Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/261637986?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Lakers fire coach Mike Brown after 1-4 start
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The Los Angeles Lakers fired coach Mike Brown on Friday after a 1-4 start to his second season in charge.
Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak announced the surprising move several hours before they hosted Golden State. Assistant coach Bernie Bickerstaff will coach the Lakers against the Warriors while the club's top brass searches for Brown's replacement after just 18 months in charge.
"The bottom line is that the team is not winning at the pace we expected this team to win, and we didn't see improvement," Kupchak said at the Lakers' training complex in El Segundo.
Los Angeles began the season with championship expectations after trading for center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash, adding two superstars alongside Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. But the Lakers went 0-8 during the preseason last month for the first time in franchise history before stumbling into the regular season with an 0-3 start, losing to Dallas, Portland and the Clippers.
After finally beating Detroit last Sunday for their first win, the Lakers looked listless again in a loss at Utah on Wednesday, dropping to last place in the Western Conference. Los Angeles' defense has been largely poor, and the players still haven't figured out the new offense installed by Brown during training camp.
Combined with their aging core of talent and a massive payroll, Kupchak and owners Jim and Jerry Buss decided they couldn't wait another game to start winning. Brown was dismissed in a morning meeting.
"We're not looking five or 10 years down the road," Kupchak said. "This team was built to contend this year. There's no guarantee that this team can win a championship, but we feel that it can be deeply in the hunt. We're also aware that our players ... are getting older, so our feeling is that we can contend at this level for another couple of years."
Brown was hired in May 2011 to replace 11-time NBA champion Phil Jackson, signing a four-year deal worth roughly $18 million in May 2011. Kupchak said the eight-figure payout they'll have to make on Brown's contract wasn't a factor in their decision.
"It's a pretty direct message to all of us," Gasol said while leaving the Lakers' shootaround Friday morning in El Segundo. "There's no messing around. It's time for all of us to step it up."
In a brief news conference, Kupchak did nothing to squelch speculation that Jackson could return for a third tenure with the Lakers. The 67-year-old Jackson walked away from the club in 2011 with few apparent hard feelings, and his health has markedly improved during his time away from the NBA.
Kupchak said he hasn't reached out to any candidates for the job, but thinks it's likely the Lakers will hire an experienced coach who isn't currently working. Kupchak said he hasn't talked to Jackson, but Jim Buss' sister, Lakers executive Jeanie Buss, is Jackson's longtime girlfriend.
"When there's a coach like Phil Jackson, one of the all-time greats, and he's not coaching, I think you would be negligent not to know that he's out there," Kupchak said.
While Lakers fans had reacted with their usual panic whenever the 16-time NBA champions lose a few games in a row, Kupchak and Buss publicly appeared to stand firmly behind Brown, the longtime Cleveland Cavaliers coach. Brown had pleaded for patience with his integration of several new players into his lineup while everybody learned the new offense.
"I have great respect for the Buss family and the Lakers' storied tradition, and I thank them for the opportunity they afforded me," Brown said in a statement issued by the Lakers. "I have a deep appreciation for the coaches and players that I worked with this past year, and I wish the organization nothing but success as they move forward."
Brown's players all were fully behind him in public, with Bryant vocally suggesting critics of the Lakers' new offense should give them time to get it working. Bryant missed a significant portion of training camp while dealing with minor injuries, and Nash has a small fracture in his leg that has kept him out of the lineup since the Lakers' second game. Nash could be sidelined into December.
Yet the Lakers had given no indication they might pull one of the earliest coaching changes in NBA history until Kupchak gathered the players Friday morning to inform them of the decision.
"He told us the decision was made," Gasol said. "We didn't have a good start, and this is a team that was built to win. That's what we're all here to do."
Along with the usual urgency accompanying any Lakers season, Howard is under contract for just one more season before the six-time All-Star center can become a free agent. The Lakers' core players around Howard are all over 30, and the 38-year-old Nash barely made his debut before getting sidelined.
Los Angeles went 41-25 and reached the second round of the playoffs last season in Brown's debut, losing to Oklahoma City. Brown received criticism even for that largely successful season, with Magic Johnson predicting Brown would be fired if the Lakers lost to Denver in the first round.
Brown implemented a new offensive scheme this fall that didn't appear to suit his players' talents, yet the Lakers also played spotty defense, Brown's specialty. The Princeton-based offense received ridicule, but Bryant and his teammates largely defended the motion scheme, saying they needed time to implement it.
"I don't think we lost faith at any moment," Gasol said. "I think we all believed in what we were trying to do. We also understood it was going to take a little bit of time to do things the way they should have been done. As far as our game, it wasn't happening as fast as we all wanted it to."
Brown is a prot?g? of San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich. He led Cleveland to the 2007 NBA finals and went 272-138 with the Cavaliers, becoming the most successful coach in franchise history while compiling the league's best regular-season record in each of his last two seasons.
The 68-year-old Bickerstaff joined Brown's coaching staff in September. He was a head coach in Charlotte, Seattle, Denver and Washington, going 415-517.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lakers-fire-coach-mike-brown-1-4-start-194705220--spt.html
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Sunday, November 4, 2012
RBS Q3 earnings hit by insurance provision
LONDON (AP) ? Part-nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland posted a third-quarter loss as it boosted its provision for compensating customers who bought payment protection insurance and took a hefty charge related to its debt.
The company, 82 percent owned by British taxpayers, set aside another 400 million pounds ($644 million) Friday to compensate customers who were mis-sold insurance, raising the total provision to 1.7 billion pounds.
An accounting charge of 1.5 billion pounds on the value of the bank's own debt knocked the bottom line too, while a year ago the result was flattered by an even larger gain on the value of own debt. The charge is an estimate of the gain or loss the bank would realize if it bought back its debt.
As a result, RBS reported a loss of 1.4 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) for the July-September quarter, compared to a profit of 1.2 billion pounds a year earlier.
Accounting rules though obscured the underlying trend. Group operating profit of 1.05 billion pounds was up from 2 million pounds a year ago, and income rose 6 percent to 6.4 billion.
"Underlying performance has already improved enough to be generally comparable to peers," said Chief Executive Stephen Hester.
RBS shares opened 2.1 percent higher at 293.2 pence in London.
"There is no doubting the immensity of the task RBS has faced in executing its turnaround plan, nor indeed the progress made so far," said Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown.
The bank though which was at the heart of Britain's banking crisis of 2008 and eventually bailed out, still has a way to go.
Hester said the bank is in the later stages of a five-year restructuring plan but that there is more to do, "including an emphasis on dealing with reputational issues now that the Bank's safety and soundness has advanced so well."
Investec analyst Ian Gordon said he foresaw trouble ahead for RBS, including its possible involvement in the LIBOR-fixing scandal and the sale of interest rate swaps to borrowers.
During the quarter, RBS completed the flotation of 35 percent of its Direct Line insurance unit. The European Commission has ordered RBS to dispose of its entire interest in Direct Line by the end of 2014 as a condition for taking bailout money.
RBS is still looking for a buyer for 316 branches, another EU condition, after Santander backed out of a deal last month.
The payment insurance scandal has hit other big British banks. Part-nationalized Lloyds Banking Group raised its total provision by 1 billion pounds to 5.3 billion pounds on Thursday, and Barclays earlier boosted its provision by 700 million pounds to 2 billion pounds.
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Saturday, November 3, 2012
Panforte, a Nougat - like Cake Dessert, have a Sweet Weekend! at ...
Panforte?is a nougat - like cake, rich in nuts and fruit. It is a speciality of Siena in Italy. Visit this beautiful country and you?ll find hundreds of variations of this Christmas-feeling sweet treat.
My favorite after dinner ritual is one that my family and I gathered together around fireplace with this very special dessert, coffee and brandy. Have a safe, warm and very sweet weekend!
Note: if you can't find rice paper, use aluminum fool brushed lightly with oil.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (250 g, 8 oz) walnuts or hazelnuts
- 2 cups (250 g, 8 oz) blanched whole almonds
- 1 cup (125 g, 4 oz) dried apricots, diced
- 1 1/2 cups (250 g, 8 oz) dried figs, diced
- 1 cup (125 g, 4 oz) glade (candied) pears or apples, chopped
- 3/4 cup (125 g, 4 oz) raisins
- 3/4 cup (125 g, 4 oz) diced candied orange peel
- 2 cups plain, all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 3/4 cup (300 ml, 10 fl oz) honey
- 1 1/2 cups (300 ml, 10 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
- 6 Tbsp. (3 oz) butter
- rice paper
Directions:
Roast the nuts in a moderate oven ?350F (180C) until golden. Allow to cool, then (if you using hazelnuts) rub the skins off the hazelnuts and put into a bowl with chopped fruits, flour and spices. Combine well.
Put the honey, butter and sugar into saucepan and bring to the boil until it reaches the soft ball stage?
240F (116C). To determine soft ball stage - drop a small quantity of the honey mixture into a glass of iced water. If it forms a ball which flattens but does not disintegrate between your fingers, it has reached soft ball stage.Pour the honey mixture over the fruits and nuts and stir well to combine. It will be very sticky and you may need to use your hands.
Heat the oven to 300F (150C). Line 12 x 9 1/2 x 1 inch baking tray with rice paper and press the mixture into tray. Flatten the top. If you dip your hand in milk, this will help. Put another layer of rice paper over the top, pressing down well, and place in the oven. Cook for 45 minutes. Turn out to cool and cut into squares or large rectangles. Store in airtight containers it in a cool, dry place for up to 3 weeks.
Source: http://www.melangery.com/2012/11/panforte-nougat-like-cake-dessert-have.html
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How Amazon Exploits Small Online Retailers
Small business owner Teri Noboa sold with Amazon for a short time in order to bring exposure to her shop, Childhood Way Boutique, a clothing store for kids with holiday fashions and gifts for baby showers. But that decision came with an unexpected price tag.
Two years after moving her shop to its own website, an empty Amazon storefront still cuts into her sales. Since Amazon has better search engine optimization (SEO) than the tiny Childhood Way Boutique, Noboa has some hefty competition ? with her own products.
Noboa, who has spoken out against Amazon on her blog, explains the problem?
Childhood Way Boutique sells a baby product called the Fabien Red Snake Diaper Bag. If you?re looking to buy this bag, you might Google ?Fabien Red Snake Diaper Bag.? Since Amazon has better SEO, its version of her bag shows up as the first result. While the Amazon version of the bag lists Childhood Way Boutique as the seller, that?s not actually true. If you buy the bag there, it comes from one of Noboa?s competitors, losing her another sale.
?Our store has been closed with them for two years now and if you google the name of my boutique Amazon links appear,? she said. ?We have sold on Sears, eBay, and others, and if we ask them to close the merchant account, the links disappear from Google. So why not Amazon??
She has a compelling theory: ?They use your name to lure people into buying from them.?
For more than a decade, Amazon has carved out a niche for itself as the online shopping network for every niche: The arrow in the logo is supposed to imply that you can buy anything at Amazon from A to Z. Since making everything available would be an impossible task even for the retail giant, Amazon has a Pro Merchant program for small businesses.
In return for padding the enormous marketplace with even more wares, sellers get to ride the coattails of Amazon?s SEO. While the relationship seems symbiotic, the trouble occurs when sellers attempt to leave Amazon. When that happens, for whatever reason, Pro Merchants? empty storefronts remain open.
So while their products are no longer available, they continue to be searchable. Amazon lists such items as ?currently unavailable,? as if they could be back in stock any minute.
A search on Amazon for ?We don?t know when or if this item will be back in stock.? shows hundreds of thousands of products.
This is what happened to Richard Sexton, president and founder of online furniture store Carolina Rustica. Sexton told Internet Retailer he stopped selling on Amazon because he couldn?t control the way his products appeared on the site.
Now, however, Sexton has to compete with the ghost of his own Amazon storefront. Due to the online retailer?s SEO dominance, a Google search for any Carolina Rustica product, like this Iron Artistica Scroll Rack, leads with Amazon as the first two results.
Shoppers who click on one of the first two links likely assume the rack isn?t in stock at Carolina Rustica ? inspiring potential patrons to potentially browse or purchase a product from one of Sexton?s competitors on Amazon.
Noboa and Sexton aren?t the only small business owners struggling with this issue.
Dani, a jewelry seller who runs 47stcloseouts.com and asked that we not use his last name, stopped selling on Amazon about two years ago due to ?disputes about product shipping.? Not only is his empty storefront still active, but all of his products, like this blue diamond ring, still appear in Amazon?s search, despite being listed as ?unavailable.?
The painful irony, of course, is that the ring is readily available ? just not from Amazon. Yet, Amazon?s ?unavailable? listing is the first result in a Google search for the product (Dani is number three), leading potential customers to believe its out of stock and to take their business elsewhere. Dani said he was shocked to learn Amazon had never taken it down.
?I?ve heard about many others, not just jewelers, where Amazon bans them from selling on the site and still keeps their products up as ?not available,?? he told the Daily Dot. ?They?re getting customers with our products, not linking to the available products on our sites, and then selling them Amazon products.?
According to one former seller, Amazon may be physically unable to remove pulled items. A seller who spoke to the Daily Dot anonymously told us that her former presence on Amazon hurt her current business significantly. She shared emails with us between herself and Amazon customer support, one in which an employee agreed to remove her images and another in which a second employee said Amazon?s Content Management System wasn?t able to do so.
?I had almost a thousand products on Amazon,? she said.
?They?re still there, images and all. It?s right there in black and white. Amazon will not remove the products. They have no code for it? You don?t need code to remove anything. You simply delete. What happened when the pedophile on Amazon was selling his how-to book? Amazon removed it fast.?
Amazon did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Jeremy Bencken, an SEO expert, told us that former Amazon sellers do have tools at their disposal ? if they were smart enough not to forfeit copyright on their images and descriptions. Even if Amazon will not take the pages down from their CMS, affected sellers could make a case to Google to remove the items from searches.
?[W]ithout that content, all you have are pages with keywords and no content,? he said. ?At that point, you might be able to report the pages to Google as being misleading since the product isn?t actually available and there?s no content.?
What Bencken didn?t know, however, is that Amazon sellers forfeit that copyright as soon as they sign up. According to Amazon?s Participation Agreement ? a binding, 15,000-word contract ? sellers give Amazon the ability to exploit their images and descriptions in any manner the company likes:
?You grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display, distribute, adapt, modify, re-format, create derivative works of, and otherwise commercially or non-commercially exploit in any manner, any and all of Your Materials, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to our affiliates and operators of Amazon Associated Properties.?
The agreement does add, however, that Amazon will ?will comply with your removal requests as to specific uses of Your Trademarks,? though not with removal requests that do not include a trademark, like product shots that don?t have watermarks.
You could argue sellers ought to read Amazon?s agreement more clearly, but that?s just adding insult to injury. Even when sellers like Dani and Noboa show up just a few spaces below Amazon in a Google search, they face harsh consequences. Bencken explains:
?There have been several studies that try to quantify the difference between a #3 and #2 ranking,? Benchken explained. ?If Amazon ranks #1 for my name, and I rank #2, then Amazon is getting 3X more traffic than more. Of course, this might not be true for branded searches, but as a broad average, it?s a good guide.?
Bencken recommends sellers combat Amazon?s search engine optimization by doing some optimization of their own. He suggests that sellers link back and forth with other sellers online to strengthen their reputations, shorten their URLs, and most importantly, register their own domains.
?I?d pretty much guarantee that if Childhood Way made the following changes, they would outrank Amazon,? Bencken said.
Amazon may have the advantage, but it won?t be impossible for sellers like Noboa to return to their pre-Amazon sales counts. The question that remains, though, is why they should have to work so hard to get back to that point at all.
Source: http://mashable.com/2012/11/02/amazon-exploits-small-retailers/
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Air Force Academy ritual turns into 'brawl'
By NBC News staff and wire services
DENVER?-- Nearly 30 Air Force Academy cadets required medical care, with six of them hospitalized, after an annual tradition to mark the first snowfall of the season turned into an out-of-control melee, officials said Wednesday.
An unauthorized ritual last week called "First Shirt/First Snow," in which freshman cadets try to throw their cadet sergeant into a snowbank, grew violent and resulted in injuries, the academy said in a statement.
"A relatively small number of cadets chose to take part in this unsafe activity," Brig. Gen. Gregory Lengyel said in the statement. "This incident was unacceptable."
The six cadets who required hospitalization after last Thursday's incident have all been released, and the 21 others were treated for "bruises and/or lacerations" at the academy's cadet clinic, the school said.
Lengyel, who serves as the commandant of cadets, said school officials are investigating the incident. "Our Air Force expects better. I expect better, and I'm confident the cadets will learn and grow from this."
An internal email about the incident obtained by the Air Force Times newspaper, reportedly written by Brig. Gen. Dana Born to school administrators, said the annual ritual "has turned into a brawl" between freshmen and upperclassmen.
"This ritual has devolved to become increasingly violent, with significant numbers of cadets requiring medical care over the past two years," The Times cited the email as saying, adding that the latest injuries included concussions, an arm bite and cuts that required stitches.
More news from Colorado on NBC affiliate 9News.com in Denver
?Obviously, this has gotten out of hand and cannot be repeated,? Born wrote. ?There is no way we can condone or defend this.?
The Times said the internal memo indicated Lengyel might allow the tradition to continue if cadets can show it can be conducted with "good order and discipline and proper risk management."
Located in Colorado Springs, 60 miles south of Denver, the academy has an enrollment of about 4,100 cadets, and graduates are commissioned second lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force.
The reported incident is a fresh blow to the reputation of the Air Force, which has dealt with a number of scandals in recent years.
More coverage?of the US military on NBCNews.com
In 2003, the academy was accused of failing to investigate numerous incidents of sexual assaults on the campus.
In 2005, an Air Force panel concluded that officers and faculty members periodically used their positions to promote their Christian faith and failed to accommodate the religious needs of non-Christian cadets.
The academy has also been hit with several cheating and drug-use incidents in recent years, according to the Colorado Springs Independent.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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iPad Mini Opening Weekend Sales Estimate - Business Insider
Screenshot ? |
Apple sold 3 million third-generation iPads during its opening weekend earlier this year.
Munster is comparatively small sales for the iPad mini because it will only be available as a wifi model. Also, it's a new size iPad, which consumers might not be ready for just yet.
And now, a word of caution.
When the iPhone 5 went on sale, Munster called for 6 million phones sold over opening weekend at the very least. Apple only sold 5 million. He predicted 1 million third generation iPads sold, Apple sold 3 million. He called for 600-700,000 first generation iPads sold opening weekend, Apple did 300,000.
Munster's forecasts have not been on point all the time. But, he's setting expectations for what investors should look for from Apple, so it's good to be aware of the number.
Here's the explanation from his note:
We believe Apple could sell 1-1.5 million iPad Minis this weekend, which compares with 3 million 3rd Gen iPads sold in its launch weekend in March. Our estimate includes pre-ordered devices. We note that the iPad Mini will launch in 34 countries compared to 10 for the 3rd Gen iPad, but the 3rd Gen iPad launch included LTE versions of the device, while the Mini launch will not. The reason we expect fewer iPad Minis compared to the 3rd Gen is because of the lack of the wireless option and newness of the smaller form factor for consumers, with smaller sized tablets accounting for about 20-25% of overall market units. We believe that over time that will change, and consumers will gradually realize the benefits of the smaller form factor iPad, which will drive adoption, although it may not take form in lines for tomorrow's launch.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-mini-opening-weekend-sales-estimate-2012-11
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Former Tumblr President John Maloney Joins Storenvy Board
After a brief hiatus from any official tech role, former Tumblr president John Maloney will be joining the board of custom store platform Storenvy this week. A combination of a custom storefront builder and an eCommerce discovery platform like Wanelo or TheFancy, Storenvy allows sellers to build their own custom marketplaces and scale those marketplaces as part of the Storenvy network, like this?and this.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/PHmhoRHqW30/
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Friday, November 2, 2012
'Oz: The Great And Powerful' Reveals Wicked New Art
Some new art from "Oz: The Great and Powerful" debuted online today, giving us our first full look at the Wicked Witch of the West. Also, "Stay away from my mommy, you bitch" in today's Dailies! » A round-up of primetime TV's funniest Halloween costumes. [Parade] » A promo poster for Joss Whedon's "Much Ado [...]
Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/10/31/oz-the-great-and-powerful-wicked/
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{Review} Magic Mike Blu-Ray Combo Pack --- More fun then in the ...
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Thursday, November 1, 2012
U.S. seeks patriotic computer geeks for help in cyber crisis
BOSTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security is considering setting up a "Cyber Reserve" of computer security experts who could be called upon in the event of a crippling cyber attack.
The idea came from a task force the agency set up to address what has long been a weak spot - recruiting and retaining skilled cyber professionals who feel they can get better jobs and earn higher salaries, in the private sector.
"The status quo is not acceptable," DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute told Reuters in a recent interview. "We are not standing around. There is a lot to do in cyber security."
Lute said she hopes to have a working model for a Cyber Reserve within a year, with the first members drawn from retired government employees now working for private companies. The reserve corps might later look to experts outside of government.
The United States has become increasingly vocal about the need to beef up cyber defenses as Iranian hackers have repeatedly attacked the nation's three biggest banks over the past year, raising the stakes in a long-running battle to protect private companies from digital attacks.
The detonation of a cyber "time bomb" at Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company in August caused unprecedented damage at a private company, pulling 30,000 PCs out of service and raising concerns that similar attacks could occur in the United States.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on October 11 that the country faces a potential "cyber Pearl Harbor" and that foreign groups have gained access to computer systems that control critical U.S. infrastructure, such as chemical, electricity and water plants.
The Department of Homeland Security has had trouble attracting and retaining top cyber talent since it was created after 9/11 in a massive merger of 22 agencies in 2002. In its early days, the DHS farmed out cyber work to contractors so it could quickly get systems running to improve national security.
As a result, the agency tends to award the most coveted cyber jobs to outside contractors. Those positions include forensics investigators, posts on "flyaway teams" that probe suspected cyber attacks and intelligence liaisons.
"It's not the money that makes people go to the contractors. It's the cool jobs," said Alan Paller, co-chair of the DHS task force. "People want the excitement."
The task force advised the DHS to give more exciting cyber work to government workers to help with retention.
NSA VS DHS
Over the past decade, only 3 percent of students who won scholarships through a prestigious government-funded program known as CyberCorps have taken jobs with DHS. In contrast, nearly a third chose the National Security Agency, according to the task force.
Tony Sager, a task force member and former NSA senior official, said the military intelligence agency has a strong "brand" that opens doors for recruiters.
"DHS doesn't have that sense of 'Wow,'" he said. "There are plenty of cool jobs at DHS. The job is identifying them."
The NSA has spent decades building cachet with university students through on-campus programs and, more recently, with children through cartoon puzzles on the Web. Once people join the NSA, they typically stay for a long time, said Sager, who retired this year after 34 years at the agency.
The DHS task force recommended it set up two-year cyber programs at community colleges to train large numbers of people and encourage military veterans to participate. Lute said the first of those programs could start next year.
Jeff Moss, who co-chairs the task force, said the community college programs would produce more graduates than needed, but the question is how many of them would want to work for DHS.
"Hopefully we'll get our fair share," said Moss, who founded the Def Con hacking convention 20 years ago during a summer break before he started law school.
The DHS may need to boost salaries as well. One former agency official who left government for a job with a private company said that some staff quit DHS jobs, then were immediately returned as employees for outside contractors.
"On Friday they are a government employee working making $80,000 a year. On Monday they are a contractor at the same desk and the government is paying them roughly $150,000," he said.
(Reporting By Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-seeks-patriotic-computer-geeks-help-cyber-crisis-165536164.html
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