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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Mitt looks to lock down Iowa (Politico)
CLINTON, Iowa ? Mitt Romney kicked off the bus tour he?s using to close his Iowa campaign with the wind at his back and a return to his core argument: electability.
That applies to the general election ? but starts with next week?s caucuses.
Continue ReadingRomney continues Iowa push
Buoyed by internal polling and a CNN survey released Wednesday afternoon that showed Newt Gingrich falling to fourth place in Iowa, with Ron Paul in second and Rick Santorum climbing to third, Romney told reporters in a deli here that he couldn?t think of a reason why he won?t win the state.
?I can?t imagine, except that there are other good people running, and they?ve got good campaigns,? he said. ?I like the fact that my support is building and the momentum is positive, but I can?t tell you where it?s going to end up.?
Romney will spend the next three days in the state intensifying his focus in Iowa at a moment when the state, and possibly an early wrap-up of the nomination, are now tantalizingly in reach. He?s nearly 30 points ahead in his New Hampshire stronghold, which will vote the week after Iowa. Wins in both will make it increasingly hard for his rivals to continue their campaigns.
Romney?s benefiting from Gingrich?s collapse and a splintering of votes between rivals whose support doesn?t overlap with his own. Santorum leads in Iowa among evangelical voters, but he notched just 4 percent support in New Hampshire, where Romney leads by 27 points over Paul and Gingrich. Paul?s committed libertarian supporters are a small enough group that the win he?s hoping for in Iowa remain out of reach ? or likely be dismissed if he gets it.
Still, asked by POLITICO if a Paul victory in Iowa would be just as useful for the campaign as him winning, Romney replied: ?Ah, no.?
But Romney isn?t done trying to cut down his top rivals, as he made clear in dismissing Gingrich?s calls for a one-on-one debate by pointing to his drop in the polls.
?Newt and I are not necessarily number one and number two across the nation,? Romney said on ?Fox & Friends. ?So we?ll have to narrow it down and see where it leads us.?
As for Paul, Romney responded to a softball question by a voter in a Muscatine coffee shop about the America?s relationship with Israel by taking an unmistakable shot at his fellow Iowa front-runner.
?The greatest threat Israel faces and, frankly, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran,? Romney said. ?We have differing views on this some of the people, actually one of the people running for president, thinks it?s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don?t. I don?t trust ayatollahs. I don?t trust Ahmadinejad ? I don?t trust those who back Hamas and Hezbollah.?
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Friday, December 30, 2011
'Xperia Ion' trademark hints at possible next-gen SE branding
With CES looming, we've already heard our fair share of rumors about upcoming Sony Ericsson handsets, including leaked photos of the "Xperia Arc HD" and specs for the elusive LTE-toting LT28at. A recent trademark filing may provide some further clues about Sony Ericsson's branding for future devices, as shortly before the holidays the manufacturer applied for the "Xperia Ion" trademark in the U.S., for use in connection with "mobile phones".
It should be noted that a trademark filing is far from a guarantee that a product with this name will see the light of day. However the timing -- and the fact that we've yet to hear any reliable info about SE's 2012 Xperia branding -- suggests that the unveiling of an "Xperia Ion" phone could be on the cards for next month's CES, or February's Mobile World Congress.
Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; via: XperiaBlog
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/-XocFNoEjxI/story01.htm
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
2 dead, 5 wounded at Church's Chicken in Englewood
Two people were killed and five others wounded when shots rang out at a fast-food restaurant in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side this evening, authorities said.
The gunman had gotten into an argument with a person outside the Church's Chicken restaurant near 66th and Halsted streets, then chased the person inside and opened fire about 6:50 p.m., police said.
Surveillance video appears to show the intended target trying to run away through a crowd of people, police said. No one was in custody, police said.
Two people were dead on scene and four others were taken to hospitals initially in critical condition, according to police and the Chicago Fire Department. It was not known whether the person being chased was among the victims.
A 58-year-old man with several gunshot wounds and 17-year-old boy were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn; a 16-year-old boy and a 51-year-old man were taken to Stroger Hospital. A fifth person also was hospitalized, but no information on that victim was available about 10:15 p.m.
The people who died were in the area of the restaurant where customers pick up their food, one person at the scene said.
Friends of a 17-year-old boy who was killed arrived at the scene around 8 p.m., screaming in agony.
"This is crazy. This is crazy," said LaToia Brown, who said the victim had dated her daughter off and on for years.
LaToia Brown said the teen had called her mama and often rode his bike to her house to see if she needed anything from the store. "That baby was definitely a good kid," she said, trying to hold back tears. "I loved everything about my baby."
Brown said the boy's cousin called to tell her he had been killed.
"I got up here as soon as I could, as soon as I hung up the phone," she said.
LaToia Brown's 16-year-old daughter, Diamond, said she and the victim were good friends and said he was always supportive and tried to lift everyone's spirit.
"He was a great big brother to my brothers and sisters," Diamond Brown said, tears welling in her eyes.
Crowds of people gathered at the yellow crime scene tape outside the restaurant, some trying to find out if friends or relatives had been shot.
Dozens of police officers and detectives stood in the restaurant's parking lot, where officers had placed several yellow evidence markers. Several detectives could be seen just inside the restaurant's entrance.
Police cars lined South Halsted Street, which was closed to traffic for about three blocks.
The restaurant is on the southwest corner of West 66th and South Halsted streets, next to a small food market and across the street from an auto parts store and a Family Dollar.
An Emergency Medical Services Plan 1, which sends six ambulances to a scene, was called for the attack, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Kevin MacGregor.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Debt Crisis 2012: Forget Europe, Check Out Japan
By EconMatters
The recent?massive demand for ECB's LTRO?(Long Term Refinancing Operation)--nearly?490 billion euro in three-year 1% loans from 523 banks--only confirmed the suspicion of some market participants that European banks are having financing issues, and that the LTRO is unlikely to flow into the Euro Zone supporting the troubled sovereign debt and economy.
In addition to the current Euro crisis which we discussed here?and?here, Japan, the world's third largest economy, could have its own debt crisis as early as 2012 bigger than the Euro Zone. (see graph below)?
Based on a plan approved by the Cabinet in Tokyo on 23 Dec, the country is now looking to sell 44.2 trillion yen ($566 billion) of new bonds?to fund?90.3 trillion yen ($1.16 trillion) of spending in fiscal year 2012 starting 1 April. ?That will raise Japan budget?s dependence on debt to an unprecedented 49%.
According to?Bloomberg, the government projects new bond issuance will surpass tax revenue for a fourth year.?Receipts from levies have shrunk about a third?this year?after peaking at?60.1 trillion yen in 1990.??Non-tax revenues including surplus from foreign exchange reserves also halved to?3.7 trillion yen. Social-security expenses, now at 250% of the level two decades ago, will account for 52% of general spending next year
Moreover, an?April 2011 analysis?by CQCA Business Research showed that "Japan has an extremely near-future tilted debt maturity timeline" (see chart below). ?CQCA estimated that in 2010,?Japan was able to push 105 trillion yen into the future, but concluded it is doubtful that Japan will be able to continue this.
Indeed, as one of the major and relatively stable economies in the world, and since almost all of its debt are held internally by the Japanese citizens or business, Japan has been able to still borrow at low rates (10-year bond yield at 0.98%?as of Dec. 26, 2011), partly thanks to the Euro debt crisis going on for more than two years.So as long as Japan could keep financing a majority of its debt internally without going through the real test of the brutal bond market, the country most likely would not experience a debt crisis like the one currently festering in Europe.
But the chips seem to have stacked against Japan now. ?On top of the new and re-financing needs, the Japanese government estimated that the economy will shrink 0.1% this fiscal year citing supply-chain disruptions from the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March, the strengthening of the yen and the European debt crisis. ?Moreover, S&P said in November that Japan might be close to a downgrade. ?After?a sovereign debt downgrade to Aa3 by Moody's in August, 2011, it'd be hard pressed to think Japanese?bond buyers would shrug off yet another credit downgrade. ?
Burgeoning debt, coupled with the global and domestic economic slowdown, and continuing political turmoil (Japan has had three Prime Ministers in the last two years, and the current PM Noda?s popularity has fallen since he took office in September), would suggest it is unlikely that Japan could continue to self-contain its debt.
It looks like its massive debt could finally catch up with Japan in the midst the sovereign debt crisis that's making a world tour right now. ?While some investors might see Japan as a bargain, it remains to be seen whether the country will continue beating the odds of a debt crisis.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/EconMatters/~3/TIJNwGPhjtA/debt-crisis-2012-forget-europe-check.html
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Salad-bar strategy: The battle of the buffet
Continue reading page |1 |2
Competition, greed and skulduggery are the name of the game if you want to eat your fill. Smorgasbord behaviour is surprisingly complex
A mathematician, an engineer and a psychologist go up to a buffet? No, it's not the start of a bad joke.
While most of us would dive into the sandwiches without thinking twice, these diners see a groaning table as a welcome opportunity to advance their research.
Look behind the salads, sausage rolls and bite-size pizzas and it turns out that buffets are a microcosm of greed, sexual politics and altruism - a place where our food choices are driven by factors we're often unaware of. Understand the science and you'll see buffets very differently next time you fill your plate.
The story starts with Lionel Levine of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Katherine Stange of Stanford University, California. They were sharing food at a restaurant one day, and wondered: do certain choices lead to tastier platefuls when food must be divided up? You could wolf down everything in sight, of course, but these guys are mathematicians, so they turned to a more subtle approach: game theory.
Applying mathematics to a buffet is harder than it sounds, so they started by simplifying things. They modelled two people taking turns to pick items from a shared platter - hardly a buffet, more akin to a polite tapas-style meal. It was never going to generate a strategy for any occasion, but hopefully useful principles would nonetheless emerge. And for their bellies, the potential rewards were great.
First they assumed that each diner would have individual preferences. One might place pork pie at the top and beetroot at the bottom, for example, while others might salivate over sausage rolls. That ranking can be plugged into calculations by giving each food item a score, where higher-ranked foods are worth more points. The most enjoyable buffet meal would be the one that scores highest in total.
In some scenarios, the route to the most enjoyable plate was straightforward. If both people shared the same rankings, they should pick their favourites first. But Levine and Stange also uncovered a counter-intuitive effect: it doesn't always pay to take the favourite item first. To devise an optimum strategy, they say, you should take into account what your food rival considers to be the worst food on the table.
If that makes your brow furrow, consider this: if you know your fellow diner hates chicken legs, you know that can be the last morsel you aim to eat - even if it's one of your favourites. In principle, if you had full knowledge of your food rival's preferences, it would be possible to work backwards from their least favourite and identify the optimum order in which to fill your plate, according to the pair's calculations, which will appear in American Mathematical Monthly (arxiv.org/abs/1104.0961).
So how do you know what to select first? In reality, the buffet might be long gone before you had worked it out. Even if you did, the researchers' strategy also assumes that you are at a rather polite buffet, taking turns, so it has its limitations. However, it does provide practical advice in some scenarios. For example, imagine Amanda is up against Brian, who she knows has the opposite ranking of tastes to her. Amanda loves sausages, hates pickled onions, and is middling about quiche. Brian loves pickled onions, hates sausages, shares the same view of quiche. Having identified that her favourites are safe, Amanda should prioritise morsels where their taste-ranking matched - the quiche, in other words.
Not surprisingly, Levine and Stange found their two-person buffet strategy didn't work when they applied it to a scenario with more people. Even so, they found that rushing into grabbing favourites is not always advisable. This time, however, they modelled two general approaches: the "boorish lout" who would always pick their favourite food and the "gallant knight" who makes selections that take into account the enjoyment of others as well as their own. They found that if any of the diners act boorish, everybody ends up with a less satisfying meal than if every person acts gallantly (arxiv.org/abs/1110.2712). So it can pay to be altruistic - but not if there are any selfish diners.
Indeed, sometimes the only way to satisfy an appetite at a buffet is to pile your plate high while you can - and here's where some engineering know-how can apply.
Software engineer Shen Hongrui, who lives in Beijing, China, found a way to fit an astonishing amount of food into one dish: piles reaching up to a metre tall. Shen had noticed that patrons of the salad buffet in Pizza Hut were asked to follow the rule: "one bowl, one visit". So he worked out how to build towers from salad items, and so maximise his haul. He even, with tongue firmly in cheek, published equations, diagrams and instructions online so others could repeat the feat.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Winter League suspends Torrealba
While playing in the Venezuelan winter league last week Rangers catcher Yorvit Torrealba attacked the home plate umpire following a strikeout, screaming in his face and then shoving his head.
You can see the incident for yourself in this video.
Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said yesterday that the team was looking into the situation, but in the meantime the Venezuelan winter league has suspended Torrealba for 66 games, which amounts to the rest of this winter league season and all of next season.
Torrealba, who?s under contract with the Rangers for $3.25 million in 2012, could still face further discipline from MLB.
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What to look for at NKorea funeral for Kim Jong Il (AP)
Wailing and sobbing, mourners beat their chests and dropped to their knees as North Korean President Kim Il Sung's hearse crawled through the streets of Pyongyang in 1994, draped with a red flag and bedecked with white magnolias.
But even as they cried out on a hot summer's day for the leader they called "Father," they began pledging their loyalty to his son, leader-in-waiting Kim Jong Il, who cut a solemn and somber figure in a dark blue suit, a black band wrapped around his left arm.
Same setting, different season: Similar shows of grief are expected when North Korea lays Kim Jong Il to rest in a winter chill during two days of funeral ceremonies on Wednesday and Thursday. As in 1994, the events will be watched closely for clues to who will gain power and who will fall out of favor under the next leader, his son Kim Jong Un.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jean H. Lee, the Associated Press bureau chief for Korea, has made 11 trips to North Korea since 2008, including eight visits this year.
---
This state funeral, however, is also likely to bear the hallmarks of Kim Jong Il's rule, including more of a military presence for the man who elevated the armed forces as part of his "songun," or "military first," policy.
Kim, who has been lying in state since he died Dec. 17, celebrated major occasions with lavish, meticulously choreographed parades designed to show off the nation's military might, such as the October 2010 display when he introduced his son and anointed successor to the world.
"A display of weapons may also be a way to demonstrate that the military remains loyal to the succession process," said Ahn Chan-il of the World Institute for North Korea Studies in South Korea. "There may even be a small-scale military parade involving airplanes."
Like his father was in 1994, Kim Jong Un has been stoic in a dark blue Mao-style suit in mourning period appearances at Kim Jong Il's bier ? but so far without the black armband that Kim Jong Il wore at the funeral to mark him as head mourner.
He has also shown a flair for mixing politics with public occasion: By meeting Monday with a delegation of South Korean mourners led by a former first lady, the leadership is sending a clear message to Seoul that it is open to improving relations after years of animosity.
Kim Jong Un would have been a boy when his grandfather died, and there's no sign of the young Kim in footage of the 1994 funeral. But it's clear from footage of him during the mourning period for his father that he has seen and studied the scene inside the presidential palace and is well-schooled in the behavior expected as heir to the nation's leader.
The funeral in 1994 is likely to serve as the template for this week's events.
At the time, details about Kim Il Sung's funeral in a country largely isolated from the West were shrouded in mystery, revealed only after state TV aired segments of the events in what was the world's best glimpse of the hidden communist nation. Most foreigners aside from those living in North Korea were shut out, and the same is expected this week.
Back then, the formation of the funeral committee was examined closely for signs of who was expected to rise in power in the post-Kim Il Sung era; likewise, observers dissected the 232 names on last week's list to see who was still in favor.
When Kim Il Sung died, it was unclear whether North Korea would hew to traditional Korean mourning rites or follow rituals seen elsewhere in the communist world.
According to the official account of Kim Il Sung's death, what appeared to the world as North Korean ritual was a highly personal response by Kim Jong Il, who is credited by his official biography with choreographing every detail of the funeral.
The biography says there was discussion about where to bring Kim Il Sung's body, and it was the son who proposed turning the massive assembly hall where his father worked for 20 years into a public place of mourning ? and then, a year later, into a permanent shrine where his embalmed body still lies.
Kim Jong Il's biography also gives him credit for turning the funeral into a "scene of immortalizing the leader" and for breaking tradition by picking a smiling image of the late president taken in 1986 instead of the somber image typical for Korean funerals.
To this day, portraits of Kim Il Sung that hang in every building and on the lapels of nearly all North Koreans show a smiling Kim Il Sung. And since his death, pictures of Kim Jong Il erected at mourning sites across the nation show him beaming as well.
The official biography says Kim Jong Il picked one of his father's neckties for the body and ordered the portrait bedecked with magnolias, the national flower, not traditional black ribbon. He arranged for the coffin to be transported in the black sedan Kim used as president, rather than a gun carriage or armored car, and called for the "Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung" to be played in lieu of a dirge, his biography says.
After the closed-door funeral, footage shows Kim leaving the hall and standing on a dais sheathed in red, surveying the scene alongside top party and military officials as the black Lincoln Continental bearing his father's body departs the palace grounds to a military salute.
A car with Kim's massive portrait ringed with white magnolias led the motorcade, followed by the hearse bearing the president's body, and then a phalanx of police in white helmets riding on motorcycles in a "V" formation.
Kim Jong Il and other members of the funeral committee followed slowly behind in sedans. Soldiers in jeeps flanked the procession.
Through the streets of Pyongyang the procession went, from the Kumsusan Assembly Hall where official accounts say Kim died to the central square that bears his name, and eventually back to the vast palace where his body lies in state.
North Koreans lined the streets and filled the air with theatrical wails, many of the women in traditional black Korean dresses and white mourning ribbons affixed to their hair.
The procession reached Kim Il Sung Square, where hundreds of thousands of mourners were waiting, and the hearse circled the square again before returning to the assembly hall for a gun salute.
A similar procession may be in the works for Wednesday, but with the late leader's trademark red "kimjongilia" begonias replacing the magnolias, and snow and frost as a backdrop.
But the funeral for Kim Jong Il, who made it state policy to revere Kim Il Sung as North Korea's "eternal" president, probably will not outdo that for his father, some said.
"Kim Jong Il's funeral will likely be similar to Kim Il Sung's. But it doesn't mean that the majesty and dignity of Kim Jong Il's funeral will exceed those of Kim Il Sung's," said Prof. Jeong Jin-gook of the Daejeon Health Sciences College in South Korea. "Kim Il Sung still remains the most respected among North Koreans."
Kim Jong Il observed a three-year period of mourning for his father ? a decision harking back to Korean tradition.
Mourning rites have evolved over the decades. In South Korea, most people observe a three- or five-day mourning period. But few families receive mourners at home anymore; South Korea has a thriving and organized network of mourning facilities at hospitals where everything from the mourning clothes to the food and drinks offered to visitors can be arranged for a fee.
In North Korea, a streamlined, three-day mourning period is typical, and most workers are given three days paid leave for the death of a family member, according to the Korea Institute for National Unification in South Korea.
Before the peninsula's 1945 division, some Koreans mourned the loss of a parent for up to two years, according to Prof. Lim Jae-hae, a folklorist at Andong National University in South Korea.
Kim Jong Il may have put his personal stamp on his father's funeral in 1994, but so far Kim Jong Un is sticking to tradition. From the blue suit to the solemn bows before the begonia-bedecked bier, the young leader-in-waiting has closely followed his father's cues.
Still, he is credited with one directive that wasn't in Kim Jong Il's biography but will no doubt serve as fodder for his: He instructed the city to keep mourners lined up in subzero temperatures warm with hot water and tea.
___
Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee at twitter.com/newsjean.
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Device warns of catastrophic failure in lithium-ion batteries, robots celebrate
"Catastrophic lithium-ion battery failure" are five words Malfunctioning Eddie never wants to hear, and may not have to, thanks to a new sensor developed by the folks at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Despite the popularity of lithium-ion batteries in everything from consumer electronics to hybrid and electric vehicles, they have been associated with a phenomenon called "thermal runaway" -- known to cause overheating and potentially, fire. The newly developed device measures the electrical parameter of the cell, which is an indicator of whether the internal layer temperatures are getting too toasty. The best part? The warning comes before the heat can reach the surface and cause catastrophic failure, perhaps saving our electronics from a fate like the one in the video after the break.
Continue reading Device warns of catastrophic failure in lithium-ion batteries, robots celebrate
Device warns of catastrophic failure in lithium-ion batteries, robots celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NORAD Santa trackers having record holiday
FILE - In this Dec. 24, 2010 file photo, volunteers take phone calls and answer emails at the Santa Tracking Operations Center at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colo. Santa is already piling up monster numbers on social networking sites this season, so the volunteer Santa-trackers at NORAD are bracing for tens of thousands of calls and emails when their operations center goes live on Christmas Eve. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 24, 2010 file photo, volunteers take phone calls and answer emails at the Santa Tracking Operations Center at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colo. Santa is already piling up monster numbers on social networking sites this season, so the volunteer Santa-trackers at NORAD are bracing for tens of thousands of calls and emails when their operations center goes live on Christmas Eve. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 24, 2010 file photo, Air Force Lt. Col. David Hanson, of Chicago, takes a phone call from a child in Florida at the Santa Tracking Operations Center at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colo. Santa is already piling up monster numbers on social networking sites this season, so the volunteer Santa-trackers at NORAD are bracing for tens of thousands of calls and emails when their operations center goes live on Christmas Eve. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
DENVER (AP) ? Santa's piling up more than presents this year. The big man's trackers at NORAD say Santa Claus is also breaking records this Christmas Eve.
Volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 4,000 calls an hour Saturday morning, on pace to break a record. Also, Santa's NORAD Facebook page exceeded 840,000 "likes" by midmorning. Last year, Santa had 716,000 "likes."
Volunteers at NORAD Tracks Santa said kids started calling at 4 a.m. Saturday to find out where Santa was.
"The phones are ringing like crazy," Lt. Cmdr. Bill Lewis said Saturday.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been telling anxious children about Santa's whereabouts every year since 1955. That was the year a Colorado Springs newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa on a hotline, but the number had a typo, and dozens of kids wound up talking to the Continental Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD's predecessor.
The officers on duty played along and began sharing reports on Santa's progress. It's now a deep-rooted tradition at NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command that monitors the North American skies and seas from a control center at Peterson.
NORAD's Santa updates are blowing up on social media, too. In addition to the website and Facebook and Twitter pages, Santa this year has a new tracking app for smart phones. The app includes the Elf Toss, a game similar to Angry Birds.
___
Online:
http://www.noradsanta.org
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
VW gives workers a rest from Blackberry messages (Reuters)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) ? Volkswagen has agreed to grant workers in Germany a rest from e-mails relentlessly filling the inboxes of their Blackberry devices out of hours.
Europe's biggest carmaker and the body that represents its workers have agreed to have the e-mail function deactivated at night, a spokesman for the company said, confirming an earlier report in a German newspaper.
Workers will only receive e-mails from half an hour before the start of flex-time working hours until half an hour after they end, but will still be able to receive and make phone calls.
Daily Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung this week cited works council member Heinz-Joachim Thust as saying that 1,154 pay-scale employees at Volkswagen's six plants in Germany have a smartphone device furnished by the company.
The works council sought to counter any expectation that employees should be reachable all the times, thanks to their indispensable "CrackBerry" gadgets, which could heighten the risk of burnout, a psychological syndrome that some studies have said causes almost 10 million sick days a year in Germany.
So far, the response to the decision to deactivate e-mails at night has been very positive, VW's Thust told Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.
The move comes two months after millions of customers of the Blackberry -- made by Research in Motion -- were frustrated by a three-day global service disruption, showing how much many rely on continuous, reliable e-mail and instant messenger service.
Volkswagen, which has about 400,000 employees worldwide, aims to overtake Japan's Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker by 2018 by selling 10 million vehicles per year.
The group logged 7.51 million deliveries for the first 11 months of this year, after a 15 percent gain in November.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Mike Nesbit)
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Colorado State University - Pueblo baseball exhibit includes numerous special events
Colorado State University - Pueblo baseball exhibit includes numerous special events
PUEBLO ? Colorado State University-Pueblo, in association with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, will host Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience, a traveling exhibit which examines the challenges faced by African-American baseball players as they sought equal opportunities in their sport beginning in the post-Civil War era.?
The newly renovated CSU-Pueblo Library and Academic Resources Center (LARC) will host the 1,000-square-foot exhibit and numerous special events between February 9 and March 16. All showings of the exhibit and related programs will be free and open to the public.? The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has provided funding for the exhibit to travel to 50 selected libraries. Pride and Passion is based upon a permanent exhibit of the same name on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, N.Y.?
Four, free public lectures on topics associated with the exhibit as well as two videoconferences from the Baseball Hall of Fame have been planned as part of the exhibit.? Award-winning author/illustrator Kadir Nelson will present ?We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball,? at 7 p.m. on February 9 in LARC 109. More information on his book may be found at http://www.wearetheship.com/ The New York Times named the book one of the Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2008. He also was named the 2009 Coretta Scott King Book Award Recipient. You can visit www.kadirnelson.com for more information on the author.
On February 16 and March 8, special videoconferences will be broadcast from the Baseball Hall of Fame at 5 p.m. in LARC 108.? The February 16 videoconference is titled, ?Civil Rights: Before You could Say Jackie Robinson,? while the March 8 video conference will focus on cultural diversity in baseball.
Two special events will focus on ethnic Colorado baseball leagues. Colorado baseball historian Jay Sanford, an area baseball historian who consulted on "Baseball," Ken Burns' 1994 PBS documentary, will share his collection and research on the Denver Post Tournament, which broke ground in 1936, when black and white teams played one another, beginning at 7 p.m. on February 23 in LARC 109. Gabriel and Jody Lopez, authors of From Sugar to Diamonds: Mexican/Spanish Baseball, 1925-1969, Stories of the Greeley Grays and the Teams that Dared to Challenge Them, will discuss their research and collection about the Greeley Grays, a minor league team composed primarily of Hispanic men who worked the sugar beet fields, at 7 p.m. on March 8 in LARC 109. The Greeley Grays became one of the premiere teams in the Northern Colorado Baseball League.
On March 1, Adrian Burgos, author of ?Cuban Star,? will discuss the life of Negro League team owner Alex Pompez, a proud and passionate advocate for Latino players, at 7 p.m. in the Occhiato University Center Ballroom. Pompez rose to prominence during Latino baseball?s earliest glory days, but like many in the era of segregated baseball, he found that the game alone could never make all ends meet, and he delved headlong into the seedier side of the sport?gambling?to help finance his beloved team, the New York Cubans. He also brought the Cubans, with their incredible lineup of international players, to a Negro League World Series Championship in 1947 and later helped his players make the transition to the majors. That today?s rosters are filled with names like Rodriguez, Pujols, Rivera, and Ortiz is a testament to the influence of Pompez and his contemporaries.
The final event associated with the exhibit will occur on March 12 and feature Drs. Lawrence Hogan and Robert Cvornyek, both nationally recognized baseball scholars, presenting ?If It Ain?t Got That Swing,? a tribute to black baseball and music in the Jim Crow Era. Their appearances, as well as Kadir Nelson?s, are possible through a $5,000 grant from Colorado Humanities and CSU-Pueblo Diversity Initiatives Grants.
For more information on local events, contact Julie Fronmueller, assistant professor of library services and exhibit coordinator, at 549-2826 or julie.fronmueller@colostate-pueblo.edu.
A complete list of events follows:
???? 
???? February 16, Videoconference from the Baseball Hall of Fame,? "Civil Rights: Before You Could Say 'Jackie Robinson, ? 5 p.m., LARC 108
???? February 23, Jay Sanford, ?Denver Post Tournament? and Colorado Baseball, 7 p.m., LARC 109
???? March 8, videoconference from the Baseball Hall of Fame, cultural diversity in baseball, 5 p.m., LARC 108
???? March 1, Adrian Burgos, author of ?Cuban Star, ? 7 p.m., OUC Ballroom,
???? March 8, Gabriel and Jody Lopez, authors of? ?From Sugar to Diamonds, ? 7 p.m.,? LARC 109
???? March 12, Closing Event, Drs. Lawrence Hogan and Robert Cvornyek,? ?If It Ain?t Got That Swing: Black Baseball and Music in the Jim Crow Era,? 7 p.m., LARC 109
ABOUT THE EXHIBIT: The traveling exhibition is composed of colorful freestanding panels featuring photographs of teams, players, original documents and artifacts in the collections of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and in other institutions and collections across the
U.S. The traveling exhibition content is arranged in six thematic sections, a breakdown that separates the story into cohesive chronological sections and allows flexibility to participating libraries in the display of the exhibition.?
1.??? Finding a Way in Hard Times (1860-1887)
2.??? Barnstorming on the Open Road (1887-1919)
3.??? Separate Leagues, Parallel Lives (1920-1932)
4.??? Paving the Way to Integration (1933-1946)
5.??? Signposts for Opportunity (1947-1959)
6.??? Baseball?s Post-Integration Era (1959-present)
Through a cultural timeline of American history that will be part of the ?Pride and Passion? exhibit, visitors will be able to place the African American baseball story into the larger context of American history.? For more information about the exhibit, visit www.ala.org/publicprograms.
Source: http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/Communications/Media/PressReleases/2011/Pages/12-16-2011.aspx
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Posted: 4:51pm, 22 December 2011
JLR shuns Detroit in favour of New Delhi
Jaguar Land Rover is to miss the mighty Detroit Auto Show in January in favour of New Delhi's AutoExpo. This is a move that is not really surprising but still reveals a lot about the shifting trends within the automotive world.??JLR's two brands are both owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, and have confirmed that they will focus their efforts on showcasing models to the Indian market at the 11th annual AutoExpo show, the largest car show in India.??The decision, while understandable, must be a blow to the organisers of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, which widely regarded as one of the world's most important car shows despite a difficult economic climate for automobile manufacture in the US. The NAIAS starts on January 9, while the Indian AutoExpo 2012 starts two days earlier on January 7 and runs until January 11 in New Delhi, India. More information at www.autoexpo.in click here for Auto Expo India click here for full events listing Words: JC |
 Jaguar Land Rover is to miss the mighty Detroit Auto Show in January in favour of New Delhi's AutoExpo |
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Source: http://www.lro.com/news.php?sid=1114
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
'Prometheus' Teaser Trailer: A New 'Alien' Threat
"Prometheus" isn't an "Alien" prequel, you say? Sure fooled me ? because the just released trailer for director Ridley Scott's long awaited return to the science fiction arena looks exactly like a continuation of his 1979 horror masterpiece, in the very best of ways.
The trailer, which hit the web today, is a teaser in the [...]
The trailer, which hit the web today, is a teaser in the [...]
Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/12/22/prometheus-teaser-trailer/
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Breast Reduction Surgery Can Save Lives and Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Video: BMW vs. Mercedes
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45757328/
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
Santa swapped for Father Frost at Denmark park
Courtesy of Harriet Baskas
The Russian-themed Christmas town inside Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen, Denmark.
By Harriet Baskas, msnbc.com contributor
This year, the traditional red-suited Santa Claus will not be in his sleigh greeting children at Tivoli, the amusement park that opened in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark in 1843.
Instead, the world?s second oldest amusement park, with annual attendance topping 3.7 million in 2010, is hosting Santa?s Russian counterpart, Father Frost. He dresses in bluish colors and adheres to the familiar holiday program with a white beard and a penchant for distributing presents.
Why the Santa-switch?
For the past 18 years Tivoli, which is traditionally closed for the fall and winter, has opened during November and December all decked out in its Christmas best.
This year, a temporary Russian-themed town has been set up inside Tivoli. Built at the cost of $10 million Danish krone (about $1.75 million in U.S. dollars), it is inspired by building styles popular in the Czarist days and includes onion domes and towers that are lit-up at night.?
Inside Tivoli?s version of St. Basil's Cathedral (the popular attraction on Moscow?s Red Square) visitors can ride a miniature Trans-Siberian railway that takes them through Russian landscapes, passing pixies, choirs and sparkling Faberg? eggs along the way.
?Events create unique experiences and attract tourists,? Lars Bernhard J?rgensen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen said in a statement, ?and with the new Tivoli initiative the tourists get even more good reasons to visit Copenhagen in the wintertime.? That includes the increasing number of tourists who are making a stop in Copenhagen as part of a Christmas cruise.
Tivoli is closed on December 24th and 25th, but festivities pick up again on the 26th, when the first of a five-night fireworks festival kicks off.??
Related stories:
Find more by Harriet Baskas on?StuckatTheAirport.com?and follow her on Twitter.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Obama prods GOP on payroll tax cut (AP)
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama accepted a move by Senate Democrats to scale back his Social Security payroll tax cut extension on Monday, then prodded Republicans to support it despite a requirement for the very wealthy to pay more taxes.
Obama also called on lawmakers to renew a program of extended unemployment benefits due to expire on Dec. 31. He said the checks, which kick in after six months of joblessness, are "the last line of defense between hardship and catastrophe" for some victims of the recession and a painfully slow recovery.
The president made his remarks at the White House as Republicans and Democrats in Congress said a holiday-season package was beginning to come into focus that could cost $180 billion or more over a decade. Elements include not only the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefit renewals, but also a provision to avert a threatened 27 percent reduction in fees to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
While there are differences over the details of the three principal components ? many Republicans are reluctant to extend the tax cut ? there is at least as much disagreement between senior lawmakers in the two political parties over ways to cover the cost so deficits don't rise.
Officials said that to offset the two-year, $38 billion price tag of the Medicare provision, House Republicans want to cut funds from the year-old health care legislation that stands as Obama's signature domestic policy accomplishment. Some Democrats want instead to count defense funds approved but unspent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ? a proposal that many GOP lawmakers deem an accounting gimmick.
The Medicare proposal enjoys strong popularity among lawmakers in both parties. House Republican leaders signaled last week they intend to include it in the overall package as a sweetener for members of the party's rank and file who are unhappy at the prospect of extending the payroll tax cut.
GOP critics say there is no evidence that the current tax cut has helped create jobs, and also say they fear the impact of a renewal on the deficit and on the fund that pays Social Security benefits. A majority of Republican senators voted last week against a plan backed by their own leadership to extend the cut.
But Obama noted House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said that the renewal would help the economy, and said the party's Senate leaders had made similar comments.
"I couldn't agree more. And I hope that the rest of their Republican colleagues come around and join Democrats to pass these tax cuts and put money back into the pockets of working Americans," the president said.
Obama also added, "I know many Republicans have sworn an oath never to raise taxes as long as they live. How could it be that the only time there's a catch is when it comes to raising taxes on middle-class families? How can you fight tooth and nail to protect high-end tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and yet barely lift a finger to prevent taxes going up for 160 million Americans who really need the help?"
He spoke as Senate Democrats unveiled revisions that cut the cost of the administration's proposal by one-third, to an estimated $179 billion. As rewritten, it deepens the current Social Security payroll tax cut and extends it until the end of 2012, but jettisons Obama's request to give businesses relief at the same time.
Republicans were critical despite the changes.
"Frankly, the only thing bipartisan about this latest political gambit is opposition to the permanent tax hike on small businesses to pay for temporary one-year tax policy," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Republicans often refer to the proposal as a tax increase on small business owners in hopes of recasting Democratic claims that it would fall on "millionaires and billionaires."
Advanced by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., the revised proposal also scales back the surtax on seven-figure earners that Democrats had originally proposed to cover the bill's entire cost, from 3.25 percent to 1.9 percent.
Also included are higher fees for consumers whose mortgages are from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as a GOP proposal from last week to make sure millionaires don't receive unemployment benefits or food stamps.
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this story.
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Samsung teases flexible, transparent display in concept video
Samsung's flexible display technology isn't slated to hit the market until 2012, but the Korean manufacturer is already giving us a glimpse of how it may transform our lives, with a freshly released concept video. Yes, it's just a concept ad, and a relatively brief one at that, but it still paints a pretty mouth-watering portrait -- one full of transparent, flexible screens, smartphone-tablet hybrids, and augmented reality. Check it out for yourself, after the break.
Continue reading Samsung teases flexible, transparent display in concept video
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Plasma-based treatment goes viral
Monday, December 5, 2011
Life-threatening viruses such as HIV, SARS, hepatitis and influenza, could soon be combatted in an unusual manner as researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of plasma for inactivating and preventing the replication of adenoviruses.
When exposed to plasma ? the fourth state of matter in addition to solids, liquids and gases ? for a period of just 240 seconds, it was found that only one in a million viruses could still replicate ? practically all were inactivated.
The study, published in IOP Publishing's Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, is one of the first to concentrate specifically on viruses and builds on research that has already shown the usefulness of plasma in eradicating bacteria from skin and sterilising water.
Within a hospital environment, a plasma generating device could realistically rid hands of potentially lethal viruses that relay on a host organism to replicate and spread. In the long-term, plasma could be inhaled directly to treat viruses in the lungs, or applied to blood outside of the body to remove any viruses before transfusion.
The researchers, from the Max-Planck Institut f?r extraterrestrische Physik and Technische Universit?t M?nchen, specifically chose adenoviruses to examine as they are one of the most difficult viruses to inactivate. Illnesses resulting from this specific virus, for example, can only be managed by treating symptoms and complications of the infection, rather than targeting the actual virus itself.
Adenoviruses predominantly cause respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia and bronchitis and are hard to inactivate as the whole virus is encased in a protein layer, helping it to remain physically stable and tolerate moderate increases in heat and pH.
In this study, the adenoviruses were diluted to specific concentrations and then exposed to plasma for 240 seconds, before being incubated for an hour. A control group of adenoviruses were given the exact same treatment apart from the plasma exposure.
Two separate cell lines were then infected with the two sets of adenoviruses: the ones that were treated with plasma and the control group. To test whether a cell had the virus or not, the researchers programmed the virus to produce a protein that fluoresced green when a specific type of light was shone onto it.
Whilst the exact mechanisms behind the plasma's impressive effects are relatively unknown, it is thought that they are a result of a combination of reactions between the plasma and surrounding air, which create similar species to the ones found in our own immune system when under microbial attack.
###
'Effects of cold atmospheric plasmas on adenovirus in solution' (J L Zimmermann et al 2011 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 44 505201)
Institute of Physics: http://www.iop.org
Thanks to Institute of Physics for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115719/Plasma_based_treatment_goes_viral
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Tensions rise in Guyana as vote counting drags on
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) ? Tensions ran high in Guyana's capital on Wednesday as electoral officials slowly counted paper ballots two days after an apparently tight national election in the South American country.
Opposition parties alleged voting irregularities in various districts, while the governing People's Progressive Party claimed victory even though no partial returns had been announced.
The streets of the capital of Georgetown were largely empty after lunch Wednesday as many people went home, apparently worried about possible confrontations among competing street protests.
There was no obvious front-runner in Monday's presidential and parliamentary races because no independent opinion polls were conducted before the vote.
Electoral commission chairman Steve Surujbally gathered the leaders of the contesting parties and coalitions Wednesday to assure them that the counting process "has not (been) compromised in any way, shape or form" and to appeal for calm.
Surujbally said the commission hoped to announce results soon, after double-checking and certifying votes.
The lack of even partial counts increasingly frustrated citizens, candidates and international observers.
"These delays can only undermine confidence in the electoral process and fuel speculation by interveners who may wish to take advantage of the situation," the observer mission for the Organization of American States state in a statement Wednesday.
Retired army commander David Granger, who leads the Partnership For National Unity coalition, warned that delays in announcing results could lead to an "imminent security crisis."
Granger and coalition partners met with the electoral commission warning it not to allow or condone "any secret swearing in" ? a reference to 1997 when Janet Jagan was sworn in as Guyana's leader at a private ceremony, sparking rioting and looting by political opponents.
The campaign manager for the governing party, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, said his candidates were at a loss to know why the elections commission had not declared final results.
"We know we have won and they know it, too. We are not sure why they are not releasing the results," he told The Associated Press.
Persaud said he believed his party won about 53 percent of the votes, which would give it the presidency and control of the 65-seat parliament. He didn't say what he based that estimate on.
Rupert Roopnarine, the Partnership For National Unity's candidate for prime minister, said the coalition had seen nothing that would "point to a PPP victory" and it was "unlikely to accept any results showing such a scenario."
Nearly a half million people were eligible to cast ballots in Guyana, a small country on South America's northern shoulder whose economy depends on the export of commodities such as gold, bauxite, sugar, rice, shrimp and timber.
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Tom Hayden: Los Angeles Shows an Alternative Approach to Occupy
Compared with the brutal police crackdowns against the Occupy movement in New York City, Oakland and even the pacific Davis campus of the University of California, the Los Angeles eviction last night was almost entirely peaceful. The question is, why?
One reason was the leadership of the liberal Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who ordered the eviction but also no beatings, tear-gassing or police violence. Another was the leadership of the Los Angeles Police Department, eager to show a new approach after years of controversy. The City Council came out early in support. Organized labor and local clergy joined the Occupiers and insisted the mayor do the right thing. And the Occupiers themselves adhered to a code of non-violence in an effort to keep the focus on Wall Street.
But to believe the writer Naomi Wolf, who was arrested during one of the New York protests, the Occupy movement inevitably faced a brutal crackdown because of its threat to the status quo. Wolf has written in the UK's Guardian that the recent crackdowns on Occupy in multiple cities have been a coordinated conspiracy between local officials, police, the FBI and Homeland Security. As evidence, she points to conference calls between officials and police in 18 cities that preceded the raids. She claims that a "shocking truth" behind the crackdown is the vested interest of Congress in protecting its own insider stock dealings on Wall Street. In one passage, Wolf accuses the White House of blessing the "war on peaceful protesters."
Wolf is not entirely off the mark. But her monolithic conspiracy model needs more investigation and cannot explain the case of Los Angeles.
There is no doubt that the conference calls were conducted, and public records act requests may yet shed light on what was said. The mayor of Los Angeles was not on those calls, and says he didn't want to be.
What is na?ve in the Wolf analysis is her notion that crackdowns coordinated by the FBI are new with the advent of Occupy Wall Street. Since the 1999 Seattle protests, the involvement of the FBI with local police has followed a repeated pattern. First, an FBI counter-terrorism task force warns local officials, media and the public that thousands of masked "anarchists" will be invading their cities to break the law, fight the police, break windows and destroy property. They then advise that all protesters be literally fenced into protest cages. To sweeten the coordination, tens of thousands of federal dollars are offered to local police forces for "security" (acquisition of the latest in gas grenades, launchers, surveillance cameras, even paper shredders in one case). Young people and their convergence centers are targeted for prior detention, with the assistance of informants and provocateurs.
The list of cities where this has occurred is a long one, starting with Seattle: Los Angeles (2000 DNC), Washington D.C. (2000 IMF/World Bank, 2002 anti-war/IMF/World Bank), Genoa (2001 G8), Quebec City (2001 FTAA), Oakland (2003 anti-war), Miami (2003 FTAA), New York (2003 anti-war, 2004 RNC), Minneapolis-St. Paul (2008 RNC), Denver (2008 DNC), to list only the most dramatic and recent. None of these are remembered in Wolf's inflated narrative, as if the Occupy movement has been unique in provoking the ruling class to order up repression.
Of course there were earlier eras of FBI-backed repression, deportations, and localized violence. But the current cycle began with Seattle and has morphed into the larger "war on terrorism."
There was one exception to this recent pattern: Mexico's handling of the anti-WTO protests held in Cancun in 2003. Instead of following the FBI's script, Mexico decided to de-escalate the police response, perhaps to protect Cancun's tourist economy, perhaps to improve their security forces' tattered reputation. It was quite remarkable to observe. In spite provocations by the so-called Black Bloc, in spite of protesters taking over the streets, in spite of a horrific ritual suicide by a South Korean farmer, the police and army remained largely disengaged or passive. When they arrested one group for sitting in an intersection, they placed them on an air-conditioned bus, which drove them back to the protest site.
The lesson that was driven home for me in Cancun is that the police, and those who dictate their policy, have enormous discretion over whether a confrontation turns violent. It mostly depends on what image they want to project. That is, it depends on politics.
To return to the case Los Angeles, I am not arguing in favor of the Mayor's eviction order. There was no particular reason for the order to be imposed last night. Left alone, the Occupiers might have decided on their own that it was time to move on. Or they might have descended into negative feuding and folded their tents. There was a serious risk in forcing them out of their encampment. Nor do I believe the mayor bowed to pressure from downtown property owners to clear the encampment. His own explanation as an elected official makes more sense: that sooner or later, an incident would occur at the encampment -- a death, a rape, a fight -- for which he would be held accountable politically.
But the way the LA eviction has been handled so far is a very important achievement for a city plagued by fifty years of police scandals, brutality, corruption, and court-ordered reforms. Only four years ago the LAPD's fabled Metro Division went wild and trampled peaceful protesters and media at a huge immigrant rights rally. The LAPD still stops and frisks hundreds of thousands of inner city youth each year, a potential scandal that is so far invisible.
Under the direction of the mayor and Chief Charlie Beck, however, the LAPD officers last night were as "tactful" as could be, in the phrase one Occupy sympathizer who works at City Hall.
Once considered an "occupying army" projecting a threat against the least disturbance, the LAPD allowed Occupy LA to co-opt their former brand.
The Occupy movement also showed an evolution in thinking about street tactics. A decade ago, the phrase "diversity of tactics" allowed a range of actions from strict nonviolence to "fucking shit up," as certain anarchist factions used to say. Experience showed that such "diversity" only allowed the most violent sensational tactics to dominate the media narrative, despite being employed by a tiny handful of activists (and provocateurs, in some cases).
So far the clearances in LA have been peaceful. Yesterday morning (Monday) the mayor met with a delegation of inter-faith leaders who have been joining the occupiers for several weeks. The clergy communiqu? from the meeting commended Chief Beck for "the restraint shown so far by the LAPD," and made a "commitment to sustain the Occupy presence and message in LA going forward," including a promise by the Mayor to use his "bully pulpit" as head of the National Conference of Mayors to push the major themes of the national Occupy movement:
"the need to halt the avalanche of home foreclosures, the need to reverse corporate 'personhood', the need to fully enforce the Dodd-Frank law, and the need to gain needed federal and state tax revenue to support municipal services in LA and throughout the nation."
The dire scenario painted by Wolf in the international media does not tell the story of Los Angeles, where a crack of hope has been opened after one of the country's longest occupations.
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Follow Tom Hayden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TomEHayden
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/occupy-los-angeles_b_1117812.html
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