Thursday, January 31, 2013

Town and Country Living: Making a Choice for Health and Fitness

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about my health. No, there's nothing wrong ... at least, that I know of anyway. I've been exercising since my early twenties when I started havin' babies and I've kind of been slacking off since summer, running a few miles off and on but not running on a regular, disciplined basis like I normally do. I haven't been paying as close attention to what I put in my mouth, either.

The combination of not exercising regularly and not eating as good as I should

has left me feeling lethargic, sometimes irritable, and has even affected my ability to sleep well.

Well that's all about to change. Big Time! I just signed up to run a marathon.

I've already run a few marathons so it's not new territory for me.

But knowing that 26.2 miles lie ahead of you, you realize you can't be a slacker.

The training has to be done ... and your food needs to be healthy in order to support the training.

The best way I know to motivate myself is to sign up for a competitive event like this.

My daughter signed up with me and this will be her first marathon.

That may seem like a long time from now, but I need to train just to get ready for the training!

So this week I've gotten back into a running routine and am eating much better.

I do believe a lot of our health problems stem from poor choices we make with food and exercise.

So as I grow older, I'm ever more aware of choices that affect my health.

I need to lose at least 10 pounds before marathon day ... so the journey begins!

I'm sure I'll be writing about this from time to time on my blog between now and race day.

I'm looking forward to it and glad I made a healthy choice before the situation got out of hand.

Do you have any health or fitness goals this year? It's never too late to start!

Linking Up to ...

Source: http://townandcountryliving.blogspot.com/2013/01/making-choice-for-health-and-fitness.html

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Crysis 3 player complains of SLI issues, Crytek says ?buy a 360 ...

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You know when a joke goes too far that it becomes simply offensive?

Here?s an example of that. Imagine paying hundreds of dollars to buy an expensive gaming rig and expecting something to work only to be told to buy something else instead.

Crysis 3 beta just came out today, and some PC players have been having troubles running the game on SLI.

A gamer was not able to get SLI to work and asked what to do on the?MyCrysis forums:??Haven?t been able to get SLI working. Running dual 660 Ti.?Got the beta drivers installed, added the beta game to the list, SLI is checked, r_multigpu is set to 2?What do??

A Crytek employee responded by posting, ?Buy a 360??. He later retracted his comment by saying it was a ?joke?, but it just kind of feels really unprofessional to post something like that.

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People were understandably pissed off at the reply.

?Seriously ?! such as nice support!! trolling about Crytek problem. We won?t replace our hardware because you have broken game engine, fix it!?

People can interpret the comment in different ways and some may find it?genuinely?funny. What are your thoughts on this?

Source: http://www.gamechup.com/crysis-3-player-complains-of-sli-issues-crytek-says-buy-a-360/

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The Engadget Podcast is live tonight at 5PM!

RIM? RIM. RIM RIM RIM, RIM RIM RIM RIM. RIM RIM. Some other stuff happened this week, too, but let's be honestly, we're going all RIM all the time. If you've been playing a BlackBerry-based Engadget Podcast drinking game, you're going to sit this one RIM. Out, sorry, we meant to say out. Oh, and it looks like we'll never say "RIM" again. So there's that.

Update: Sorry, guys, looks like our chat client is having some issues. We're gonna have to rely on the comments for now...

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/L6mwtc0pL5c/

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Google to continue offering Exchange ActiveSync support on Windows Phones through July 31st

Google to continue offering Exchange support on Windows Phones through July 31st

Today is the day that Google has been planning to shut off its support for Exchange ActiveSync, but it appears that the company has had a slight change of heart. Google has confirmed that it will allow Windows Phones to access Google Sync services for an additional six months, ending on July 31. This move will allow Microsoft a little extra breathing room, giving the company more time to determine how to best resolve the concern that will affect countless Gmail fans that currently use Windows Phone as their primary driver; let's hope this means the platform will be updated to offer CalDAV and CardDAV support before time runs out.

We reached out to Google and received this confirmation: "As announced last year, our plan is to end support for new device connections using Google Sync starting January 30, 2013. With the launch of CardDAV, it's now possible to build a seamless sync experience using open protocols (IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV) for Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts. We'll start rolling out this change as planned across all platforms but will continue to support Google Sync for Windows Phone until July 31, 2013."

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Via: The Verge

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/nvQcGE_6tmA/

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Caterpillar sees uncertain 2013 after tough 4Q

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? Caterpillar said on Monday that its 2013 profit could shrink if the world's economy doesn't pick up in the second half of the year, as mining companies and builders remain cautious about buying new gear.

The cloudy outlook for the year came as Caterpillar reported a fourth-quarter profit less than half as big as a year ago because of a deal in China that went bad and slower growth around most of the world.

Caterpillar Inc. is the largest maker of construction and mining equipment, so its performance rises and falls with the world's economy. It tries to predict where the economy is headed so it knows how many excavators, bulldozers, and mining trucks to build.

If recent economic improvements continue, this could be a record year for Caterpillar, its executives said. But if this year is a replay of the last two, where growth and confidence declined in the second half, "2013 could be a tough year," said Doug Oberhelman, chairman and CEO.

Caterpillar started 2012 expecting the U.S. economy to grow at least 3 percent but economists estimate annual growth was a little more than 2 percent. In April, the company was still forecasting 8.5 percent growth in China, but the world's second-largest economy expanded by 7.8 percent last year, its weakest annual performance since the 1990s.

Caterpillar dialed back production in the second half of 2012, which hurt fourth-quarter revenue and profits. Caterpillar and its dealers have both been trying to sell off inventory. Reduced production will continue at least through the first quarter, the company said.

For this year, Caterpillar expects revenue of $60 billion to $68 billion, with a profit of $7 to $9 per share. Analysts had been expecting a profit of $8.54 per share on revenue of $64.58 billion.

Caterpillar said there's a wide range in its outlook because of the high level of uncertainty in the world. It expects relatively weak growth in the U.S. economy. Growth in China will improve, but not back to the levels seen in 2010 or 2011, Caterpillar said. It expects Europe to continue to struggle.

It said first quarter revenue and profits will be "significantly lower" than the same period last year.

In the quarter ended Dec. 31, Caterpillar earned $697 million, or $1.04 per share, down from a profit of $1.55 billion, or $2.32 per share a year earlier.

The most recent quarter included a non-cash charge of 87 cents per share to write down the purchase of Zhengzhou Siwei.

Not counting the write-down and a $300 million tax benefit, Caterpillar would have earned $1.46 per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been expecting a profit of $1.69 per share.

Revenue fell 7 percent to $16.08 billion as sales fell everywhere except Latin America.

Revenue from construction equipment fell 25 percent. But sales of mining gear ? now Caterpillar's single largest category by revenue ? grew 14 percent on improvements in all regions except North America, where coal mining is in decline.

Caterpillar's $653 million purchase of Siwei in June gave it a new business ? roofing supports for mines ? in China, the world's largest coal producer.

But on Jan. 18, Caterpillar said it had found "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" in the accounting at Siwei, and said it will write down its investment in the company by $580 million. It also said it dismissed several senior managers at the company.

Oberhelman said on a conference call that new Caterpillar managers tried to reconcile Siwei's inventory with what was on the books. They found a significant discrepancy, he said, prompting a deeper investigation.

"What we discovered was deliberate, multiyear, coordinated accounting misconduct at Siwei," he said. "It was executed by several senior managers at Siwei for the purpose of inflating sales, understating costs, and over-reporting profit, and it included fabricated documentation designed to cover their tracks."

He said Caterpillar is "considering all options to recover our losses and hold those responsible accountable for their wrongdoing." He said the company wouldn't comment further on "pending or contemplated litigation."

Asked why the physical inventory at Siwei wasn't checked before the deal closed, Caterpillar Chief Financial Officer Brad Halverson said in an interview that such a check wouldn't normally be done as part of the process of evaluating a company. "We did our normal due diligence process," he said.

For all of 2012, the company's profits rose 15 percent to $5.68 billion, or $8.48 per share, up from $4.93 billion, or $7.40 per share, in 2011. Revenue rose 10 percent to $65.88 billion, from $60.14 billion.

Shares of the Peoria, Ill.-based company rose $1.40 to $96.98 in afternoon trading.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/caterpillar-sees-uncertain-2013-tough-4q-185826107--finance.html

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Boston Scientific plans job cuts, 4Q profit falls

Boston Scientific plans to cut as many as 1,000 additional jobs this year as the medical device maker expands a push to reduce operating expenses.

The Natick, Mass., company hasn't decided where additional cuts will be made, said spokesman Steven Campanini. Boston Scientific Corp. had already planned 1,200 to 1,400 job cuts as part of a restructuring plan that started in 2011. It employs roughly 24,000 people worldwide, so total cuts could amount to 10 percent of the company's jobs.

Boston Scientific expects the new round of cuts to range from 900 to 1,000 positions, and they will include layoffs as well as the elimination of unfilled positions.

The company also said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income shrank 44 percent to $60 million, or 4 cents per share, as it absorbed charges for restructuring and litigation. Not counting these charges, earnings were 18 cents per share. Revenue slipped 1 percent to $1.82 billion.

Analysts forecast, on average, earnings of 11 cents per share on $1.76 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

Boston Scientific expects to reduce annual operating expenses, before taxes, by about $340 million to $375 million by the end of this year. That includes expected savings of $100 million to $115 million from the additional restructuring measures announced Tuesday.

For the year, Boston Scientific expects adjusted earnings of 64 to 70 cents per share on revenue of $7.05 billion to $7.35 billion.

Wall Street predicted profit of 43 cents per share on revenue of $7.11 billion.

Shares rose 20 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $7.06 Tuesday before markets opened.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-scientific-plans-job-cuts-4q-profit-falls-134254721--finance.html

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Nonprofit spends big on politics despite IRS limitation - Open Channel

Philip Andrews / Roll Call Photos/Newscom

Bruce Rastetter, CEO of Hawkeye Renewables, reportedly provided some of the seed money for the American Future Fund.

By Michael BeckelThe Center for Public Integrity

Last fall, a cadre of wealthy business executives and conservative groups tried to sell California voters on new campaign finance reforms.

Couched in lofty rhetoric about the importance of cutting off money from special interests to politicians and other regulations favored by reformers, their proposal sought to ban the practice of using payroll deductions for political expenditures ? a popular method of union fundraising.

Once alerted to the true nature of Proposition 32, the unions and political left rose up against it.

An innocuously named nonprofit, the Iowa-based American Future Fund, proved to be one of the biggest backers of the initiative, sinking more than $4 million into the ballot measure that voters ultimately rejected.


As a ?social welfare? organization, the American Future Fund is not required to publicly disclose its donors. But to maintain its tax-exempt status under Sec. 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code, influencing elections cannot be its primary purpose.

The American Future Fund?s investment in California was part of a nationwide, political advertising spree in 2012 that exceeded $29 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of state and federal records.

That amount included more than $19 million on efforts designed to oust President Barack Obama, as well as millions more to oppose Democratic candidates for Congress and even two state attorneys general. Now the group is funding ads opposing Obama?s nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska for defense secretary.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court?s controversial Citizens United decision in 2010, nonprofits such as the American Future Fund have played a more prominent role in electoral contests ? all while giving their supporters the ability to keep their identities hidden. During the 2010 midterm elections, politically active nonprofits outspent super PACs, which exist to fund political advertisements, by a 3-to-2 margin.

The American Future Fund ranked third among ?social welfare? nonprofits in spending in the 2012 federal election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, trailing only the Karl Rove-affiliated Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

There are also Democratic-aligned nonprofits, but their spending was well below that of their conservative counterparts. The top left-leaning nonprofit was the League of Conservation Voters, which reported spending about $11 million in the 2012 election opposing or supporting candidates.

The American Future Fund?s spending ?raises some serious questions? and ?evades any form of meaningful disclosure,? said Adam Rappaport, senior counsel with watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Numerous officials with the American Future Fund did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Advocating for ?free-market ideas?
The American Future Fund?s mission is to ?educate and advocate for conservative and free-market ideas,? according to its annual filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Despite asserting that it isn?t primarily focused on elections, the nonprofit?s DNA is decidedly political.

Conservative political operative Nick Ryan, a longtime adviser to former GOP Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, founded it in 2007. Over the years, the group has paid Ryan?s firm, Concordia Enterprises, hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for consulting services.

In 2010, the New York Times reported that Iowa businessman Bruce Rastetter provided an unspecified amount of ?seed money? for the organization. Ryan once represented four of Rastetter?s companies as a lobbyist, including Hawkeye Energy Holdings, one of the country?s largest ethanol producers.

The nonprofit?s first president was Nicole Schlinger, the former finance director of Iowa?s Republican Party. Its current president is veteran Republican state Sen. Sandra Greiner, who served for 14 years as the Iowa chairwoman of the pro-business American Legislative Exchange Council.

Ryan and Greiner did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2008, when the American Future Fund was seeking ? and ultimately garnered ? tax-exempt status from the IRS, it pledged to abstain from electoral politics, saying it would spend 70 percent of its time doing work to ?educate the public on policy issues? and 30 percent engaging in efforts to ?influence legislation through grassroots advocacy.?

When asked on its application if the group had any plans to spend money to ?influence the selection, nomination, election or appointment? of anyone seeking public office, it answered ?no.? It also vowed to stay out of the presidential race.

When the IRS subsequently inquired why the group?s advertisements ?appear to be more partisan than nonpartisan,? the group?s attorney, Karen Blackistone, wrote that the efforts were ?strictly issued-based and nonpartisan.?

The group takes a position on issues and encourages the public to contact their representative, she wrote in a 2008 response to the IRS.

?AFF?s advertisements have never commented on a candidate?s character, qualifications or fitness for office,? she stated.

Big money tied to post office box
The American Future Fund has raised more than $60 million, with spikes in contributions coming in election years.

Much of that money has come from another conservative ?social welfare? nonprofit that doesn?t disclose its donors by name ? the Arizona-based Center to Protect Patient Rights.

The nonprofit has no website and lists its address as a post office box in Phoenix. It was launched in 2009 by Republican operative Sean Noble, who has extensive ties to the vast political network underwritten by the Koch brothers.

Noble, a former chief of staff for former Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

For three years running, Noble?s organization has reported making substantial grants to the American Future Fund for ?general support,? according to IRS filings. The nonprofit contributed more than $14 million to the American Future Fund between 2009 and 2011, or 51 percent of funds the group raised over the three-year period.

The Center to Protect Patient Rights has also given millions of dollars to a network of conservative groups, including the Koch-backed nonprofit Americans for Prosperity, as was first reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In addition to Noble, there is another Koch connection.

In 2008, Trent Sebits, the former manager of public and government affairs for the Kochs? Wichita-based refining giant, Koch Industries, registered with the state of Kansas to lobby on behalf of the American Future Fund and Americans for Prosperity. Sebits did not respond to a request for comment.

The American Justice Partnership, another ?social welfare? nonprofit, gave $50,000 to the American Future Fund in 2011 and $2.4 million in 2010, according to IRS filings. The group supports free enterprise and is often at odds with trial lawyers.

Dan Pero, its president, said in an emailed statement that the organization supported the American Future Fund to help ?promote free enterprise and improve the fairness and predictability of the legal environment.?

Like super PACs, ?social welfare? nonprofits are allowed to accept unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, unions and other organizations. The only funders whose names they are required to publicly disclose are those that make contributions earmarked for political purposes.

That?s as it should be, according to attorney Dan Backer, who is not affiliated the American Future Fund but does work with other conservative groups.

?A nonprofit makes its decisions by a board or other management structure, which is distinct from its donors,? Backer said.

Increasingly political
In 2010, the American Future Fund became far more politically active, reporting $8.6 million in political expenditures as well as millions more for ?media services,? ?telecommunications? and ?mail service/production.? It told the Federal Election Commission that it spent $9.1 million on political advertisements.

Marcus Owens, former chief of the IRS?s nonprofits division, said it is ?difficult to conjure up a situation where a particular expenditure would be reportable to the FEC but would not constitute political campaign intervention under tax law.?

Nevertheless, Owens said the organization could make a ?straight-faced argument? that its orientation had simply changed over time to become more overtly political.

Of the $25 million that the American Future Fund reported spending to the FEC last year, more than 90 percent fueled ads that urged voters to support or reject candidates.

The group also sought the FEC?s advice on whether mentioning the White House or ?the administration? in negative ads ahead of Election Day would be seen as referring to a ?clearly identified candidate for federal office.?

Such a designation would have required the group to disclose information about its donors. (The commission deadlocked, 3-3, in a vote along party lines.)

In addition to the presidential race, the American Future Fund spent money in 20 congressional elections in 2012, including California?s 26th Congressional District, where it spent $500,000 attacking Democrat Julia Brownley, who, as a state legislator, had authored legislation to bolster disclosure for political advertisements.

She won anyway, but told the Center for Public Integrity that she is ?deeply concerned? about the activities of non-disclosing groups in the wake of Citizens United and hopes to ?take immediate action? to strengthen federal disclosure laws.

The American Future Fund also spent more than $542,000 to aid West Virginia Republican Patrick Morrisey in his successful quest to win the race for attorney general, records indicate, and more than $620,000 in a failed effort to sink Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat.

Complaints about the American Future Fund?s political activities have followed it since its creation.

In 2008, the Democratic Party in Minnesota contended that the group needed to register as a political committee after paying for ads that praised then-U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. The FEC disagreed.

Two years later, in October 2010, consumer group Public Citizen and two other organizations alleged that the American Future Fund?s ?huge expenditures? to aid candidates in the midterm election should have triggered requirements that the group register as a political committee and disclose its donors. That complaint is still being considered by the FEC, which often takes years to fully resolve such matters.

CREW, the watchdog organization, filed a complaint against the American Future Fund with the IRS in February 2011 that challenged whether its primary purpose was something other than influencing elections. The group has dismissed the complaint as ?baseless? and contends that CREW ?only targets government officials and organizations who have a differing or conservative point of view.?

Proposition 32

California?s campaign finance rules require major donors to groups that pay for political advertisements to be named in actual ads.

Thus, when a political committee called the California Future Fund for Free Markets aired ads praising Proposition 32, each advertisement included the disclaimer ?with major funding by the American Future Fund.?

One ad criticized lawmakers for making ?deals cut in shadows and back rooms? as dramatic music played in the background. Yet the donors to the American Future Fund itself largely remain in the shadows.

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit independent investigative news outlet.? To read more of its stories on this topic go to ?http://www.publicintegrity.org/politics/consider-source?

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Source: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16701522-nonprofit-spends-big-on-politics-despite-irs-limitation

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The Original Jewish Genius

Painting of the Vilna Gaon, 1915 Painting of the Vilna Gaon, 1915

Chesdovi/Yesodei Hatorah School/Wikimedia Commons.

Are certain ethnic groups predisposed to excel in the classroom? The debate has heated up of late in academic circles. In a new book called Legacy, the geneticist Harry Ostrer of Albert Einstein Medical School argues that Jewish intellectual achievement is the result of genetic makeup and Jews? fortuity to have lived among cultures that valued academics. Run Unz in the the American Conservative countered with an exhaustive study documenting that contemporary ?Jewish students may be far less diligent in their work habits or driven in their studies than were their parents or grandparents.? While American Jews continue to value education, the percentage of geniuses among them seems to be dropping. Asians, Unz claims, are ?the New Jews of American intellectual life,? outperforming their peers.

The switch from Jews to Asians highlights the capriciousness of genetic arguments to explain intellectual achievement. Before genetic arguments were used to account for Jewish genius, they were employed to justify why Jews possessed inferior minds.? The German composer Richard Wagner famously thought that the Jewish race could never produce anything novel because Jews lacked creativity. While the likes of Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman discredited Wagner?s drivel, people still wonder: If not race and genetics, then what is behind Jews? intellectual achievements?

The idea of Jewish genius begins with an 18th-century figure called the Gaon of Vilna?the only person in Jewish history, in fact, to be known simply as the ?Genius.? The sobriquet was a function of the breadth and depth of his writings, which ranged from treatises on mathematics and grammar to commentaries on mystical and rabbinic works. So profound was the Gaon?s imprint on the Jewish imagination that some claim his grammatical insights inspired the rebirth of the Hebrew language. Others claim him to be a forefather of Zionism. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds him up as the first person to combine traditional Jewish learning with the study of the sciences. The literary critic Harold Bloom points to him as a ?beacon for the entire Judaic intellectual and spiritual enterprise.?

Born in 1720 into a respected rabbinic family, the Gaon, whose first name was Elijah, distinguished himself from early adolescence through his mastery of biblical and Talmudic literature. In his youth he is said to have aspired to become a doctor. In the manner of scholars of the time, he wandered anonymously around various towns before settling in the city of Vilna (now known as Vilnius), located in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Gaon is said to have motivated his students to develop the idea of ?torah lishma,? ?learning for its own sake.? While study had always been valued in Jewish history, Elijah went further, arguing that it was a religious end in and of itself. Even the fulfillment of laws and rituals played a secondary role to intellectual activities. This principle contributed to a new model of Judaism based around educational institutions. Elijah?s students promoted study houses, or yeshivot, which provided an elite religious education to Jews from all socio-economic backgrounds.

The Gaon expressed his dedication to study through his chosen genre, the commentary. Unlike codes or essays, the art of commentary requires interpretation that is at once faithful to the source and novel enough to shift the reader?s viewpoint. The Gaon?s style was to condense 2,000 years of debates recorded on a legal ruling into a 10- or 15-word pr?cis, providing readers with the most essential information on the subject matter.?? The commentaries also radically criticized the positions of previous interpreters. Elijah famously went against Jewish custom, arguing, for example, that Jewish men were not obligated to cover their heads with kippot. His critical instincts and boldness vis-?-vis the tradition lead 19th-century Zionists and even secularists, like Peretz Smolenskin, to claim the master as a harbinger to their ideologies.

Jewish kids of the period did not know the Gaon from his elite commentaries but from the pictures their parents hung on their kitchen walls. There, Elijah sat with his left hand folded over the top edges of a large tome, his right hand gently arched on a quill. The Orthodox painted him with phylacteries and a prayer shawl; the secularists left him in Polish garb, but as the Yiddish writer, Moses Gertz recalled, ?every home in Lithuania was decorated with the picture of the Gaon.? Even the early secular Zionist leader Moses Lilienblum, who criticized some of his contemporaries for overestimating Elijah?s influence on the emergence of secular ideas and scientific achievements, admitted, ?who knows if Lithuanian lands would have ever experienced enlightenment if not for the inspiration of the Vilna Gaon??

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=93f219ea06f98b5a1b401e2d3719807e

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Oncolytics details broader use for Reolysin

Shares of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. climbed Monday after the drug developer said its lead product Reolysin may have a broader use as a potential cancer treatment.

The Canadian company released results from an early-stage study of the drug as a possible treatment of colorectal cancer that has spread. It said patients taking Reolysin in combination with a common chemotherapy regimen called Folfiri had an overall progression-free survival of 7.4 months.

Progression-free survival measures the time before a disease progresses or the patient in the study dies.

The study delivered a compelling result by showing that the disease had either slowed or stabilized in about half the patients, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Brian Klein said. He also said the progression-free survival time was compelling too, but he noted that the study size was small, with only 21 patients enrolled.

Klein also said the result shows the drug appears safe and well-tolerated, and it gives a reason to continue clinical study.

Oncolytics said it will continue testing the drug in colorectal cancer patients. It had presented preliminary results from the small study at a recent gastrointestinal cancers symposium in San Francisco.

The drugmaker currently has no drugs on the market. Reolysin, its most advanced product, also is in late-state testing as a potential treatment for head and neck cancers.

Reolysin is based on a common virus called the respiratory enteric orphan virus, or reovirus. Oncolytics says most adults have been exposed to the virus and it usually has no symptoms. Reolysin is designed to infect and destroy cancer cells. The company says the body's immune response stops the reovirus from replicating in healthy cells, but in cancer cells with specific mutations, the antiviral response is not effective.

U.S.-traded shares of Oncolytics rose 2 percent, or 7 cents, to $3.46 in Monday morning trading while broader trading indexes were relatively flat.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oncolytics-details-broader-reolysin-155412640.html

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Smartphone pioneer RIM looks to put recent hardships behind it with BB10

TORONTO, Cananda - Once a leader but now derided as a laggard, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion hopes to regain the confidence of cynical smartphone users this week as the curtain is lifted on its much-anticipated new smartphones.

The stakes are high for the unveiling, which many observers say will determine whether RIM survives to see the launch of another BlackBerry smartphone.

It has been a steep decline for RIM, which less than five years ago was the most valuable company in Canada, above Royal Bank (TSX:RY). Affectionately called the "CrackBerry" maker, the mobile communications pioneer was Canada's crowning achievement of the technology sector.

Back in 1984, the year RIM was founded, it was practically unimaginable that a tiny startup based in Waterloo, Ont. would help change the way we communicate, but for fresh engineering graduates Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin that was always the plan.

"Like so many of these guys Lazaridis was a Star Trek lunatic," said Alastair Sweeny, author of "BlackBerry Planet."

"He says it's almost like telepathy ? humans have a yearning to communicate."

The beginnings were humble for the two founders, with the majority of their time dedicated to Budgie, an LED sign business that was contracted by General Motors to communicate messages to workers on its assembly lines. Despite early interest, the project was a sales flop and RIM's owners decided to sell the business and look at other ventures.

One of those projects put RIM squarely in the eyes of Hollywood. The DigiSync film reader caught on with movie editors because its synching technology shaved hours off the time it took to turn miles of film into useable content in post-production. While the technology went on to win RIM both an Emmy and a technical achievement from the Academy Awards, it was never a top priority for RIM's founders.

"Lazaridis was always into security," said Sweeny. "He realized that corporations needed secure communications because of industrial espionage, because of hacking."

Throughout the late 1980s, RIM was working alongside other industry players to develop technology that would eventually be used in pagers and wireless payment processing systems. By the start of the 1990s, the wheels were turning on the communication systems that would become the foundation of the BlackBerry.

An agreement with Ericcson's Mobitex wireless network allowed RIM to create pagers that operated as a two-way communicators, a revolutionary concept for data transfer.

Turning the idea into a marketable product was a bigger challenge. The world had yet to become accustomed to the Internet age and most people hadn't heard of email, nevermind used it. While the project was a bust with its first partner Cantel, RIM forged ahead.

The technology captured the attention and imaginations of an industry, and perhaps most importantly Jim Balsillie, an energetic Harvard graduate who, at the age of 33, invested $250,000 of his own money into the company by re-mortgaging his house.

In 1996, RIM launched its first sales success, a clamshell wireless handheld device called the RIM 900 Interactive Pager. It was a two-way communicator that also had the ability to send faxes, as well as link to the Internet and email.

But Lazaridis discovered that the email feature, which he believed was one of the strongest qualities of the device, wasn't being used by most customers. So he hired Lexicon Branding, based in California, to find a way to draw more attention to its keyboard, the main feature that differentiated it from other pagers.

Branding executives pondered the device, focusing mainly on its appearance, and when one of them pointed out the little keypad looked like similar to the seeds of a strawberry, the conversation zeroed in on the names of fruits and vegetables. Eventually, the group settled on "BlackBerry" because it was both punchy and remained true to the device's original black casing.

The company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1997, raising more than $115 million, and debuted the first BlackBerry the following year.

From there it seemed the sky was the limit.

Suddenly the BlackBerry was everywhere in the technology community, thrust into the spotlight by the enthusiastic co-CEO Balsillie who touted the device on Wall Street and handed it out for free at select technology conferences. Balsillie knew how to build buzz and proudly tapped away on the BlackBerry whenever he appeared before the media.

A demand had been created, and subscribers to the BlackBerry services continued to grow in leaps and bounds. In 1999, RIM listed on the Nasdaq, raising another US$250 million.

The success grabbed the attention of Virginia-based NTP Inc. which filed a lawsuit claiming that RIM's network infringed on its patents. While NTP won the case, and the courts ordered RIM to pay US$23.1 million, the battle continued in appeals courts for years before a settlement was reached for a much heftier $612.5 million.

Outside the courtrooms the BlackBerry was a massive success, garnering headlines when its enterprise network remained intact after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 when other wireless phone systems broke down.

The BlackBerry's reputation was growing at a steady clip, helped by the introduction of cellphone service in 2002 on what had been a text-only device. Within two years, BlackBerry reached more than 1 million subscribers.

The smartphone was in demand at corporate offices around the world, and soon the more casual consumer began to take notice, helping to boost its subscribers to nine million by 2007. RIM also secured a distribution deal in China, driving its stock to a level that made it the most valuable Canadian company.

But amid all of the success a storm of competition was brewing in the tech industry.

In June 2007, Apple unleashed the first iPhone touchscreen device onto the U.S. market, garnering widespread praise from critics and consumers, but hardly rattling its competitors.

Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer famously dismissed the touchscreen device that year, saying "there's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share."

Whether it was a strategic decision or simply coincidence, Apple kept its iPhone far away from the Canadian marketplace for nearly a year, choosing to launch in six other countries first.

The lower profile with Canadian consumers also seemed to minimize the concern from RIM's executives, who publicly downplayed the influence of the iPhone in an already crowded mobile phone market.

"They just missed it," said Carl Howe, vice-president of consumer research at Yankee Group.

"They missed the idea that you could create a really good experience without having a keyboard. They gave Apple a two-year head start."

By the time the iPhone hit Canadian shelves, RIM was facing scrutiny from analysts who worried that the growing number competitors, which now also included Google's Android system, would devour marketshare.

RIM went on the defensive in 2008, releasing a combination keypad and touchscreen device it called the Storm, but the phone was swept up in a flurry of other BlackBerry releases that year. Much of the marketing clout was put behind the debut of a high-end BlackBerry Bold, which wasn't a touchscreen.

"A lot of tech companies have their heads in the sand," said Howe of the co-CEOs.

"It's not that they're stupid, and I think that's an important point. People who get hit by 'innovator's dilemma' are not stupid ... I think when you create something from scratch and turn it into a multi-billion dollar business you're very reluctant to say 'I'm now going to throw away everything I've learned and do something different.' "

At the height of its hype, the BlackBerry device was splashed across television shows and movies, while then-presidential candidate Barack Obama proclaimed he was a BlackBerry faithful during his campaign.

As competition heated up with Apple, investors became concerned that RIM's co-CEOs, in particular Balsillie, were distracted by the possibilities that success brought them, rather than focused on revamping the BlackBerry for a new era.

In 2009, Balsillie launched his third, and most aggressive, attempt to buy an National Hockey League team, with hopes that he could convince the NHL to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton. The battle dragged on for months before Balsillie abandoned his dream once again.

Back in Waterloo a storm was brewing as technical problems began to wreak havoc on the company's network infrastructure.

There were two network outages in less than a year that left BlackBerry users temporarily without their services. Some industry observers suggested the company could buckle under its own success. BlackBerry sales were soaring, even with the technical problems, with subscriber growth up 70 per cent to 36 million by the end of 2009. RIM's leaders reassured users that the outages were a fluke and wouldn't be a reoccurring problem.

Despite the setbacks, the BlackBerry image appeared to emerge unscathed. In April 2010 it cracked the Top Five mobile phone carriers worldwide and soon afterwards Queen Elizabeth made a visit to RIM's headquarters in Waterloo.

Behind the scenes there was unrest among the company's board of directors as the leaders clashed over where the BlackBerry brand should go next. Rumours swirled around the industry that trouble was afoot.

Fanfare eventually gave way to the realities of competition, with the first major blow coming from the failed launch of the PlayBook, RIM's answer to Apple's iPad. In September 2010, the co-CEOs showcased the new product for the public but waited another six months before unleashing it to stores.

By then it was too late, the tablet market had already been cornered by Apple and reviews of the PlayBook harshly criticized its lack of connectivity to popular BlackBerry functions like email and instant messenger.

Within months the foundation of RIM started to crumble as it repeatedly missed its own revenue and earnings targets. In June 2011, the company slashed 11 per cent of its workforce, or 2,000 jobs, to keep its cost in line.

A stark reminder of its fragility came in October 2011 when a worldwide four-day outage left BlackBerry users again without the use of the device they had come to rely on. The smartphones wouldn't connect to the Internet, email or its messaging services.

The anger from its loyal users was heard loud and clear, and Lazaridis emerged from days of silence to apologize and tell users the company had let them down.

In an earnings call several weeks later, Lazaridis urged investor "patience and confidence" as the executives tried to improve performance. Both he and Balsillie, two of the company's biggest shareholders, reduced their salaries to $1.

Again, it was a decision made too late ? the outage had cost RIM more than $50 million in revenue and tarnished its reputation. In December 2011, the company reported that profits tumbled more than 70 per cent, affected by a big charge from sales discounts it was forced make on PlayBook tablets.

Perhaps an even bigger blow to RIM's reputation was the delay of its next-generation BlackBerrys, pushing the planned release into 2012. The phones ? which were delayed again throughout last year and will be unveiled this Wednesday ? were seen as the company's best hope to maintain market share against Apple and Android devices.

The company stock had tumbled from its lofty height of $137.41 on the Toronto Stock Exchange in mid-2008 to $14.80 at the end of 2011.

RIM, once a symbol of Canadian success and innovation, had become awash in its own troubles. Apple's iPhone had cornered the rapidly developing apps market while RIM sat on the sidelines with developers.

Sweeny recalls visiting a group of developers, who he considered BlackBerry fanatics, while doing research for his book in 2008.

"They were writing great games and programs for the BlackBerry and they couldn't get the latest hardware from RIM to test them on," he said.

"I called them a couple years later and they weren't writing for BlackBerry at all. They were writing programs for Apple and starting to write for Android."

From an outsider's perspective, it's often suggested that the co-CEOs lost control of their empire, but some industry watchers say that RIM saw the troubles several years earlier.

"In this market you can't admit that you're behind," said Tim Long, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

"You have to put on the face because once you start to lose momentum that can shift the buying patterns."

Numerous acquisitions were made by RIM throughout 2010 and 2011 to beef up its stable of technology, Long said. That included Ottawa-based QNX Software Systems, whose technology became the basis of the new operating system, and Astonishing Tribe, the Swedish company that helped develop an early user interface of the Android operating system.

But the acquisitions came too late, and by late 2011 some investors were calling for its leaders to resign.

Bowing to pressure, Balsillie and Lazaridis stepped down from their co-CEO positions in January 2012, pocketing a combined $12 million in the process. The duo were replaced by Thorsten Heins, RIM's former chief operating officer, and hardly two months later Balsillie had left the company entirely.

Almost immediately, Heins launched a major revamp of RIM's operations, hiring several new executives with experience at other major tech companies. The approach was a last-ditch effort to revive the company, but it has also thrown the BlackBerry maker into the most uncertain period in its history.

With nearly $2 billion in its coffers Heins had options, but the clock was ticking to get a new smartphone on the market.

"Nobody is delusional here," Rick Costanzo, the company's new executive vice-president of global sales, said last summer.

"We get it. That's why we're building BlackBerry 10 and man are we committed."

A new chapter in RIM's history begins this week as the BlackBerry 10 smartphones and operating system are showcased to the world.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/smartphone-pioneer-rim-looks-put-recent-hardships-behind-171635399.html

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Sunday, January 27, 2013

New music review: Believe Acoustic, Justin Bieber, Universal - Blogs ...

The good news is that Believe Acoustic is more palatable than the disc that gave birth to it. Believe, Bieber?s platinum release from last summer, was as pedestrian as pop product gets.

This unplugged companion to the No. 1 hit album helpfully strips away by-the-numbers studio gimmickry and lets seven of Believe?s 13 songs ? eight if you count the limited-edition bonus track She Don?t Like the Lights ? live or die on their own merits.

And Biebs really plays by the rules. There?s no audible cheating here ? just crisp acoustic guitar, in most cases, and the hyperactive Bieber pipes, which seize the opportunity to take it up a notch on the grandstanding. Overcooked, pointless melismas? There?s another one around every corner.

The most interesting contrast comes with All Around the World, which improves on the overdone original and stakes out its own turf. The simple, elegant and almost-soulful I Would, one of the three new tracks, also stands out from the pack.

But while the unadorned takes of these tween anthems are vaguely refreshing in their own way, the stark setting really only serves to underline how weak and formulaic the likes of Boyfriend and As Long As You Love Me really are.

Rating: ** (TWO)

Podworthy: I Would

This is a live unplugged version of As Long As You Love Me:

Bernard Perusse

Twitter: @bernieperusse

Source: http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2013/01/26/new-music-review-believe-acoustic-justin-bieber-universal/

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?We Are Supposed To Be Truth Tellers?

A couple of weeks ago CNET was put into an absurd situation – they could not favorably cover a technology product because the company behind that product was in litigation with CNET’s parent company, CBS. I wasn’t all that interested in the story at the time. Reporters and bloggers are constantly pressured to write or not write about things by parent companies and even business executives in their own companies. CBS telling CNET what it could and could not write about wasn’t anything I haven’t seen before. I understand why CBS was trying to control messaging about a company that they were suing, although they certainly weren’t very smart about how they handled it. The Streisand Effect kicked in and not only did the product end up getting tons of extra positive press, but both CBS and CNET looked like idiots. Still, big companies do stupid things all the time. It’s a big part of why small startups are often so successful at disrupting them. What I don’t get is why CNET staffers have stuck around. They’re the ones who are supposed to be journalists and all that entails. They’re the ones I blame right now. I blame them because they’re the only reason CBS is able to get away with this. Every single journalist at CNET should have resigned by now. More than once at TechCrunch we made AOL extremely uncomfortable with things that we wrote. But they never ordered us to write or not write about something because they understood that not only would we not comply, we’d write a post about how the whole thing. Our independence from AOL was so important to me that I negotiated an extremely odd provision in our purchase agreement that allowed me to disclose confidential information about AOL. It was their job never to give me that information. It was not my job to protect it in any way. If AOL had ever ordered me to remove a piece of content from the site for any reason I would have immediately written about it and disclosed the situation to our readers. And if I had ever ordered a writer to remove content I would have expected that writer to have done the same to me. In fact, one of the things I am most proud about at TechCrunch is the culture of independence in its writers. Many times I have been

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5r9PkxQPVpo/

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Try These Magnificent Self Help Tips To Increase Your Confidence ...

Self improvement is when you work to make yourself a better person, and to ultimately improve your life. To reach your goals with personal development, you must educate yourself on how you can make yourself a better person and decide what works for you and what doesn?t. The article you are about to read will give you plenty of tips to get going on your personal development plan.

Most employers will not care what school or college you went to, they will care that you earned the degree and can do the work. Working with large financial institutions or law firms is an exception to this rule. Truthfully, it?s more crucial that you have obtained a degree and expanded your horizons.

Exercise is not only for people wanting to lose weight. There are tons of reasons to exercise. As you work out, your body will release chemicals necessary to relieving your stress.

TIP! Stay around like-minded individuals. This will help you to have a better attitude and maintain it as well as keeping you away from bad people that aren?t behind your dreams and goals.

You can?t change unless you make a directed, continuous effort to do so. It is important to make any changes that are necessary for growth.

You need to be your highest priority since you can?t please everybody. That doesn?t mean you should become selfish, but rather that you take control of your own emotions. You should never sacrifice your beliefs in the search for happiness.

One part of depression you may not thought of to look at is your diet and increasing the amount of complex carbohydrates that you consume. If you are not getting enough complex carbs, you serotonin levels will be low. You can do this by eating more raw veggies, fruits, nuts, brown rice, whole grains and assorted beans.

TIP! Make sure the goals you set for yourself are small and manageable so you can easily achieve them and develop the lifestyle that will make you happy. Figuring out your weaknesses and doing what you can to deal with them will make you a happier, more satisfied person.

Be ready to take down any ideas you may have, no matter what the setting is. Use a notepad app on your phone or even carry a real notepad with you. Just write down what their idea or thought is and then develop it more when you have the time and are feeling creative.

Strengthening your faith and expressing love are two great self improvement goals. You can not have faith without love. Therefore, it is important that you never become complacent in your faithfulness. Put your faith into action by helping others and loving not only your peers, but yourself as well.

Figure out what you want your life to be and do what it takes to accomplish it. If you lay around all day wishing your life was better but not doing anything to make it better, it will never happen. Make your dreams reality by taking decisive action.

TIP! We all make mistakes which includes making poor food choices once in a while. Stress is as bad for your body as a piece of cake, so remember that life is too short to sweat the small stuff.

Leadership is the cornerstone of personal development. Leadership is generally approached as being influential. Reflect back on your leadership experiences. What experiences have had the greatest impact on your life? What changes have occurred thanks to these events? What do you feel makes you a good team player? When you examine these thoughts, you will become more of a team player and leader.

You must understand that a divide exists between where you currently are, and the place you would like to go. This first step can start you on the way to reaching your goals. If you cannot see this discrepancy, it is unlikely that you will reach your highest potential.

TIP! Consider your personal character attributes when determining what you want to change. Your aesthetics can be changed quicker than your personality can! Clothes and looks are no reflection of the true personality of person.

If you suffer from anxiety, try going to see a movie with a friend. You will be out and about but you don?t have to talk a lot or even see who you?re with most of the time. This will give you the chance to get acquainted with the idea of being around more people.

Stress is one of the biggest road blocks to happiness. When the human mind is preoccupied with a state of stress, damage can be caused to both physical and mental aspects of the body. All of us need to have clear, relaxed thinking to enable us to plan and execute our life?s purpose, and this only happens when we let go of stressful thoughts. Allow yourself a set time during each day that you can relax and empty your mind. Taking a little bit of time for yourself will help you stay calm, and keep your goals in mind.

It is important that you feel comfortable using the abilities that you have. Being different isn?t a bad thing, since we all have different strengths and skills, which makes for an interesting world of personalities. Concentrate on good skills you already have rather than worry about talents you would like to acquire.

TIP! Are you experiencing difficulty meeting romantic partners? Think about looking on the Internet. Up to 40% of couples meet over the Internet nowadays.

You need to have an emergency fund. Many people handle every unexpected expense with a credit card, building up debt. If you put back just a few dollars every week you will quickly build up an emergency fund. Having an emergency fund in place can help provide a safety net throughout all the phases of one?s financial life.

Try writing down goals you want to reach if you want to better yourself. For example, should you want a greater amount of confidence, write about it. Then, brainstorm things that you could do or have done that will improve your confidence. Finally, you will need to put yourself in a situation where you can practice being confident. Developing a plan of attack will make it more likely that you succeed.

When you are trying to improve yourself, you should aim to have a high amount of self-discipline. Learn to exercise restraint over the desires of the flesh to achieve a higher level of self control. Overindulgence, overeating, lust, and selfishness are all base impulses that you can overcome. If you can cut out the negative aspects of your personality you?ll find your entire being becomes healthier and happier.

TIP! Choose one element of your life to focus on improving. You may want to improve multiple aspects of yourself, but keeping a narrow focus makes it easier to define and achieve your goals.

Start each morning believing that it will be better that day than it was the day before. Put the effort that is needed to accomplish this. Steady, unending improvement should be your goal. Try your hardest to achieve something different today than what you achieved yesterday.

Your reaction to a situation can determine your level of stress. Acknowledge and manage your stress by carefully analyzing your circumstances. If a mistake is the issue, there are ways to correct it or cope with living with your mistake. Focus more on your accomplishments instead of your failures.

Avoid going shopping as a form of entertainment or comfort. Shopping your stress away, or ?retail therapy? as some people say, is really more of a stress inducer, because it distracts you from the stress for a while but it all comes back with big bills and interest charges when the bills come in.

TIP! Try to make the most of your time at work and get more done. Take an ample amount of breaks when you are working hard.

Don?t just respect people who have power or something to offer you; treat everyone with respect. The way you deal with people speaks volumes about your character.

Leadership is about exercising authority, but good leaders are humble, too. When rebukes are necessary, be gentle yet firm, and keep in mind that you must be able to serve to be able to lead effectively. A real leader models integrity and upholds the appropriate virtues. These qualities are required in order to lead successfully.

Behind every great champion is an equally great coach. It is important to surround yourself with a positive mentor and coach. Everyone should help one another. This is an important strategy for ensuring that everyone is able to achieve their goals. Behind every successful story, there?s a great mentor.

TIP! Do you drink a lot? Do you use tobacco products or any other harmful things? You should treat your body as if it is a temple. One way to improve your life is by getting rid of any bad habits that you have.

Know the obstacles you face before you hit them. This is very hard for many people to do. In order to change problems you are having, you must identify what they are. It?s easier to move forward if you take care of what is standing in your way.

Find books that inspire you. Everyone?s idea of a positive piece of writing is different. It may be a religious bible, or alternatively a book of inspirational quotes. By keeping something around that you can refer to for encouragement, you will be better able to handle all that life throws at you.

Take care of yourself physically to get the most out of your personal development activities. Just simple things, such as exercise, getting enough rest and a proper diet, will all keep your energy level up and make you feel good enough to be successful in your personal development journey. It might seem easy, but it can prove to be very difficult.

TIP! Focus on the things that you have determined are most important to you. Focus on the more positive things in life because they matter.

As was mentioned earlier, self improvement can help you better yourself. Try different things and select the strategies that work best for your situation. Use the advice in the article and you can take the first step in a journey of self improvement.

Humbled by the flurry of internet success in the last three years. So proud to have a system that actually works for people to earn $10,000 per month faster than any MLM or Network Marketing System I have ever seen. Simply put, I have never seen anything like the system I am lucky enough to be a top 1% earner in the world for. By the way, I can show you how to do exactly what I do. Sailed a good chunk of the world as a delivery yacht captain in sailboats, strum the guitar with my band, ?Green Eggs n? Sam, living in Hawaii with my wife, Vanessa and dog, Mookie. I speak Spanish, Italian, some French and loads of gibberish.
Let me show you how to work smarter and earn more money than you have anywhere else. All for just $25?
Learn more about this through ?> Here Are My Personal Success Secrets To $1,000+ Days

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Source: http://www.samuellevitz.com/try-these-magnificent-self-help-tips-to-increase-your-confidence

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Literate drinking: Drink.Think heads to San Fran on Feb 5! | Tipple ...

January 26, 2013 ? 2:13 pm

image courtesy Monica BhideDrink.Think is going on the road?to San Francisco!

If you?ll be in the Bay area on?Tuesday, Feb 5,?I hope you?ll come out to?Cantina?to enjoy a drink and hear an amazing group of writers read from their work about beverages.

In addition, Karlsson?s Vodka and?Santa Teresa Rum?will be pouring samples of their products. ?(The regular bar also will be available.)

Date & Time:??Tuesday,?February 5, 2013. ?The bar will be open starting at 6pm ? the reading starts at 7pm.

Location: ?Cantina, 580 Sutter St at Mason St, San Francisco, CA

Admission:?FREE admission and samples of Karlsson?s Vodka and Santa Teresa. Drinks will be available for purchase.

Featured Readers:??Curated by wine and spirits writer Kara Newman, participants include:

  • Camper English, cocktail/spirits writer for?San Francisco Chronicle, Details.com andFine Cooking
  • Courtney Humiston, columnist,?7?7 Magazine?and founding editor, TableToGrave.com
  • Duggan McDonnell, writer, bartender and boozy entrepreneur
  • Gayle Keck, food and travel writer
  • Virginia Miller, food and drink correspondent,?San Francisco Bay Guardian?and blogger, ThePerfectSpotSF.com
  • Jill Robinson,?travel writer,?San Francisco Chronicle,?American Way?and more
  • Michael Shapiro, freelance travel writer,?National Geographic Traveler?and?Islands magazine
  • Stevie Stacionis, wine writer and Director of Communication at Corkbuzz Wine Studio
  • Liza B. Zimmerman, editor-at-large?Cheers?and contributing editor to?Wine Business Monthly

I hope to see you at Cantina on Feb 5 ? come thirsty!

Filed under Classes and seminars, Food and wine writing, On the road, Uncategorized

Source: http://karanewman.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/literate-drinking-drink-think-heads-to-san-fran-on-feb-5/

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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Leading Senate liberal Harkin of Iowa to retire

DES MOINES (Reuters) - Senator Tom Harkin, a veteran Iowa Democrat and one of the most liberal senators, said on Saturday he will not seek re-election in 2014, putting at risk what was considered a safe Democratic seat.

Harkin, 73, who has focused much of his nearly 40-year congressional career on farm policy, education and expanding rights for people with disabilities, is the third senator facing re-election next year who has announced his retirement, following Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

"It's somebody else's turn. It's time for me to step aside ... . I think that's not only good for our party, it's good for our state and for our nation," Harkin said in an interview with Reuters.

He said he had no health problems but had promised his wife that he would quit before it was too late to enjoy other things in life.

Iowa, site of the country's first presidential nominating contest, is considered a political swing state. Republican Charles Grassley is Iowa's other U.S. senator.

In remarks to the Iowa Democratic Party central committee after his announcement, Harkin said he would stay politically active.

"I'm not quitting today. This is not a time for legacy talks or anything like this," said Harkin, who has served in Congress since 1974.

Several committee members had tears running down their cheeks as he spoke.

President Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat, praised Harkin for his decades of public service.

"During his tenure, he has fought passionately to improve quality of life for Americans with disabilities and their families, to reform our education system and ensure that every American has access to affordable health care," Obama said in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, in a statement described Harkin as "a passionate progressive, whose deeply held principles have provided a guiding light to Democrats for decades."

SEARCH IS ON

Party officials said Harkin's announcement, coming early in the current two-year election cycle, provides ample time to recruit a strong Democratic candidate.

Among Democrats, U.S. Representative Bruce Braley is widely seen as a front-runner. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, and his wife, Christine Vilsack, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, are also viewed as potential candidates.

Among Republicans, U.S. Representatives Tom Latham, a moderate, and Steve King, a conservative, are mentioned as possible candidates, which could produce a divisive Republican primary.

Obama won Iowa in the November election. But the state has a Republican governor, and a divided legislature and congressional delegation.

Harkin's retirement "just reinforces our belief that a grassroots Republican comeback can take place in 2014. Let's have it start in Iowa," Iowa Republican Party Chairman A.J. Spiker said in an email appeal to state Republicans.

The party needs to pick up six seats in the mid-term elections next year to get a majority in the 100-member Senate.

One of the last of the Senate's old-guard liberals, Harkin angrily opposed the White House over the recent fiscal cliff compromise that Vice President Joe Biden negotiated with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Harkin said the deal that raised taxes only on the very rich helps the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

First elected to the House of Representatives in 1974 and to the Senate in 1984, Harkin said someone younger needs to take his place.

"I've been there 40 years. I'm 73. By the time I run (for re-election), I'd be 75," he said.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Charles Abbott and Vicki Allen in Washington; Editing by Greg McCune and Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/democratic-senator-tom-harkin-not-seek-election-aide-161442576.html

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Gerard Depardieu's latest drama: a Russian passport (+video)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a Russian passport to the famous French movie star in what some see as part of an escalating war of words between Russia and the West.

By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / January 3, 2013

In this December 2010 file photo, then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (r.) and French actor Gerard Depardieu (l.) attend the Russian Museum, in St. Petersburg. Depardieu, the French actor who has been sparring with his native country over taxes, has been granted Russian citizenship. A brief announcement on the Kremlin website said President Putin signed the citizenship grant on Thursday, Jan. 3.

Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/AP/File

Enlarge

Vladimir Putin flourished his pen Thursday morning and signed what must be the oddest decree of his long years in power: an order granting a Russian passport to French actor and tax exile Gerard Depardieu.

Skip to next paragraph Fred Weir

Correspondent

Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?

Recent posts

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A terse announcement posted on the Kremlin website?noted that Mr. Putin acted "to satisfy an application for citizenship of the Russian Federation by Gerard Xavier Depardieu, who was born in 1948 in France."

Mr. Depardieu, star of over 170 films and possessing what is often politely referred to as a "colorful" public personality, has been locked in a high profile battle with France's new socialist government over an emergency tax that would levy a 75 percent rate on people earning more than $1.3 million. He recently renounced his French citizenship and took up residence in Belgium, which offers a friendlier tax regime for the super-rich.

France's high court struck down the law last week as "unconstitutional," but the government announced it will soon reintroduce the measure after taking the court's concerns into account.

It's not clear whether Depardieu actually applied for residence in Russia, which has a 13 percent flat income tax for all, but in a far-ranging press conference?last month Putin declared "If G?rard really wants to have a residence permit or a Russian passport, you can consider it done, the issue solved positively."

Putin also said that he has long enjoyed "kind, friendly, personal relations" with the French actor.

Come to Chechnya

Depardieu is no stranger to Russia. He has appeared in several ad campaigns and filmed the 2011 movie Rasputin in St. Petersburg. He is also rumored to be close to Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, and was guest of honor at the pro-Kremlin leader's birthday party in Grozny last October.

Mr. Kadyrov has said that he would happily invite Depardieu to come and live permanently in Chechnya if he wanted to. "If the country's leadership decides in favor of granting Depardieu Russian citizenship, we will be glad to create deserved conditions for the great cultural figure in our republic," Kadyrov said last week.

Russia's blogosphere erupted in derision and sarcastic comment Thursday, with some people writing painfully of their own troubles with Russia's notoriously bureaucratic passport department.

One man posted on Facebook his own tale of trying for years to repatriate his own Russian-born elderly mother from next-door Belarus, but he has so far failed to move Russian authorities because her Belarussian documents show a slightly different spelling of her name than appears on her Russian birth certificate.

Part of spat with West?

Sergei Strokan, a foreign affairs columnist with the liberal Moscow daily Kommersant, says the granting of citizenship to Depardieu should be seen in context with the escalating war of words between Russia and the West. Last month President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which aims to punish corrupt Russian officials, and Moscow responded by enacting the Dima Yakovlev Act, whose main feature is a ban on US citizens adopting Russian orphans.

"Russia is very much on the defensive right now. The vindictive nature of Russia's adoption ban has shocked not only the US, but also many in Europe and here in Russia as well," Mr. Strokan says.

"We seem to be entering into a cold war-like battle of images, in which Russia is trying to show that it offers a better life, has higher ideals, and is more friendly to humanity than the West.... ?So this may be seen as a calculated PR move, an effort to demonstrate that we understand and care for the beloved French actor more than his own homeland does," he adds.

"I can't imagine that Depardieu would actually want to live here and experience the life of Russians, though. Let's see how it goes the first time he attempts to travel with that new Russian passport."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/L3hxjsTnanc/Gerard-Depardieu-s-latest-drama-a-Russian-passport-video

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Rabois Left Square Over Sexual Harassment Claim, Calls Accusations ?A Shakedown?

pr_black___whiteIn a very surprising twist to Keith Rabois’ departure from Square yesterday, the reason is now known, and it wasn’t about business like everyone speculated. He was charged with sexual harassment by an employee. Here’s Square’s statement, which highlights both that it has found no evidence for the claims, and that he used poor judgement: The first we heard of any of these allegations was when we received the threat of a lawsuit two weeks ago. We took these allegations very seriously and we immediately launched a full investigation to ascertain the facts. While we have not found evidence to support any claims, Keith exercised poor judgment that ultimately undermined his ability to remain an effective leader at Square. We accepted his resignation. Rabois has written an emotional post about the situation on his personal Tumblr. Here’s an excerpt: Last week, a New York-based attorney threatened Square and myself with a lawsuit. I am told this lawsuit would allege that the relationship was not consensual, and would go on to accuse me of some pretty horrible things. I was told that only a payment of millions of dollars will make this go away, and that my career, my reputation, and my livelihood will be threatened if Square and I don?t pay up. I realize that continuing any physical relationship after he began working at Square was poor judgment on my part. But let me be unequivocal with the facts: (1) The relationship was welcome. (2) Square did not know of the relationship before a lawsuit was threatened; it came as a complete surprise to the company. (3) He never received nor was denied any reward or benefits based on our relationship. And (4), I did not do the horrendous things I am told I may be accused of. While I have certainly made mistakes, this threat feels like a shakedown, and I will defend myself to the full extent of the law. It is impossible for us to know all of the facts right now, and we’re not going to speculate due to its personal and legal nature.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/C6S6QFW8eIg/

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US Military Building Space Robot to Recycle Satellites (Video)

A Pentagon project to harvest and reuse parts from dead satellites is gaining steam, and a new video shows how the far the military program has come in its first few months.

The new video serves as a progress report through last November for the?Phoenix program, a project by the?Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to recycle space junk back into valuable satellite parts, or even completely new spacecraft. DARPA scientists began the project in July and are working toward launching the first demonstration mission in two years or so.

"Today, satellites are not built to be modified or repaired in space," Phoenix program?manager Dave Barnhart said in a statement unveiling the video Tuesday (Jan. 22). "Therefore, to enable an architecture that can reuse or repurpose on-orbit components requires us to create new technologies and new capabilities. This progress report gives the community a better sense of how we are doing on the challenges we may face and the technologies needed to help us meet our goals."?

An animation of a Phoenix servicing spacecraft working on orbit runs in the background of the 2 1/2-minute video. The foreground, meanwhile, shows some of the progress that has been made in the lab to date.?[DARPA's Project Phoenix (Video)]

This progress includes the development and testing of prototype satellite-grappling technology and tele-operations control software, among other gear, according to the video.

The Phoenix program plans to use a robot mechanic to grab still-working antennas from the many retired and dead satellites in geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above Earth. These large, bulky antennas would then be attached to small "satlets," or nanosatellites, launched from Earth, creating new space systems on the cheap.

The goal is to demonstrate a way to turn part of the ever-expanding cloud of space junk around our planet into space resources, saving money in the process, DARPA officials have said. The first on-orbit demonstration mission is targeted for 2015.

"We have a long way to go, but we are laying the foundation for improving how we build space systems, with the goal of changing the economic model for space operations," Barnhart said.

Phoenix isn't the only satellite-servicing effort currently underway. NASA's?Robotic Refueling Mission?(RRM), which was delivered to the International Space Station in July 2011, is testing out the technology necessary to repair and refuel satellites on orbit.

The latest round of RRM experiments is going on right now, with the space station's two-armed Dextre robot attempting to snip wires, unscrew caps and pump simulated fuel using the RRM test module, NASA officials have said.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall?or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and?Google+.?

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-military-building-space-robot-recycle-satellites-video-213731095.html

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