Unlocking Your Phone Is Illegal Starting Tomorrow

You may remember that last year, the DMCA exemption on unlocking phones was smacked down. Well it's going into effect this Saturday. So starting tomorrow, unlocking your phone will be officially illegal. Yay. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/2gOjD070G5g/unlocking-your-phone-is-illegal-starting-tomorrow

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N. Korea's propaganda poets stay true to their muse

KCNA via Reuters, file

A banner reading "Accomplish task suggested by Workers Party Central Committee and Central Army Committee" appears at a rally commemorating the 65th anniversary of North Korean Workers Party in Pyongyang on Feb. 13, 2010.

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

North Korea?s leaders are ?peerlessly great? and capable of ?immortal feats,? Americans are ?imperialists? who use ?brigandish logic? and critics are just ?rats? scurrying about in a ditch.

And not to forget the gushing ode to the ?threadbare and discolored? parka worn by the late ?dear leader? Kim Jong Il or the discovery of a unicorn lair.

Official pronouncements from North Korea?s state-controlled media have always had a certain poetic quality -- although the poet in question would appear to be extremely angry, somewhat paranoid and possessed by an overly active imagination.

And more than a year after Kim Jong Un, son of Kim Jong Il, came to power, it is clear that the planet's only hereditary communist state is still pleased with its flowery rhetoric, despite mocking laughter from the rest of the world.

After all, foreign journalists who dare to criticize can be easily dismissed as ?a sordid hackwork of rubbish media,? according to one release Wednesday from the KCNA news agency.

Kcna / AFP - Getty Images

A pictorial look at the North Korean leader through the years

And not to worry. ?The sun will always give off its light even though rats make nonsensical remarks moving around ditch, while finding it hard to raise their heads to the bright human world.? So there.

On Thursday, KCNA's latest statement hailed its recent satellite launch as a demonstration of its ?space science and technology and its overall national power.? This ?stark fact? was ?favored by the world.?

No matter that the United Nations Security Council had agreed to a resolution to sanction North Korea over the launch, which is feared was actually a test of long-range missile technology.

This claim was simply the ?brigandish logic? of the U.S. and the Security Council was nothing more than ?a marionette.?

But, again, there is really no need for North Koreans to worry, given their country is ?a political, ideological and military giant? run by ?peerlessly great persons of [the sacred] Mt. Paektu.?

However, occasionally there are hints that not everyone is quite so on-message.

At a meeting of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League and Central Committee of the General Federation of Trade unions of Korea Wednesday, KCNA said that ?reporters and speakers? had ?underscored the need to dynamically conduct ideological education to firmly defend and glorify the sacred revolutionary careers and immortal feats? of said peerlessly great leaders.

Elizabeth Dalziel / AP

From work to play, see pictures from inside the secretive country.

Among Kim Jong Il?s accomplishments were: Shooting 11 holes-in-one during the first round of golf he ever played, writing operas, producing movies, and flying jet fighters.

His death, of course, was due to ?physical and mental over-work? on behalf of the nation.

Another reason why he was so great was that he wore an old jacket, which was the subject of a radio essay last month called the ?Parka of Kim Jong Il during his field guidance? on North Korean broadcasting service, Voice of Korea.

"His parka was that of a great father, with which he kept all the people on this land from snow, rain and cold,? the Voice of Korea report said.

Kim ? a "peerless sage of mankind, possessed with warm humanity, broad magnanimity and noble sense of moral obligation? ? had apparently worn the parka as a reminder of his country?s grim history after the death of his father Kim Il Sung.

'Outlandish superlatives'
Seoul-based North Korea expert Daniel Pinkston, North East Asia deputy project director for the International Crisis Group, said stories about unbelievable golfing prowess and the like were not really meant to be taken literally.

?The whole point is not that people necessarily believe it,? he said, noting there was also a degree of mythologizing about revered figures from the past in the West.

And Pinkston said what often sounds ?comical? or ?bizarre? in English ?doesn?t come off as the kind of stilted, strange language? in Korean.

But he said North Korea perhaps suffered from its isolation and the lack of feedback on its writing style.

?They do have a tendency to use outlandish superlatives? to emphasize a point, he added.

The main message, however, of many of the statements is seldom lost in translation, Pinkston said.

?It?s just very harsh and militant,? he said.

Related:

North Korea: Rocket launches, nuclear tests will 'target' US

Cigars, cognac and mass starvation: 10 facts that divide North Korea from world

ANALYSIS: 'Spoiled child' North Korea snubs key ally China with rocket test

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/24/16676455-north-koreas-poets-of-propaganda-stay-true-to-their-muse-despite-worlds-laughter?lite

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Sickening fog settles over Salt Lake City area

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ? Michelle Francis keeps one eye on Utah's air quality index and the other on her 9-year-old daughter's chronic asthma these days. The air pollution is so awful in her Salt Lake City suburb that Francis keeps her daughter indoors on many days to prevent her cough from being aggravated.

"When you add all the gunk in the air, it's too much," Francis said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has singled out the greater Salt Lake region as having the nation's worst air for much of January, when an icy fog smothers mountain valleys for days or weeks at a time and traps lung-busting soot.

The pollution has turned so bad that more than 100 Utah doctors called Wednesday on authorities to immediately lower highway speed limits, curb industrial activity and make mass transit free for the rest of winter. Doctors say the microscopic soot ? a shower of combustion particles from tailpipe and other emissions ? can tax the lungs of even healthy people.

"We're in a public-health emergency for much of the winter," said Brian Moench, a 62-year-old anesthesiologist and president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, which delivered the petition demanding action at the Utah Capitol.

The greater Salt Lake region had up to 130 micrograms of soot per cubic meter on Wednesday, or more than three times the federal clean-air limit, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That's equivalent to a bad day in the Los Angeles area.

For 2 million Utah residents, there is no escape except to the snow-capped mountains that gleam in the sunshine thousands of feet higher, or to resort towns like Park City, where the Sundance Film Festival is under way.

"I wish there was something we could do about it," Francis, a school teacher 10 miles north of Salt Lake City, said.

Authorities have prohibited wood burning and urged people to limit driving. Vehicle emissions account for more than half of the trapped pollutants.

Utah regulators are working on a set of plans to limit everyday emissions, including a measure to ban the sale of aerosol deodorants and hair spray that contain hydrocarbon propellants. Those plans, however, will take years to show results.

Doctors say people ? especially pregnant women and children ? should stay indoors, or at least avoid active outdoor exercise under the sickening yellowish haze. Elderly people with heart disease are most at risk, Moench said.

"If you can see it, you don't want to breathe it. Think about what's going into your body," Salt Lake City pediatrician Ellie Brownstein said. "It's essentially like smoking. Instead of breathing clean air, you're breathing particles that make it harder for your lungs to function and get oxygen."

Snow cover amplifies the phenomena called a temperature inversion ? Salt Lake City was a foggy freezer box Wednesday at 18 degrees, while Park City basked in sunny 43-degree weather. The warmer air aloft acted like a lid on the frigid valley air, leaving it with no place to go.

For weeks, industrialized cities in northern China have been dealing with bouts of sickening smog several times more toxic than Utah's. But by U.S. standards, Utah's pollution index is off the charts with readings routinely exceeding a scale that tops out at 70 micrograms a cubic meter. The EPA sets a standard for clean air at no more than 35 micrograms.

"People think the health implications are limited to asthma ? that's only a drop in the bucket," Moench said. "For every pregnant woman breathing this stuff, this is a threat to her fetus through chromosome damage. It sets people up for a lifelong propensity for all sorts of diseases."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sickening-fog-settles-over-salt-lake-city-area-175101232.html

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Right target, but missing the bulls-eye for Alzheimer's

Jan. 23, 2013 ? Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of late-life dementia. The disorder is thought to be caused by a protein known as the amyloid-beta protein, or Abeta, which clumps together in the brain, forming plaques that are thought to destroy neurons. This destruction starts early, too, and can presage clinical signs of the disease by up to 20 years.

For decades now, researchers have been trying, with limited success, to develop drugs that prevent this clumping. Such drugs require a "target" -- a structure they can bind to, thereby preventing the toxic actions of Abeta.

Now, a new study out of UCLA suggests that while researchers may have the right target in Abeta, they may be missing the bull's-eye. Reporting in the Jan. 23 issue of the Journal of Molecular Biology, UCLA neurology professor David Teplow and colleagues focused on a particular segment of a toxic form of Abeta and discovered a unique hairpin-like structure that facilitates clumping.

"Every 68 seconds, someone in this country is diagnosed with Alzheimer's," said Teplow, the study's senior author and principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UCLA. "Alzheimer's disease is the only one of the top 10 causes of death in America that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed down once it begins. Most of the drugs that have been developed have either failed or only provide modest improvement of the symptoms. So finding a better pathway for these potential therapeutics is critical."

The Abeta protein is composed of a sequence of amino acids, much like "a pearl necklace composed of 20 different combinations of different colors of pearl," Teplow said. One form of Abeta, Abeta40, has 40 amino acids, while a second form, Abeta42, has two extra amino acids at one end. Abeta42 has long been thought to be the toxic form of Abeta, but until now, no one has understood how the simple addition of two amino acids made it so much more toxic then Abeta40.

In his lab, Teplow and his colleagues used computer simulations in which they looked at the structure of the Abeta proteins in a virtual world. The researchers first created a virtual Abeta peptide that only contained the last 12 amino acids of the entire 42-amino-acid-long Abeta42 protein. Then, said Teplow, "we just let the molecule move around in a virtual world, letting the laws of physics determine how each atom of the peptide was attracted to or repulsed by other atoms."

By taking thousands of snapshots of the various molecular structures the peptides created, the researchers determined which structures formed more frequently than others. From those, they then physically created mutant Abeta peptides using chemical synthesis.

"We studied these mutant peptides and found that the structure that made Abeta42 Abeta42 was a hairpin-like turn at the very end of the peptide of the whole Abeta protein," Teplow said.

The hairpin turn structure was not previously known in the detail revealed by the researchers, "so we feel our experiments were novel," he said. "Our lab is the first to show that it is this specific turn that accounts for the special ability of Abeta42 to aggregate into clumps that we think kills neurons. Abeta40, the Abeta protein with two less amino acids at the end of the protein, did not do the same thing."

Hopefully, the work of the Teplow laboratory presents what may the most relevant target yet for the development of drugs to fight Alzheimer's disease, the researchers said.

Other authors on the study included Robin Roychaudhuri, Mingfeng Yang, Atul Deshpande, Gregory M. Cole and Sally Frautschy, all of UCLA, and Aleksey Lomakin and George B. Benedek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Funding for the study was provided by grants from the State of California Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund, a UCLA Faculty Research Grant, the National Institutes of Health (AG027818, NS038328) and the James Easton Consortium for Alzheimer's Drug Discovery and Biomarkers.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Robin Roychaudhuri, Mingfeng Yang, Atul Deshpande, Gregory M. Cole, Sally Frautschy, Aleksey Lomakin, George B. Benedek, David B. Teplow. C-Terminal Turn Stability Determines Assembly Differences between A?40 and A?42. Journal of Molecular Biology, 2013; 425 (2): 292 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2012.11.006

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/xGA4EgL4b6k/130123221409.htm

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Ikea to double its spending on renewable energy to $4 billion

Ikea Group, the world's biggest furniture retailer, will double its investment in renewable energy to $4 billion by 2020 as part of a drive to reduce costs as cash-strapped consumers become more price sensitive.

The additional spending on projects such as wind farms and solar parks will be needed to keep expenses down as the company maintains its pace of expansion, Chief Executive Mikael Ohlsson said in an interview in Malmo, Sweden.

"I foresee we'll continue to increase our investments in renewable energy," said Ohlsson, who plans to step down this year after 3 1/2 years at the helm. "Looking at how quickly we're expanding and our value chain, we will most likely have to double the investments once more after 2015."

Companies such as sportswear maker Puma and drinks producer PepsiCo Inc. are expanding efforts to cut their use of scarce resources as they jostle for customers. Prices for wind turbines sank 23% in the three years that ended in June, while solar panels have tumbled by more than half in two years, making projects cost-effective, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Ikea plans to get 100% of the energy consumed at its stores and by subcontractors from renewable sources by 2020. The Swedish company owns 250,000 solar panels, mainly in the U.S., and invested in 126 wind turbines in northern Europe to cover 34% of its energy consumption.

Ohlsson said the retailer will have opportunities for "strong growth" in Europe for "many years to come" because many customers still do not have an Ikea store near them.

Sales in 2012 rose 9.5% to 27.6 billion euros ($36.7 billion), the company said in a release, while net income increased 8% to 3.2 billion euros.

Ikea gained market share across all markets, with the biggest increases being in southern Europe, where the economic crisis made customers more conscious of value, Ohlsson said.

Sales at the retailer have risen 38% since 2007, the last fiscal year before the financial crisis, as Ikea expanded in markets such as Britain and Spain, where it's opening new warehouses in Barcelona, Valencia and outside Madrid.

"We have seen very strong developments in the last few years in the U.S., in China, in Russia, in Germany, Poland and Finland," Ohlsson said. "Obviously, development has been slower in southern Europe, even though we've performed the best in countries where the economy is at its worst."

Ikea plans to increase same-store sales by 5% a year, while generating similar growth from new warehouses by doubling the rate of expansion after 2015.

In October, Ikea said it planned to more than double spending on wind farms and solar parks to as much as $2 billion to have the company cover more than 70% of its energy consumption by renewable sources in 2015 and protect it from volatile fossil-fuel prices.

The retailer is expanding its product range for customers to live more sustainable lives themselves, focusing on waste handling and cutting energy and water use.

"For now, we're mainly focusing on the big parts of resource use at home," Ohlsson said, adding that Ikea is testing some solar solutions for customers in Britain.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/zsSXi1f6B0Q/la-fi-ikea-energy-20130123,0,1175019.story

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Cats eradicated as pets in New Zealand?

(STUFF) ? Some scientists are backing Gareth Morgan?s campaign to control cats in order to protect native species, but say more also needs to be done to counter other predators.

Morgan, a philanthropist and economist, launched the Cats to Go website yesterday, which calls for the eradication of the ?friendly neighbourhood serial killer?.

Killing cats was an option, but cat owners should also control their pets in order to protect native species, the website said.

University of Otago senior lecturer in zoology, Dr Yolanda van Heezik, supported Morgan?s campaign, saying his proposals were reasonable and would prove effective.

?Consider using a collar with a bell: our research has shown they reduced catch by 50 per cent,? van Heezik said.

Source: http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/01/cats-eradicated-as-pets-in-new-zealand/

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Want to Start a Website Business? Find an Unmet Need

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Robert Niles' "How to Make Money Publishing Community News Online," a guidebook for people thinking about starting their own website businesses.

Here's the first question to ask yourself, before you build a website:

"Why would anyone pay me money to do this?"

I've heard plenty of answers to this question ? almost all of them wrong. You might think this question too personal to have a "wrong" answer, but people who think that are the ones most likely to come up with a wrong answer.

You see, no one cares why you want to start a new business. No one cares about anyone's award-winning-career as a newspaper reporter. No one cares about your heartfelt passion for your hometown. No one cares about the bills you have to pay or your need to find a new way to make some cash.

Get over it. Accept the fact that no one cares about you. But people do care about themselves, and if you can meet an unfilled need for people, they will pay you money to do it.

Starting a business ? whether it's a news website, an auto repair shop or an organic grocery store ? is all about finding an unmet need in a community and providing a good or service that takes fulfills it. Want to start a business? Then start by looking for the need in a community.

This is the only acceptable answer to the question I asked above. Your answer to the question, "Why would anyone pay me money to do this?" must be: "Because I will meet a need no one else can."

Now, what is that need? And how will you meet it? Those are the personal questions you will need to answer as an individual. But never forget that the core concept behind any successful publication is always the same: it meets a need for its customers. Keep your focus on that core concept and you'll have a chance at success in publishing.

Ultimately, you will be in the business of helping your customers. Plenty of people have started websites for selfish reasons ? heck, I've done it a few times, too. But the people who have succeeded in making those websites into profitable businesses have found ways to meet the needs of paying customers along the way. The sooner you change your focus as a publisher to customer service, the sooner you'll be earning the income that can transform your publication into a sustainable business.

Who is your customer?

If your mission is to serve a customer, you first must know whom that customer is. Too many publishers fail to identify their customers. So who is your customer? Here's the easy answer, taught to me by Tom O'Malia, Director Emeritus of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business:

"A customer is anyone who writes you a check."

Simple, huh?

Yet it's depressing to see how many publishers fail to understand that. Too many online publishers think that their customers are the readers clicking around online ? people who never pay them a dime. Too many newspaper publishers think their customers are home delivery readers, whose subscription fees hardly cover the cost of printing and delivery ? forget about the cost of reporting and producing the paper.

Unless they're collectively paying you enough to cover a significant portion of the cost of doing business, those readers are not your customers. They're your audience, instead.

Audience is important. Without an audience, you've got no chance of landing paying customers. Serving an audience therefore will be an important part of your publishing business. But for most news publications, the audience is not the customer. So, then, who is?

Now, if you are a current news reporter or a journalism student, don't stop reading after the next paragraph, okay? This will all work out fine, just stick with me for a few more paragraphs. (And if you're not a journalism veteran, just ignore this paragraph. You probably aren't coming to this book with the news industry's philosophical baggage ? which teaches that thinking about money is bad and which prevents many news reporters from becoming successful publishers. Be thankful for that.)

Remember, the customer is "anyone who writes you a check." So for most news publishers, your customer is... your advertiser. If you're going to succeed publishing an ad-supported publication, you've got to meet the needs of your advertisers.

Unfortunately, decades of ethics training in the journalism industry have taught news reporters not only that they should ignore the needs of their publication's advertisers, but that doing anything to help an advertiser constitutes an egregious violation of professional ethics. So when I write that a publisher's primary responsibility as a business person is to meet the needs of his or her customers (in other words, advertisers), I suspect many news reporters will want to quit reading, abandon their dreams of becoming a publisher and look for another way to make money instead.

But whom would that help? Not communities that need more and better coverage. Not the business owners who need simpler, more direct ways of connecting with their local community than trying to get noticed through Google. Giving up on your dream of community publishing really only helps existing news publishers, who will have one fewer competitor to face.

Journalism leaders originally developed these ethical principles to ensure that reporters didn't end up writing glorified ads for sponsors, instead of reporting accurate news stories. The idea was to prevent writers from putting the needs of advertisers over the needs of the audience.

But journalism ethics fail if they discourage new publishers from getting into the business. In this book, I will argue that you can serve both your readers and your customers. That's because the best way to meet the needs of advertisers is to serve the needs of your audience. Businesses have a huge need to connect with people who aren't yet their customers. They need to reach an audience of people who might likely be interested in their business, but who haven't been motivated enough to walk in (or click over) and buy anything yet. Publishers meet that need by selling access to their audience, through advertising.

So if you don't have an audience that advertisers want to reach, you can't meet the needs of those advertisers.

Your challenge, as a publisher, is to meet the needs of an audience so that enough of them read your publication to make it an attractive channel through which to meet the needs of your customers (advertisers). You can do both, and you must.

Thinking about going the non-profit route, to avoid that whole icky advertiser thing? Keep this in mind, then: As digital entrepreneur and journalist Tom Davidson said at a Knight Digital Media Center boot camp, "Non-profit isn't a business model. It's a tax status." The core principle behind the business remains the same. Instead of getting money from advertisers trying to reach your audience, you'll be soliciting money from foundations and other organizations trying to reach your audience. You're still selling access to your audience, either way. Plus, you'll need to deal with reams of tax forms and regulations that many for-profit publishers can ignore.

What about direct sales, some would-be publishers might ask? Why not start a publication that readers pay for directly, so that you don't have to worry yourself with meeting the needs of advertisers or foundations?

People are paying publishers billions of dollars a year to read a class of publications that has no advertising or foundation support. These publications are books, and smart news publishers are taking advantage of a revolution in eBook publishing to cash in with them. I'll write more about eBook publishing later, and I'll make an argument for why they should become an important part of your publishing strategy.

But even with eBooks, you won't make many sales if you don't build an audience first. So before we think any more about customers, let's start with our audience and finding a need you can address that will build an audience large enough to become commercially viable ? no matter whom your customers turn out to be.

To learn more about start-up online news publishing, please read the rest of "How to Make Money Publishing Community News Online," available for $6.99 [eBook] or $11.99 [paperback] from Amazon.com.

Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com

Source: http://www.sensibletalk.com/journals/robertniles/201301/107/

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Creative Corporate Event Ideas ? Culinary Team Building in 2013 ...

The world of event planning is constantly evolving, with creative thinking now the single most important tool within the industry. This has had a particularly noticeable impact on the corporate market, with businesses and brands increasingly on the look out for innovative ways of team building and improving productivity.

One of the most prominent trends in corporate event planning is live experience, through which corporate teams participate in a real time event and compete for a specific prize. With participants often encouraged to work in teams in the pursuit of both collaborative and individual success, business leaders can challenge their staff in a fun, innovative and enjoyable way.

Culinary Team Building: The Hot Trend for 2013

Culinary team building is the ultimate embodiment of this ethos, especially when you consider how the global economic downturn has curtailed people?s love of dining in restaurants. As individuals have been forced to cut their financial cloth, so too they have embraced the concept of home cooking as a therapeutic and cost effective art. Aside from this, however, why exactly is culinary building emerging as a popular favorite among corporate team leader? Consider the following: -

Encouraging Creative Thinking Among Employees: The corporate environment can often be stifling, especially during times of economic austerity and industry hardship. As a result, the ability to think creatively is a highly sought after skill among employers, and culinary team building enables individuals to tap into their hidden resources of innovation. With the opportunity to work in teams while designing and implementing menu ideas, a competitive kitchen can simulate a real working environment and or problem that demands a creative solution.

The Importance of Individual Competition: In order to build successful teams, there is a pressing need to empower and encourage individuals. As a task that can be undertaken by a single participant or a team of 20, cooking gives business leaders an opportunity to inspire both individual and collective attainment. Given that friendly competition between team members can actively trigger far greater performance levels in the workplace, it is crucial that staff members learn how to improve themselves in the pursuit of a team goal.

How Effort Translates into Tangible Rewards: While team building exercises such as paint balling and orienteering teach certain transferable workplace skills, they often send the wrong message to employees. It is important to reinforce the notion that hard work and collaboration translates into tangible reward, and culinary team building fits this brief perfectly. By bringing a menu to life, participants are creating something beautiful for the good of themselves and others, which represents the reward for their efforts . Employees can also marvel at the fact that they have learned an extremely useful skill, which can be used to impress and create something for others to enjoy.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to planning a real time team building experience, there are few that can match the impact of a culinary inspired event. Underpinning creative thinking, the merit of reward and a keener understanding of how individualism fits into a team ethic, undertaking a culinary team building experience may just afford firms a competitive edge in the bustling corporate sector. With companies such as London cookery school,?L?atelier des Chefs continuing to innovate and enhance their culinary team building experience, this trend is unlikely to abate any time soon.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/strategy/creative-corporate-event-ideas-culinary-team-building-in-2013-0383250

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Dayton budget would boost spending and increase high-income taxes

Gov. Mark Dayton outlined his ?Budget for a Better Minnesota? plan?[PDF] Tuesday, recommending substantial tax changes, including the promised higher income taxes on top income-earners, property tax relief and lower?? but broader?? sales tax.

Dayton proposed spending $37.9 billion in the next biennium, an increase of 7.6 percent over the current biennium. He also called for $3.6 billion in tax increases, $1.4 billion in property tax relief and $1 billion in new spending, plus $225 million in spending cuts.

Included in the budget ?package? [PDF] ? which also fills in a projected $1.1 billion budget deficit ? are:

• An income tax hike on the top 2 percent of Minnesotans ? couples with taxable income of $250,000 or more ? totaling $1.1 billion. (Individuals with taxable income of more than $150,000 also would be affected.)
• A broadening of the sales tax base to include clothing costing more than $100 and online goods and services, with a reduction of the rate from 6.875 percent to 5.5 percent, resulting in $2.1 billion in new revenue.
• Property tax relief of up to $500 per family, totaling a $1.4 billion reduction.
• A 94-cent tax increase for tobacco, totaling $370 million.
• A $300 million increase in K-12 education funding, $240 million in new money for higher education and $120 million for Local Government Aid and County Program Aid.

?Some will say we spend too much in this budget, and some will say we don?t spend enough,? Dayton said. ?To those who claim this spending is too high, I challenge you to say exactly where more cuts should be made. And to those who say we need to spend more, I challenge you to say exactly where the money should come from.?

Expenditure growth in Governor's proposal over current biennium

Source: Minnesota Management & Budget

*Debt service and all other areas (capital projects) growth distorted by use use of tobacco/appropriation bonds in FY 2012-13 budget solution

The governor said his budget plan will end the ?fiscal games, accounting gimmicks, payment delays and other financial manipulations? of the last decade.

Dayton?s proposal marks the starting point for legislative negotiations over the state?s two-year budget. Legislative committees are scheduled to begin picking through the specifics of the proposal on Wednesday. Last week, lawmakers started considering tax changes that they expected would be included in Dayton?s larger package.

Although the governor enjoys friendly majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in two decades, political and geographic considerations all but ensure a messy path toward a finished budget deal.

Republicans are poised to oppose DFL-backed tax increases, and the governor himself has rejected some plans ? such as a proposed gas tax hike to fund Minnesota?s ailing roads and bridges.

Revenue growth in Governor's proposal over current biennium

Source: Minnesota Management & Budget

Some of the key seats DFLers picked up in November to regain control of the Legislature are occupied by suburbanites who may be reluctant to support some of Dayton?s tax proposals.

Lawmakers may also face difficulty selling the expanded sales tax to businesses and Minnesotans who are accustomed to the exemptions on clothes and services. Expanding state taxes to online purchases may face an easier path because it has business community support and has been framed as a fairness issue for local businesses.

On top of the medley of tax increases and spending cuts, herding 201 lawmakers toward a final product will pose logistical challenges. The DFL lawmakers in charge of legislative policy areas ? from Health and Human Services to the powerful Senate Finance Committee ? have significantly more experience than the governor in state budgeting, a departure from the relatively fresh class of GOP lawmakers that took over last session.

Legislative priorities ? highlighted in some of the first bills of the session ? range from paying back the school shift to property tax relief. Dayton?s proposal doesn?t include funding to pay back the shift.

DFL lawmakers complained during the governor?s first budget negotiations ? which came in the midst of the painful 2011 government shutdown ? that Dayton ignored the minority caucuses when he struck a controversial deal with Republicans to solve the state?s then-$5 billion shortfall and end the government shutdown.

It?s unclear how the governor and the newly graduated DFL leaders will grow into their fresh negotiating roles ? though Dayton, House Speaker Paul Thissen and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk have said they got to know each other well during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, which they?ve stressed will come in handy.

House and Senate Democrats and Republicans are offering their early reactions to the governor?s Tuesday afternoon.

Bakk has said Dayton enjoys an advantage in the budgeting process because he has direct access to the state agencies. Lawmakers mostly spent the first two weeks of session reviewing the November budget forecast and getting acquainted with their committees? budget sectors while Dayton put the finishing touches on his proposal.

Despite the governor?s exhaustive budget planning, drastic fluctuations in the national economy could mean the package lawmakers ultimately pass closer to May will look a lot different than the one unveiled today.

State finance officials said the November economic forecast, which helped shape the governor?s budget proposal, was one of the shakiest projections they had ever seen.

?In my tenure here, I cannot remember a forecast with so much uncertainty built in,? Bakk told reporters after it was released in early December.

Uncertainty over the fiscal cliff crisis and other federal budget negotiations led state officials in December to conclude that the next economic forecast ? set for release on Feb. 28 ? would be key in budget decisions.

But with the national uncertainty delayed rather than solved, the February forecast might not provide the clarity that lawmakers are counting on.

Current projections indicate the state will have roughly $35.8 billion to spend over the next two years, but the forecast shows $36.9 billion in revenue needed to maintain current funding levels.

?The future really is at stake,? Dayton said in explaining why he wants to boost spending to $37.9 billion.

Source: http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2013/01/dayton-budget-would-boost-spending-and-increase-high-income-taxes

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Emotional intelligence mapped in brain: Study of Vietnam veterans with combat-related brain injuries

Jan. 22, 2013 ? A new study of 152 Vietnam veterans with combat-related brain injuries offers the first detailed map of the brain regions that contribute to emotional intelligence -- the ability to process emotional information and navigate the social world.

The study found significant overlap between general intelligence and emotional intelligence, both in terms of behavior and in the brain. Higher scores on general intelligence tests corresponded significantly with higher performance on measures of emotional intelligence, and many of the same brain regions were found to be important to both.

The study appears in the journal Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.

"This was a remarkable group of patients to study, mainly because it allowed us to determine the degree to which damage to specific brain areas was related to impairment in specific aspects of general and emotional intelligence," said study leader Aron K. Barbey, a professor of neuroscience, of psychology and of speech and hearing science at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois.

A previous study led by Barbey mapped the neural basis of general intelligence by analyzing how specific brain injuries (in a larger sample of Vietnam veterans) impaired performance on tests of fundamental cognitive processes.

In both studies, researchers pooled data from CT scans of participants' brains to produce a collective, three-dimensional map of the cerebral cortex. They divided this composite brain into 3-D units called voxels. They compared the cognitive abilities of patients with damage to a particular voxel or cluster of voxels with those of patients without injuries in those brain regions. This allowed the researchers to identify brain areas essential to specific cognitive abilities, and those that contribute significantly to general intelligence, emotional intelligence, or both.

They found that specific regions in the frontal cortex (behind the forehead) and parietal cortex (top of the brain near the back of the skull) were important to both general and emotional intelligence. The frontal cortex is known to be involved in regulating behavior. It also processes feelings of reward and plays a role in attention, planning and memory. The parietal cortex helps integrate sensory information, and contributes to bodily coordination and language processing.

"Historically, general intelligence has been thought to be distinct from social and emotional intelligence," Barbey said. The most widely used measures of human intelligence focus on tasks such as verbal reasoning or the ability to remember and efficiently manipulate information, he said.

"Intelligence, to a large extent, does depend on basic cognitive abilities, like attention and perception and memory and language," Barbey said. "But it also depends on interacting with other people. We're fundamentally social beings and our understanding not only involves basic cognitive abilities but also involves productively applying those abilities to social situations so that we can navigate the social world and understand others."

The new findings will help scientists and clinicians understand and respond to brain injuries in their patients, Barbey said, but the results also are of broader interest because they illustrate the interdependence of general and emotional intelligence in the healthy mind.

The study team also included Roberto Colom, of the Universidad Aut?noma de Madrid, and Jordan Grafman, now at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

This study was conducted in part at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., with support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Journal Reference:

1. A. K. Barbey, R. Colom, J. Grafman. Distributed neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/scan/nss124

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/05bjlT-1ijY/130122122306.htm

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European shares test two-year highs, yen volatile before BOJ

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares inched towards two-year highs and German Bund futures dipped on Monday, as a political attempt to break a budget impasse in the United States revived appetite for shares and dented appetite for safe-haven assets.

U.S. House Republican leaders said on Friday they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority in the coming days to buy time for the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a plan to shrink budget deficits.

European shares <.fteu3> were supported by the news <.eu>, but with no clear response from the Democrats and a thin session expected due to a market holiday in the United States, the impact on other assets such as Bunds is likely to be limited.

London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> opened between 0.4 and 0.5 percent higher, lifting the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 0.3 percent and MSCI's world index 0.1 percent. <.l><.eu/>

"There's a bit of encouragement coming out of the U.S.," said Toby Campbell-Gray, head of trading at Tavira Securities in Monaco.

He added that equity markets had remained resilient in the face of an uncertain economic outlook as many investors had stepped in to buy "on the dip" on days when shares had fallen.

Ahead of the region's first finance ministers' meeting of the year the euro was steady against the dollar, while the yen firmed after touching a new low, ahead of a Bank of Japan decision expected to deliver bold monetary easing.

The dollar slipped back to a low of 89.42 yen and was last trading at 89.57 yen, while the euro also fell to a low of 119.08 and last traded at 119.27 yen.

With little in the way of economic data or debt issuance and U.S. markets shut for the Martin Luther King Jr. public holiday, it was expected to be a fairly quite market day.

Oil prices took their cues from a report in the United States at the end of last week that showed consumer sentiment at its weakest in a year as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the country's debt crisis.

Concerns about demand overshadowed supply disruption fears reinforced by the Islamist militant attack and hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

U.S. crude futures fell 0.5 percent to $95.08 a barrel, while Brent fell 0.3 percent to $111.55 early on Monday but had recovered to almost flat as European trading gathered pace.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Will Waterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-edge-down-yen-eases-boj-meeting-004401195--finance.html

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&#39;Death Wish&#39; director Michael Winner dies aged 77 | Showbiz | GMA ...

LONDON- Flamboyant British film director Michael Winner, best known for the "Death Wish" series of the 1970s and 80s, died at his London home on Monday. He was 77.

In a statement released to the media, his wife Geraldine said: "A light has gone out in my life."

Winner, who reinvented himself in recent years as an outspoken restaurant critic in the Sunday Times, had been ill for some time, and revealed last summer that specialists had given him 18 months to live due to heart and liver problems.

He said in a later interview that he had considered going to the Dignitas assisted-dying clinic in Switzerland.

Winner's movie career spanned some 40 years and more than 30 feature films, including the successful Death Wish series starring Charles Bronson as a vigilante out to avenge family murders.

He worked with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum and Faye Dunaway, but his success was overshadowed by a divisive image in Britain as a pompous bon viveur who did nothing to hide his wealth.

According to Winner's official online biography, actor Michael Caine once said of him: "You are a complete and utter fraud. You come on like a bombastic, ill-tempered monster. It's not the side I see of you. I see a man who has a tremendous artistic eye."

In its obituary, the Daily Telegrah wrote: "Flamboyant, often boorish, he was, in many ways, his own worst enemy."

Early interest in showbusiness

Born in London in 1935, Winner took an early interest in showbusiness, writing an entertainment column aged just 14 which was published in 30 local newspapers.

According to his website, he studied law and economics at Cambridge University and worked as a film critic as a teenager before entering the world of movies full time in 1956 when he started marking documentaries and shorts.

In the 1960s Winner focused on comedies like "The Jokers" and "I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname", both of which starred Oliver Reed.

The following decade he moved on to crime capers like "The Mechanic" and "The Stone Killer" before the commercially successful Death Wish, which was released in 1974 and spawned several sequels.

The original movie proved controversial for its portrayal of urban violence, but Winner defended a film he always knew he would be best remembered for.

"Death Wish was an epoch-making film," he told the Big Issue charity publication last year. "The first film in the history of cinema where the hero kills other civilians.

"It had never been done before. Since then it has been the most copied film ever. Tarantino put it in his top 10 films ever made."

He later turned his hand to food criticism in a typically outspoken column for the Sunday Times called Winner's Dinners. His last column appeared on Dec. 2 and was titled: "Geraldine says it's time to get down from the table. Goodbye."

Winner, whose appearance in adverts for insurance coined the catchphrase "Calm down dear, it's only a commercial", founded and funded the Police Memorial Trust following the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.

More than 50 officers have been honored by the trust at sites across the country.

He was reportedly offered an OBE in the Queen's honors' list in 2006 for the campaign, but turned it down, saying: "An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station." ? Reuters

Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/291385/showbiz/showbizabroad/death-wish-director-michael-winner-dies-aged-77

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mdilko20: Art & Astrology: Chart and talent of Placido Domingo

Placido Domingo is a Spanish tenor and director with a very typical voice. Performers in the arts need artistic talents just as the creators of art do. In this case, there is a different astrological pattern than usual. Usually Moon, Venus and Neptune are connected with Midheaven and each other, supported by the signs that they rule (Cancer, Libra, Taurus and Pisces). In the chart of Placido Domingo we see:

a. a prominent Neptune (Neptune is 'calling', no mayor aspect in orb 5 degrees or in sign; and square Sun/Moon.?It means that he was motivated for the arts, very much, at any kind of level, somehow, anyhow)

b. the moon stands right in the middle of Venus and Neptune. In other words: Venus/Neptune is conjunct the Moon.

c. There are minor aspects between Moon and Venus and Neptune. They are connected by septiles (1/7th of the circle). Moon/Venus is in aspect with Ascendant and Midheaven.
The septile is considered to mirror the energy that inspires us and others.

His chart doesn't immediately show the singer, unless you use this:

Mercury (communications, voice and pen) ruler of the Midheaven is in the 5th house of plays, games and shows, exactly square ruler 5 (plays) = Saturn (business).

Then you see the business of singing for entertainment.

But what must I do with that Mars on the IC? It may be an AA rated chart but I wonder ... Well, the story of his HOB is on Astrodienst:?http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Domingo,_Pl?cido

Source: http://art-astrology.blogspot.com/2013/01/chart-and-talent-of-placido-domingo.html

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Source: http://mdilko20.blogspot.com/2013/01/art-astrology-chart-and-talent-of.html

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Official: Iran won't stop uranium enrichment

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? An Iranian diplomat says Tehran will not stop uranium enrichment "for a moment," defying demands from the U.N. and world powers to halt its suspect nuclear program.

The comments by Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, come just two days after senior IAEA investigators ended two days of intensive talks with Iranian officials on allegations the Islamic Republic may have carried out tests on triggers for atomic weapons.

His remarks reiterate Iran's longstanding assertion that its enrichment program is for producing nuclear fuel and other peaceful purposes, and thus is Tehran's right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Soltanieh's comments were reported by the official IRNA news agency Saturday. Iran and the IAEA agreed to hold another round of negotiations on Feb. 12.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/official-iran-wont-stop-uranium-enrichment-090412627.html

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David Plouffe: Revenue Debate Not Over

White House senior adviser David Plouffe said on Sunday that despite Republican warnings that the tax debate is over, President Obama would not accept a budget deal without additional revenue.

"We are going to require some more revenues," Plouffe told me on "This Week." "John Boehner himself said he thought there was $800 billion in revenues from closing loopholes. We've dealt with the tax rate issue, now it's about loopholes."

"And I think the country would be well served by tax and entitlement reform because it would help the economy," he added.

Plouffe said that Obama has met Republicans "more than halfway," and that any deal needs to be "balanced." Republicans, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, have said that the revenue debate is "over" and that they would not negotiate with the White House for additional revenue in a budget deal.

"We need spending cuts and entitlement reform and revenue. Have to have that," Plouffe said.

When I asked him if Republicans have caved with their new debt ceiling strategy, he said that they had.

"Yeah, I think they have, on this principle, and that's very important," he said. "This is a big departure for them."

Tune in to the ABC News.com Live page on Monday morning starting at 9:30 a.m. EST for all-day live streaming video coverage of Inauguration 2013: Barack Obama. Live coverage will also be available on the ABC News iPad App and mobile devices.

Plouffe said that in Obama's inauguration address he will lay out his vision for his second term, and will provide a "blueprint" in his State of the Union address.

He said that in his second term, Obama will push for "common ground" on issues like the deficit, immigration reform and gun control.

"It's clear there's a huge consensus in the country about how we ought to approach the deficit and the economy-issues like immigration and gun safety," Plouffe said. "I think he's going to be very frustrated if Washington is completely divorced from the reality in the country."

"So he's going to seek common ground, he's going to find every way he can to compromise. But he's going to be pretty clear, and we're also going to bring the American people more into the debate than we did in the first term."

Despite misgivings among several Democratic Senators about the president's proposals on gun control, Plouffe said he believes a deal is possible, although difficult to achieve. He said he believes that opinions in Washington are changing on the issue, citing the example of pro-gun Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin who expressed an openness to discuss the issue.

"We don't expect it all to pass?in its current form," he said. "We're going to twist the arms of Democrats, Republicans and we're going to engage the American people in this debate."

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum accused Obama of being a "sore winner" in his dealings with Republicans. He said that the Obama administration could build common ground with Republicans on immigration reform and the deficit if he would ask Democrats to compromise more, but he hasn't.

"That's the problem with this administration. They don't, they don't-they're not very gracious winners. And I always say if there's one thing worse than a sore loser, that's a sore winner. And the president is a sore winner," Santorum told me. "And Republicans understand that. This president could get immigration done. He could get something done on deficits and entitlements, but he's got to move his people to do that instead of forcing Republicans always to come his way. And that's the problem."

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/david-plouffe-revenue-debate-not-over-160018779--abc-news-politics.html

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On Monday, she&#39;ll sing at another inaugural | resa, president ...

Singing for the President of the United States at his inauguration is one thing.

But singing for the Presidential of the United States at his inauguration after two-thirds of your lung has been removed?

Resa Hempfling sits in her home in Laguna Niguel Wednesday afternoon. She will be singing at one of the inaugural balls for President Obama. This will be the fifth time she has performed at a presidential inauguration.

MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ADVERTISEMENT

Find Resa at resamusic.com or call 949-632-3297.

Now that's a story.

Click here to get a preview of her singing for ocregister.com.

Bill Clinton had just been elected president back in January of '93 when Resa Hempfling happened to be playing the Blues Alley supperclub in Georgetown, singing standards like "It Had to Be You."

Between sets, a man walked up: "Do you have any interest in singing at the inauguration?"

He may as well have been asking if the Pope was Catholic.

He told her he was from The President's Own, a Marine band that plays the White House. A few weeks later, back at her house in Newport Beach, Hempfling got a phone call from the inaugural committee.

So it was real.

But why her?

???

Resa grew up on in Maryland, the daughter of a retired general.

And her mom Beatrice? She was the jewel on my father's arm.

Resa was a shy girl, but the stage beckoned. She enrolled in NYU School of the Arts and scored some roles in off-Broadway musicals. Nearing graduation, she auditioned for a band called New Dawn.

She didn't consider herself a singer. I was an actress that sang.

New Dawn didn't care what she was; they liked her. And for the next four years Resa found herself singing Top 40 covers at hotels across the country.

In 1980 she created a one-woman show, singing everything from show tunes to pop, and took it to Palm Springs supper clubs and swanky nightclubs like the rotating Top of the Wheel at Harvey's casino in Tahoe.

Her set list called for light jazz that night in '93 when a member of the White House band fell for her at Blues Alley.

So what did he see in her that gave him the idea she was inauguration material?

"I haven't the vaguest idea," she says.

But there was no time for questions. There was shopping to be done.

Resa would be singing at five parties. The way she saw it, she needed five beaded gowns.

The first party was at a Virginia plantation for Vice President Al Gore and his wife. That's where she met Clinton and decided he was the most charismatic man she had ever met, including her husband.

At the Michigan Dinner Dance, Clinton actually came up on stage to play the sax for one of her songs.

Then things got even more surreal. At an intimate celebrity welcome party at The Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, she, Resa Hempfling, sang for legends Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick, the woman whose records she grew up listening to.

Not only did she sing for Dionne. She sang a Dionne song for Dionne. What's more, the pop star told Resa she liked her rendition.

"You try to be very cool, calm and collected but you feel like a 12 year old inside," Resa says.

Streisand also thanked Resa for singing for her.

"I said something brilliant back, like, 'You're welcome.'"

When it was all over, she flew back to Newport Beach, and reality.

So she was surprised when, four years later, she got another call. Would she sing for Clinton's second inauguration?

This time she only needed to buy two gowns.

She would entertain at the literary welcome party and the Indiana Ball at the Museum of Natural History, where Clinton actually remembered her "or at least he said he did."

"Resa, it's so nice to see you back," she recalls him saying as he took her white gloved hand in his.

"And I said, 'Mr. President, it's great to see you back too."

Ask Resa if she voted for Clinton though and she won't tell.

"I'm a patriot," she says. "It doesn't matter if the president is Republican or Democrat. (Once elected), he's my guy."

Four years later, the Dems were out, the Republicans were in. Did they share entertainers?

Apparently so.

This time the inaugural committee found Resa in Laguna Niguel where she had moved.

She sang at the Pennsylvania Ball where newly elected President George W. Bush danced to one of her ballads. She thinks it might have been "Moon River."

Four years later, as another election unfolded, the thought crossed her mind that she wasn't getting any younger.

I wonder if they still like me?

They did.

"They still wanted me for some reason," she says in awe, sounding a bit like Sally Fields famously collecting her Oscar.

Four years after that, Obama was on the cusp of becoming the first African American president of the United States and the national mood was practically giddy. Did she dare dream she could be part of this historic moment?

The call did indeed come in, like clockwork.

But, this time, it was heartbreaking.

???

Resa was in the midst of some medical tests. X-rays showed a spot on her lung. Could she call them back? Then tests confirmed the worst: Lung cancer.

She had never smoked; she's a self-proclaimed gym rat. She called the inaugural committee back with the news and then went into battle.

We have three lobes in our right lung; surgeons removed two of those three out of Resa's.

Only several months later, she was booking her comeback show with an 8-piece band at the Thunderbird Country Club in Palm Springs.

"Boy was I sweating that night," she remembers.

She hadn't rehearsed and wasn't sure what was going to come out of her mouth. But if she was going to go for it, she was going to go big. The first song on her set list: "New York, New York."

As she sang the notes, the adrenaline kicked in.

"I could hear the guys in the band behind me: 'Yeah! Yeah! You got it!' And then I knew I was home free."

But surely, Resa thought, the inaugural committee had crossed her off their list, figuring the cancer got her.

So this past August, when she got another call, she was "flabbergasted." They wanted her to sing for the Georgia Society Ball at the National Museum of Women in the Arts; this time classic rock.

It was off to Nordstrom, where Resa found a white harem pantsuit, a la Justin Bieber.

A few days ago, she got another thrill. For the first time, she is going to be on the bill for the Monday night ball with another singer: Queen of Soul Gladys Knight.

"Why me?" Resa asks.

"I keep waiting for someone to say, 'Wait, you're not really a singer, are you?"

Contact the writer: 714-932-1705 or lbasheda@ocregister.com

• OC woman will sing at Presidential Inauguration

Related:

Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/resa-388078-president-singing.html

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Female sports fans are game

Two Cohasset women are introducing a brand new website tailored for the female sports fan. ?She?s Game Sports? is a media company that produces sports content by women, for women. Or, as founder Alice Cook calls it, ?Sister to sister sports.?

Cook started her company after covering sports as a reporter for over 25 years in a male-dominated field. Cook, who is also an Olympic figure skater (she competed as a pairs skater at the 1976 Olympics in Austria), entered the sports broadcasting world in the early ?80s, and was one of few women covering sports at the time.

Hardcore female fans were also few and far between.

?The female fan just wasn?t there yet,? said Cook. In the ?90s, she started noticing more female fans in the stands wearing pink hats with their team?s logo. But over the years, the pink paraphernalia and oversized boyfriend?s jerseys started giving way to sport?s gear cut to fit women, in the team?s colors.

When Cook started seeing more sports clothing lines made just for women, she knew the tide was changing, and it was a good time to get involved.

?I thought, someday, this would be a dream to create a product for women,? said Cook. Her idea, at first, was to produce a women?s half-hour talk show centered around football, since so many of her friends and fellow moms in the area are diehard Patriots fans.

?Mothers living in the suburbs, some working outside the home while some don?t, we all have one thing in common? we all want to watch the Patriots,? Cook explained. ?It?s the common thread holding families together. With all these different activities and the busy work lives we have, it?s the only time in a week we all sit down together for two and a half hours to watch a game. There?s a great family and social aspect.?

Cook was introduced to another Cohasseter with a broadcasting background, Lydia Everett, who quickly told Cook that she thought the idea was much bigger than a half-hour local talk show: ?This is a huge media product across all platforms.?

?I knew the economics of putting together a half-hour show and was concerned about the cost and advertising opportunities as far as local programming,? said Everett. ?I kept researching what was out there in the world of female sports media? There was nothing.?

Both Cook and Everett saw a gap in sports coverage that catered to the female point of view. As they both explain, women approach sports differently than men, and require different types of coverage. While men might want to see stats, women are often interested in the stories behind the games, teams and players; or, as the women of She?s Game Sports explain, the heart of the story.

For many women, especially in the sports-crazed New England area, major league teams and games are part of their daily conversation, whether they?re ?at their kids? soccer games talking about the Patriots or at hockey games talking about the Bruins.?

So who is the ?She?s Game Sports? girl ? the diehard fan who bleeds Patriots/Red Sox red and blue, or the casual observer who cheers for her kids on the sidelines?

The answer is, a little bit of both ? or all of the above. The goal of She?s Game Sports is to offer sports content to women at all level of fandom, whether they want to read a player profile story, find deals on women?s sports apparel, or just check the score.

??We want it to be the one-stop shop, the go-to place for sports entertainment and knowledge, deals and connection,? explained Everett.

The website features everything from thought-provoking articles, discussions, fashion-oriented blog posts (?Game Day Outfit? options!) and videos to entertainment and gossip.

?Some women want the latest on Tom Brady,? said Everett. ?We know women are into the sexiness of the players. We?re definitely making it fun and entertaining? Women approach sports through a lifestyle lens.?

She?s Game Sports is unveiling a brand-new website in February, launched by the Boston-based Cramer Communications. Cook also has a She?s Game Sports blog on the Boston Globe?s website (Boston.com) and is eyeing a national broadcasting opportunity with Litton Entertainment.

In the meantime, they also plan to roll out a mobile version of the website so readers can get on-the-go content on their tablets and smartphones.

But producing all of this content takes a lot of work, including fundraising. This is why She?s Game Sports has a crowd-funding project on IndieGoGo.com. So far, the company has raised just over $11,000 out of its $30,000 fundraising goal; the fundraiser ends on Jan. 20. The money will help the company build an audience and get its name out while also raising money to pay for the website, its producer and sports photographs.

She?s Game Sports also has profiles on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

For more information on She?s Game Sports, visit http://shesgamesports.com, and check out the fundraiser at http://www.indiegogo.com/ShesGameSports.?

Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/cohasset/news/x65629081/Female-sports-fans-are-game

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3-D Exotic Pets in a Jar ? Blog & News

Jar-Enclosed ?Pets? Teach kids about the Animal Kingdom in a New Way

As an award-winning design team here at inNuevo, we appreciate and respect innovative designs?especially ones that win awards. We found this winning design concept that really takes learning and owning a ?pet? to the next level!

Yanko design introduced their ?2012 Red Dot Award? winners for design concept. Zhang Di, Zhao Tianji, Ma Yinghui and Cui Minghui have come up with a new way for children to view the animals they love.

Their concept, the Jarpet, is a glass jar with a 3-D projector that connects with the computer. ?Users can download animal information through the app, and the 3-D pet comes to life when the jar is turned on. ?This results in the pet ?coming to life? within the jar.??This informative toy allows children to see, learn, and interact with their jar-enclosed animal, and is perfect for all ages, giving children the experience of owning a unique pet while teaching them about that animal and its lifecycle.

Children can interact with the jar through its multisensory technology.?Best of all, Jarpet works for all children, regardless of their allergies! ?This 2012 red dot award winner for design concept uses a USB port to charge and transmit information.

Source: http://innuevo.com/blog/2013/01/3-d-exotic-pets-in-a-jar/

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How To Pet Cats & Dogs (CHART)

Finally, someone had the good sense to map this out. Thanks to Redditor TheNormalMan, we now get it.

Via Tastefully Offensive

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/19/how-to-pet-cats-dogs-chart_n_2511905.html

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A Smut Above: Unhealthy Soot in the Air Could Also Promote Global Warming

Black carbon, commonly described as soot, may play a larger role in global warming than previously estimated, according to a new study.


Every year in the Northern Hemisphere about 7.5 million metric tons of black carbon, the equivalent of more than 100 times Earth?s total biomass, enters the air from internal combustion engines, forest fires and other sources. The fine material absorbs sunlight almost as well as carbon dioxide?a well-known greenhouse gas?and may contribute to accelerated snowmelts and increased global temperatures.


"We?re trying to figure out how to deal with the greenhouse gas problem " says Sarah Doherty, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle and co-author of the study. The new findings suggest that black carbon mitigation should be part of that strategy.


Scientists have known about the warming potential of black carbon for years, but Doherty's study, published yesterday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, suggests previous calculations underestimated its impact. Doherty and her colleagues used a compilation of dozens of climate models to look at the life span of atmospheric black carbon. By imputing observational data recorded around the world, they studied the effect this pollutant might have on the Northern Hemisphere. By itself, black carbon is a warming agent; however, it is not usually emitted in a pure form. Instead, black carbon is expelled into the atmosphere combined with other compounds such as sulfates, which affect their heat-absorbing and reflective properties. Black carbon could be seen as chocolate chips in baking, Doherty says by way of analogy. "In one case you put them in molasses cookies, and the other case you put them in sugar cookies." The result: cookies with different tastes and textures. For example, black carbon from diesel engines is known to cause atmospheric warming because it is mixed with sulfates, says study co-author Tami Bond, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana?Champaign. Forest fires in the lower latitudes, however, are actually beneficial sources of black carbon because it is coupled with organic aerosols and ends up reflecting light and heat, causing the surrounding area to cool. Atmospheric black carbon?s impact on climatic warming also varies due to its altitude. The team discovered that the consequences of black carbon and whether it promotes or combats climate change depend on its position?above, below or in the middle of cloud cover: Above the clouds, where the particulates absorb heat more readily, they produce a warming effect; below the cloud deck heat absorption is less significant. Such disparities cause problems for scientists trying to describe the atmospheric effects accurately. According to the study, black carbon compounds have the potential to decrease the world's average temperature by 0.5 degree Celsius or warm it by 1.08 degrees C, depending on how it was produced. Previous studies lacked the observational data included in Doherty?s analysis, making earlier estimates much less accurate. Thus, policymakers have to consider the source of black carbon when drafting mitigation ordinances, Doherty says. Although researchers still debate the overall influence of black carbon on the atmosphere, scientists do agree that it has become a serious health issue for populations on the ground. Inhaling black carbon could aggravate serious chronic illnesses such as asthma. Because black carbon only remains in the atmosphere for about a week, decreasing emissions translates into immediate health benefits. The rapid change could also prove a victory for world leaders trying to rally support for climate policy. "Once you stop the emissions, it?s gone. It?s a public health win," Bond says. "We can begin [combating climate change] by doing things for climate that people want to do because it has other health benefits." Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/smut-above-unhealthy-soot-air-could-promote-global-173000842.html

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Playwright Anna Deavere Smith wins Gish Prize

NEW YORK (AP) ? Anna Deavere Smith has won one of the largest and most prestigious awards in the arts.

The committee that awards the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize announced Friday that the actress and playwright known for pioneering a form of theatrical journalism is this year's winner.

"Anna opens our eyes, ears and minds to some of the most challenging aspects of our lives, and in so doing helps give others the courage to do the same," said Darren Walker, of the Ford Foundation, who was on the selection committee.

The Gish Prize, now in its 19th year, recognizes leading artists in such fields as drama, music and dance, as well as literature. Smith joins past winners including Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller, Chinua Achebe and Robert Redford. The prize, from silent film stars Dorothy and Lillian Gish, comes with $300,000.

In a statement, Smith said: "I am deeply honored and can't imagine a greater honor than having my name linked with the incomparable Dorothy and Lillian Gish."

Smith creates one-woman documentary-style works such as "Fires in the Mirror" about a 1991 riot in New York and "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," about the 1992 Rodney King case. She recently tackled health care in "Let Me Down Easy."

As an actress, Smith has appeared on TV in "Nurse Jackie" and "The West Wing" and in films including "The American President," ''The Human Stain," ''Life Support" and "Rachel Getting Married."

Among her other honors are a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," two Tony Award nominations, an Obie and a Drama Desk Award. Her writings include the book "Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines and Letters to a Young Artist."

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Online:

http://www.gishprize.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/playwright-anna-deavere-smith-wins-gish-prize-155514969.html

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