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15-03-2012 13:15 Are you in? my.barackobama.com Remember how far we've come. From Academy Award®-winning director Davis Guggenheim: "The Road We've Traveled". This film gives an inside look at some of the tough calls President Obama made to get our country back on track. Featuring interviews from President Bill Clinton, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Austan Goolsbee, and more. It's a film everyone should see.

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The Road We've Traveled - Video

The bids are now in, but whoever wants a piece of what is almost certainly a juicy contract is keeping quiet--and for good reason.

It's the bid that dares not (publicly) speak its name.

Friday was the deadline for companies to file their applications to win a piece of a Pakistani project that has stoked controversy stretching from to South Asia to Silicon Valley.

In late February, Pakistan's National ICT R&D Fund, which represents the government, began inviting bids to help create a "national-level URL filtering and blocking system." The system was described as a way to protect the public from "undesirable content."

But critics dismiss that claim as a smokescreen for the government to tighten its control over the Internet and choke off dissent. What's really going on, they say, is a Pakistani attempt to duplicate China's sophisticated content-filtering Internet--often referred to as the "Great Firewall."

"This is essentially about government agencies wanting more and more control over public spheres," said Sana Saleem, a Pakistani journalist and blogger who also runs a Karachi-based Internet free speech organization called Bolo Bhi.

The construction of the envisioned system would empower the authorities with a switch they could use to "turn off anything and everything that they deem 'objectionable'--especially in the absence of a legislation or proper definition of the term 'objectionable' or even 'national security," according to Saleem. She said that the project's opponents have heard that Pakistan's National University of Science and Technology may be involved in building and maintaining the system. "Interesting to note that it is a military run institution & beyond ironic that it teaches science and technology," she said.

In the run-up to Friday's deadline, activists published the names of some of the companies believed to be competing for the bid. However, it's difficult to verify the list's accuracy. For instance, it was reported that Cisco had dropped out of the running. But the company maintains that wasn't true. "We don't have the products they're looking for so we didn't bid," a spokesman said. Another company, Blue Coat Systems, whose Internet blocking gear has turned up in Syria also denied its participation or interest in bidding. "Blue Coat did not bid on this opportunity," according to a representative.

So who is emailing in their bids?

"Good luck trying to find out," said an executive at a technology company which sells products to many developing nations including Pakistan. "Nobody here is going to talk about that--nobody. Forget even getting something on background. And don't you dare use our company name."

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Pakistan's Internet filter has the Valley buzzing over who's bidding

BOSTON (AP) In the summer of 1996, Mitt Romney received a frantic report from one of his fellow executives at Bain Capital.

Robert Gay's 14-year-old daughter, Melissa, had gone missing after taking a train into New York City, Gay told Romney. Gay said he and his wife, Lynette, had contacted the police and were desperately trying to track down Melissa.

She might have become lost in an underworld rave party scene after attending a party on Randall's Island on the city's East River. Rave parties were typically all-night affairs punctuated by the use of the drug Ecstasy, which can induce euphoria or hallucinations. The Gays feared their daughter might be unable to contact home.

Romney stepped in and committed Bain's resources to help with the search.

"I said let's close the firm, let's close the company we were in Boston and let's all of us fly down to New York and try to find her," Romney recalled recently when ask about the incident at a rally in Ohio this month. "So we closed the business, we went home and packed our things."

The search ultimately led to a home in New Jersey where Melissa was found safe. Soon she was back with her family.

As Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate, explained it, his decision at Bain was what anyone would have done.

His recounting at the campaign event was one of the few times has spoken publicly about the matter.

But his political campaigns and allies have not hesitated to highlight the story at critical times as he has looked to sell himself to voters as a can-do leader and manager who takes charge in a crisis and gets results.

In this, his second presidential race, Romney's campaign has been built around the notion that the nation needs a president with deep experience in the private and public sectors. He has highlighted both his work as a businessman and his efforts turning around the financially troubled Salt Lake City Olympics. He has focused less on his four-year term as Massachusetts governor.

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In 1996, Romney led NYC search for runaway teen

Commander Shepard wakes with a start. You okay? asks his lover, stirring next to him. Got a lot on my mind, he answers gruffly. His lover responds with comforting words, gently laying a hand against his back.

As a scene from an epic role-playing video game, it seems surprisingly tender. Even more surprising, though, is the fact that the commanders companion is a naked black man with a body-builders physique.

The romance between the rugged starship commander and his comrade Cortez is only one of many relationship options available to players of the much anticipated Mass Effect 3, launched last week by Edmonton-based BioWare. But its the one that has sparked a flame war on gamer sites all over the world.

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka told mega gaming blog Kotaku last fall that the games gay element was in response to compelling feedback from fans requesting more choice in romantic scenarios. While critics have delivered glowing reviews, commenters on the popular review aggregator Metacritic are complaining about the games homosexual content.

What were they thinking? Putting gay scenes into video games? wrote one Metacritic user. The homosexual views of this game are very offensive to my Christian beliefs. I think Bioware should be much more aware of how many of their fans are Christians, wrote another.

Kevin VanOrd, a gay man who writes for one of the Webs top video game sites, Gamespot, said he received homophobic responses from readers after posting his positive review of Mass Effect 3.

BioWare has hardly burdened the unwitting masses with explicit gay subject matter, he notes in a blog on the Huffington Post, theyve simply allowed me to see my in-game character as I see myself.

BioWare regularly delivers some of the most compelling action available in modern role-playing games, but its the Canadian studios penchant for creating rich, multi-dimensional characters that consistently brings their games into the spotlight.

Thats never been truer than in the companys sci-fi-themed Mass Effect series, which allows players to create complex avatars and to build nuanced relationships romantic and sexual with other characters. Commander Shepard can also be played as a woman, with players able to guide her into a romantic relationship with either male or female characters.

The franchise also examines racism, in the form of extraterrestrial discrimination. The theme of ethics in scientific experimentation when do the ends justify the means? runs through the series. It even reflects tensions in the Middle East through a homeland war that has rendered an entire species nomadic.

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Video game's gay characters spark flame war

15-03-2012 10:15 (www.abndigital.com) Jeremy Mansfield and his expert guest take a closer look at cutting financial costs. Joining Jeremy in studio is Joe Cimino, Corporate Solutions Director at Financial Fitness Training, and Jim Millar, MD of Financial Fitness Training.

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Cutting Financial Costs - Part 2 - Video