to carefully reconsider, but it's uncertain he'll ever get what he wants. Even if the standoff dramatically escalates to a congressional subpoena, history shows that presidents usually succeed in keeping records away from snooping eyes.

President George W. Bush's administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton's administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The request for records from Obama's health care reform office is broad. The committee asked for a list of every meeting, briefing or telephone call regarding changes to the health care system, as well as notes or summaries of those encounters. It wants a list of every employee of the now-disbanded health reform office, including their salaries. Committee investigators are also seeking any written communications, whether by letter or e-mail, with outside groups.

White House visitor records released at the request of The Associated Press in late 2009 show that Obama's top aides met frequently with lobbyists and health care industry leaders during the marathon congressional debate over health care overhaul.

The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.

Nearly every health industry group has complaints about aspects of the final legislation. But they're also working to carry out its provisions, even as challenges to the law's constitutionality advance in federal court. Some sectors got significant concessions from the administration.

The pharmaceutical industry and hospitals agreed early on to tens of billions in savings to help finance new coverage for the uninsured. When an amendment to allow importation of low-cost prescription drugs came up in the Senate, the administration worked successfully to defeat it, although Obama had supported the idea as a presidential candidate. Hospitals won a reprieve of several years from cuts proposed by a new Medicare cost control board.

The White House sent the Energy and Commerce Committee some 100 pages of records that have already been made public, including visitor logs and press releases. That may be all they get for a long time.

via newsmax.com

No surprise.

NFL Talks Collapse; Players Disband Union - WSJ.com

The National Football League descended Friday into turmoil as negotiations between owners and players broke off, setting up a potentially lengthy court battle that could have serious consequences for both the league and the sports business in general.

View Full Image

Getty Images

NFL players union executive director DeMaurice Smith, wearing hat, shown arriving for Friday's negotiations.

After spending seven-plus hours negotiating in Washington, D.C., in a 17th day of mediation, leaders of the NFL and the players union said late Friday afternoon that talks had stalled and blamed the other side for the meltdown.

Shortly thereafter the union filed paperwork to decertify and 10 players, including stars Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league. The suit seeks to prevent the owners from locking out the players. But the league locked out players as of midnight Saturday.

"Significant differences remain," said DeMaurice Smith, the union's executive director.

Sports Labor Disputes

View Interactive

Take a look back at some of the disputes that have upset play in major-league sports.

"We worked hard," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who dismissed the players' litigation. "Ultimately this is going to be negotiated."

via online.wsj.com

Sad.

Tiger, Phil paired at WGC-Cadillac « PGATOUR.com The Tour Report

DORAL, Fla. — Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the highest-ranked American players in this week’s World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, will be in the same group for the first two rounds at the TPC Blue Monster at Doral.

Woods and Mickelson will join reigning U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell in one of the featured groups this week. That threesome will tee off at 11:51 a.m. ET on Thursday off the 10th tee. On Friday, they’ll start the second round off the first tee at 12:54 p.m. ET. Golf Channel’s coverage begins at 2 p.m. ET on both days.

Tee times for the first two rounds were released Tuesday, with the top 21 players in the Official World Golf Ranking grouped together in threesomes based on their positions in the rankings. (Click here for tee times)

That means the top three players in the world — No. 1 Martin Kaymer, No. 2 Lee Westwood and No. 3 Luke Donald, who elevated to that spot thanks to his win two weeks ago at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship — are together for the first two days.

Kaymer replaced Westwood atop the rankings at the Accenture Match Play when he reached the championship final. Kaymer eventually lost to Donald, 3 and 2.

McDowell (No. 4), Woods (No. 5) and Mickelson (No. 6) followed in the World Rankings. For Woods and Mickelson, Thursday’s round will the 26th round in which they’ve been paired together at an official PGA TOUR event, and the first since the final round of last year’s BMW Championship. (click here for complete list).

Paul Casey, Rory McIlroy and Steve Stricker (Nos. 7, 8 and 9, respectively) are in another group, as are Matt Kuchar, reigning FedExCup champion Jim Furyk and Ernie Els (Nos. 10, 11 and 12, respectively).

In another group that should generate excitement, two of the longest drivers on the PGA TOUR, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson, are paired with Ian Poulter

via tourreport.pgatour.com

Cool.

Luntz hawks new book to GOP senators - On Congress - POLITICO.com

GOP pollster Frank Luntz has a new book out - as virtually every Republican senator is now well aware.

At a closed-door lunch Wednesday, Luntz pitched to GOP senators autographed copies of his new book - prompting an awkward reaction from the lunching session of the Senate Steering Committee, according to three sources familiar with the hush-hush meeting.

“He lost part of his audience when he said the only senator who is consistently on message is Jon Kyl – who also happened to invite him," one GOP source said. "And he lost a lot more when he hawked autographed copies of his new book. The Luntz shtick grew old a long time ago.”

Luntz even offered to hold book events in the senators' home states, the sources said. The book - entitled, "Win: the Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary," is an "unprecedented examination of communication excellence and how top performers win in all areas of human endeavor by utilizing superb communication skills," according to Amazon.com.

Luntz did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment, but another source familiar with the exchange said Luntz was merely joking about his book and that he praised Kyl because of his years of service before his retirement next year.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Steering Committee, actually was the one who invited Luntz to the meeting, an aide to the senator said.

Luntz - who has gained national prominence with his best-selling books on political messaging -- has a number of detractors within the Senate GOP who view him as a relentless self-promoter. He miffed a number of Republicans when he appeared to take credit for the GOP's political messaging during the health care debate -- even though he urged a more conciliatory approach soon after President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

Still, he has some allies in the GOP among those who find his suggestions useful.

At the Wednesday meeting, Luntz reportedly urged the GOP to use Obama's words against him, prompting some eye-rolling because the tactic is used on a constant basis on Capitol Hill, according to two sources.

For now, it remains to be seen just how many senators end up buying his 320-page book, which retails for $14 on Amazon.

via politico.com

I am going to read it.