Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Dutch to go after ISPs that allow file sharing (Reuters)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) ? The Netherlands plans to crack down on Internet service providers that allow access to file-sharing sites such as Pirate Bay, though it will not make it an offence for individuals to download from these sites.

Wiebe Alkema, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, told Reuters the law would be amended to reflect a recent court ruling, but would not criminalize the downloaders, as is the case in most European countries.

A Dutch court earlier this month ordered ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL to block access to Pirate Bay by February 1 because it allows copyright infringement of music and film content.

"We aim to strike a just balance between protecting against infringements of copyright and the importance of a free and open Internet," he said, adding that the proposal, to be submitted to parliament before summer, will state that websites that facilitate copyright infringements are acting against the law.

Both Ziggo, owned by private equity groups Cinven and Warburg Pincus, and XS4ALL, owned by telecoms firm KPN, risk a penalty of 10,000 euros a day, up to a maximum of 250,000 euros, if they do not obey the court order.

The penalty is payable to Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, which represents major entertainment companies and which brought the case against XS4ALL and Ziggo. BREIN has asked other providers including UPC, KPN and T-Mobile to block access to Pirate Bay, and they could eventually face court action too.

Ziggo, UPC, KPN, XS4ALL and T-Mobile together have more than 85 percent of the market, Dutch research firm Telecompaper said. UPC is owned by Liberty Global Inc., while Deutsche Telekom AG operates under the T-Mobile brand.

Ziggo said it would block the Pirate Bay website by Tuesday, but will appeal against the decision.

"Ziggo thinks that an access provider should not be forced into the role of police cop. Besides this, the verdict opens the door to further undesirable developments threatening internet freedom," the company said on its website.

Other jurisdictions are also clamping down. The United States is seeking the extradition of Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload.com, from New Zealand, saying that he was the ringleader of a group that netted $175 million since 2005 by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.

Dutch consultancy Considerati said in a report that about 40 percent of Dutch internet users regularly download unlicensed content, compared with a European average of 27 percent, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Considerati estimates downloading of unlicensed content costs the Dutch music industry up to 100 million euros a year.

BREIN expects the use of file-sharing websites, which also include 4shared, Rapidshare and Dutch website Spot-net, to fall quickly following the court decision.

In France the number of file-sharers using sites like Pirate Bay fell by more than a quarter after downloading by consumers was criminalized in 2009, according to the IFPI.

"Because consumers now will be denied access to illegal file-sharing platforms, they will have to find their way to legal providers to download music and films," BREIN spokesman Tim Kuik said.

But Kuik said a new law was still necessary, as attempts to close down file-sharing sites hosted from unknown locations abroad, like Pirate Bay, have been unsuccessful so far.

"Currently only sites where people can upload content can be banned, while sites which only facilitate downloading are legal. Besides this, access providers which have been asked to block the sites refuse to cooperate," Kuik added.

Ot van Daalen of Dutch online rights group Bits of Freedom said blocking such sites would set a dangerous precedent because "by making legislation enabling the banning of websites, as the Dutch government is planning to do now, we would be using the same technologies as countries like Iran and China."

European Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier has said he plans to propose revised legislation on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, in view of recent developments in the field of online piracy, by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Tjibbe Hoekstra; Editing by Will Waterman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wr_nm/us_dutch_internet

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Deciphering the Super Bowl: XLVI is Greek to kids

FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2012 file photo, a fan rides a zip line during the NFL Experience for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. Kids ROFL and OMG all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek. Roman numerals beyond the basics have largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as a subject in the nation's schools. The New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2012 file photo, a fan rides a zip line during the NFL Experience for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. Kids ROFL and OMG all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek. Roman numerals beyond the basics have largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as a subject in the nation's schools. The New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - This Jan. 24, 2012 file photo shows the official football for the NFL Super Bowl XLVI, in Cleveland. Kids ROFL and OMG all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek. Roman numerals beyond the basics have largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as a subject in the nation's schools. The New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)

FILE- This Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 file photo shows Roman numerals for Super bowl XLVI framing the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at Monument Circle as preparations continue for Super Bowl XLVI NFL football game in downtown Indianapolis. Kids ROFL all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek. They may know what X means, or V and I, but teaching Roman numerals beyond the basics has largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as an in-depth endeavor at school. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, FILE)

(AP) ? Kids LOL and OMG each other all the livelong day, but ask them to decipher the XLVI of this year's Super Bowl and you might as well be talking Greek.

They may know what X means, or V and I, but Roman numerals beyond the basics have largely gone the way of cursive and penmanship as a subject taught in the nation's schools.

Students in high school and junior high get a taste of the Roman system during Latin (where Latin is still taught, anyway). And they learn a few Roman numerals in history class when they study the monarchs of Europe.

But in elementary school, "Roman numerals are a minor topic," said Jeanine Brownell of the early mathematics development program at Erickson Institute, a child-development graduate school in Chicago.

That's not how Joe Horrigan remembers it.

"I went to Catholic school. I still have bruised knuckles from not learning them," said the NFL historian and spokesman for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

What's wrong with good ol' 46 to describe this year's Super Bowl between the Giants and the Patriots on Sunday?

"'Number 46,' it just kind of sounds like an inventory. 'Inspected by Joe,'" said Joe, who is LX years old. "Those Roman numerals, they're almost like trophies."

Any football fan worth his weight in nachos will find a way to figure out the Super Bowl number from one year to the next, but shouldn't kids have some sense of the Romans as an actual numbering system?

"My son is in first grade and this recently came up when we were clock shopping," said Eileen Wolter of Summit, N.J. "He couldn't believe they were real numbers. They only ever get used for things like copyrights or sporting events, which in my humble opinion harkens even further back to the gladiatorial barbaric nature of things like the Super Bowl."

Gerard Michon isn't much of a football fan, either, but he keeps a close eye on Super Bowls over at Numericana.com, where he dissects math and physics and discusses the Roman system ad nauseam.

Starting with Super Bowl XLI in 2007, he has been getting an abnormal number of game-day visits from football fans with a sudden interest in Roman numerals. On the day of last year's Super Bowl XLV, so many people visited that Michon's little server crashed. When the dust cleared, he had logged 15,278 hits, more than 90 percent landing on "XLV."

"Last year was total madness," Michon said, in part "because so many people were wondering why VL isn't a correct replacement for XLV." When the Super Bowl started, the games were assigned simple Roman numerals "that everybody knows," he said. Now "it looks kind of mysterious."

The use of Roman numerals to designate Super Bowls began with game V in 1971, won by the Baltimore Colts over the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on Jim O'Brien's 32-yard field goal with five seconds remaining. Numerals I through IV were added later for the first four Super Bowls.

"The NFL didn't model after the Olympics," said Dan Masonson, director of the league's corporate communications. Instead, he said, the Roman system was adopted to avoid any confusion that might occur because of the way the Super Bowl is held in a different year from the one in which most of the regular season is played.

Bob Moore, historian for the Kansas City Chiefs, credits the idea of using Roman numerals to Lamar Hunt, the late Chiefs owner and one of the godfathers of the modern NFL. (History also credits Hunt with coming up with the name "Super Bowl" for the big game.)

"The Roman numerals made it much more important," Moore said. "It's much more magisterial."

Or as Michon put it: Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur ? "Anything stated in Latin looks important."

Linsey Knerl, who is homeschooling her five children in Tekamah, Neb., is teaching them Roman numerals, showing her oldest ? who is 13 ? how to decipher chapter numbers while reading "Oliver Twist."

"I realize that it may not seem to be the most culturally relevant thing you can teach kids these days," she said. "But if kids can get what LOL and ROFL mean, things like XXII should be a piece of cake."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-30-Super%20Bowl-Roman%20Numerals/id-7009450435df407bb673d6856cd4b640

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Winter cold snap kills 36 in eastern Europe (AP)

BELGRADE, Serbia ? A severe and snowy cold snap across central and eastern Europe has left at least 36 people dead, cut off power to towns, and snarled traffic. Officials are responding with measures ranging from opening shelters to dispensing hot tea, with particular concern for the homeless and elderly.

This part of Europe is not unused to cold, but the current freeze, which spread to most of the region last week, came after a period of relatively mild weather. Many were shocked when temperatures in some parts plunged Monday to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).

"Just as we thought we could get away with a spring-like winter ..." lamented Jelena Savic, 43, from the Serbian capital of Belgrade, her head wrapped in a shawl with only eyes uncovered. "I'm freezing. It's hard to get used to it so suddenly."

Officials have appealed to people to stay indoors and be careful. Police searched for the homeless to make sure they didn't freeze to death. In some places, heaters will be set up at bus stations.

Still, 18 people, most of them homeless, died in Ukraine from hypothermia and nearly 500 people sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia in just three days last week, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Temperatures in parts of Ukraine fell to minus 16 C (3 F) during the day and minus 23 C (minus 10 F) in the night. Authorities opened 1,500 shelters to provide food and heat and closed schools and nurseries. More than 17,000 people have sought help in such shelters in the past three days, authorities said.

In Poland, at least 10 people froze to death as the cold reached minus 26 C (minus 15 F) on Monday.

Malgorzata Wozniak, a spokeswoman for Poland's Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that elderly people and the homeless were among the dead. Police were checking unheated empty buildings for homeless people they could take to shelters.

Warsaw city authorities decided to place more than 40 heaters in the busiest city transport stops to help waiting passengers keep warm.

City authorities in the Czech capital of Prague set up tents for an estimated 3,000 homeless people. Freezing temperatures also damaged train tracks, slowing railway traffic.

In central Serbia, three people died and two more were missing, while 14 municipalities were operating under emergency decrees. Efforts to clear roads blocked by snow were hampered by strong winds and dozens of towns faced power outages.

Police said one woman froze to death in a snowstorm in a central Serbian village, while two elderly men were found dead, one in the snow outside his home. Further south, emergency crews are searching for two men in their 70s who are feared dead.

In Bulgaria, a 57-year-old man froze to death in a northwestern village and emergency decrees were declared in 25 of the country's 28 districts. In the capital of Sofia, authorities handed out hot tea and placed homeless people in emergency shelters.

Strong winds also closed down Bulgaria's main Black Sea port of Varna, while part of a major highway leading to Bulgaria and Greece from Turkey was closed after a heavy snowfall. Nearly 200 Turkish Airlines flights to and from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport were canceled, and a city sports hall was turned to a temporary shelter for some 350 homeless people.

The temperature in Turkey's province of Kars, which borders Armenia, dropped to minus 25 C on Sunday night.

The situation was similar in Romania, where reports said four people have died because of freezing weather. There, authorities sent prison inmates to shovel snow and unblock paths leading to a shelter with some 300 stray dogs and puppies.

Weather forecasts say the cold snap will continue.

"We are getting some 'real' winter this week," Croatian meteorologist Zoran Vakula said.

_____

Associated Press writers across the region contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_eu/eu_europe_weather

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

How to tame the super PACs (CNN)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192949419?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Automotive Repair Training | Automotive Diagnosis

If you?re looking for automotive training, is to obtain and begin the exciting career in automotive technology you need technical or vocational schools to find the right courses. Automotive training may be key to acquire automotive education and certification, if you are interested in becoming an auto mechanic, engineer, manager, or auto parts worker.

To measure the performance and efficiency as the engine that moves down the street, in the modern world of cars operated by electronic systems and complex computers. By using electronic equipment and computer-based reference, students in training schools should be able to develop automotive skills as a technician in order to diagnostic high technology. The most challenging and rewarding in parts of the automotive training program is to be able to diagnose the source of the problem quickly and accurately.

Before registering, students who want to come along automotive vocational training should be developed well and has a math and science skills of physical intelligence. It is important to review the automotive training curriculum to ensure that your school will offer training certification Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) is the same as with any educational curriculum.

And also, the potential for automotive technicians must understand that most employers pay for their service technicians based on productivity. You may want to consider the option to become an independent business professionals after graduation.

After their automotive vocational training, students can return to continue education courses and credits to keep track changes on the computerized diagnostic systems, equipment and other technology-related automotive.
Training in automotive technology often leads to an interest in related fields such as auto body repair or improvement of automotive and diesel.

Source: http://www.riredistricting.org/automotive-repair-training.html

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Halle Berry, Gabriel Aubry Custody Battle; Model Agrees To Anger Management

www.tmz.com:

Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry met for hours Friday with representatives from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services

Read the whole story: www.tmz.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/halle-berry-gabriel-aubry-custody-anger-management_n_1238966.html

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CSN: $80 million later, T.O. tells GQ he's broke

January 25, 2012, 8:22 pm

Vernon Davis hauled in the 14-yard pass deftly tucked between defenders over the middle, held on through contact and converted the game-winning touchdown to propel the 49ers to the next round of the playoffs.

It immediately triggered memory recall of Terrell Owens' catch in the 1998 wild-card game that gave San Francisco a win over the Packers, and that was before Davis returned to the sidelines with a face masked in tears, just as T.O. did 13 years earlier.

"The Catch 2," as it has been dubbed, was one of the highest moments of Owens' career, but his mercurial NFL tenure has endured plenty of low points as well.

Indeed, two orthogonal forces have been at work throughout Owens' 15-year career: His intense work ethic, and his sligthly misconstrued world perspective.

A result of his Type-A personality, the media spotlight has never been too far from Owens, and most recently it shined on his announcement to return to professional football, albeit indoor football.

Owens, 38, will join the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League. The new gig will earn Owens somewhere between $250K and $500K.
?
Payday couldn't come at a more important time for Owens, who -- despite career earnings of over $80 million -- told GQ magazine for their February issue that he is broke.

"I hate myself for letting this happen," he says. "I believed that [my advisors] had my back when they said, 'You take care of the football, and we'll do the rest.' And in the end, they just basically stole from me."

Owens claims his difficult fiscal position is the result of trusting people too much. GQ reports that his financial advisers "put him in a series of risky, highly leveraged ventures.? He invested heavily in real estate and lost millions in the crash. His so-called friend siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars from him. There were the sunk costs tied to the Alabama entertainment complex -- illegal in the state -- that plagued him and others (Clinton Portis and Floyd Mayweather among) sold on the get-rich-quick scheme. The final financial thorn in Owens' side more closely resembles a four-pronged Figian brain fork -- each tine representing one of his baby's mothers; Owens pays a total of $178,400 every month in child support.

When people ask where he is, GQ says Owens texts back, "I?M IN HELL."

That would all change with one little phone call from agent Drew Rosenhaus. True to his form, Owens has maintained his physique, and he still believes he has a few productive football seasons left.

Towards the end of last year, Owens held a private workout seeking an NFL suitor. None came. "With T.O.," an NFL executive told GQ, "no matter how brilliant he can be on the field, the dark side is always lurking. You don't know which T.O. you're going to get, and no one is comfortable risking that."

Well, the IFL Wranglers are comfortable taking that risk, and you can be sure Owens knows this will be one of his final chances to prove he can still get it done earn a professional-football-caliber paycheck.

I was a fan before I was a journalist, and my moment with T.O. came at Game 5 of the 2002 World Series. We stood side by side in the Pac Bell tunnel looking out onto Field. He took the time to take a photo and autograph my foam finger, then as we brought it in for the real deal, he said, "Let's do this," nodding to the field.

We did it, for that game at least, as Jeff Kent hit two blasts, Jason Schmidt struck out eight Angels and the Giants took a 3-2 lead in the series. It was a simple interaction, but it was all he needed to do to earn himself a fan for life.

Owens, who is a large reason the Yards after Catch statistic came into existence, should be a no-doubt, first-ballot hall of famer. In NFL history, he is bested only by Jerry Rice in career receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. But there is no denying his career had its fair share of pitfalls.

What do you most remember T.O. for? What is his NFL legacy? His 49ers legacy?

Nate Stuhlbarg is a web producer with CSNBayArea.com. Follow him on Twitter @StuhlbargCSN.

Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/niners-talk/post/Tough-times-for-TO?blockID=638718&feedID=2539

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Levin, Stanley take advantage of easier course

Spencer Levin reads the green on his last hole of the first round inthe Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Spencer Levin reads the green on his last hole of the first round inthe Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A tee marker sits on the teebox of the eighth hole of the north course during the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Ryo Ishikawa, of Japan, watches his second shot on the first hole of the South Course during the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. Ishikawa shot a 3-under-par 69. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

Paul Goydos watches his tee shot on the fourth hole of the South Course at Torrey Pines during the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. (AP PhotoLenny Ignelzi )

Justin Rose, right, of England, quenches his thirst while awaiting his turn on the third green above the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean of the South Course during the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi )

(AP) ? The scoreboard at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open was filled with names followed by "NC" in parentheses.

That stands for the North Course.

It might as well have meant "no contest."

Spencer Levin, with one key shot out of a bunker that changed his outlook, shot a 29 on the back nine for a 10-under 62, matching his best score on the PGA Tour. Kyle Stanley played his final seven holes in 7-under par, closing with an 8-iron into the par-5 18th green for eagle and a 62 that was his lowest score in two years on the PGA Tour.

Bill Haas made a double bogey and still shot 63, courtesy of his 11 birdies.

It was no surprise Thursday that the top 12 players on the leaderboard all played the North Course, which is 604 yards shorter than the South Course, site of the 2008 U.S. Open. When the toughest test in golf came to Torrey Pines, the North Course was used for parking, practice areas and corporate tents.

"I played the pro-am on the North Course yesterday. There were just a lot of birdie opportunities out there, so I knew there was a good score ? maybe not 10 (under), but I'll take it," Stanley said.

The first-round leader almost always is on the North Course. Tournaments aren't won on the opening day of this tournament, though they can easily be lost. That's why Rod Pampling was happy with his 64, and when asked if the tournament really doesn't start until Saturday when players have been around both tracks, he replied, "I guess. But you can certainly take yourself out of it."

The average score on the North was 69.24. The average score on the South was 72.85.

The best score from the South was Marc Turnesa at 66.

Phil Mickelson, meanwhile, went south on the South. The three-time champion and San Diego favorite thought his game was rounding into form when he came home from the Humana Challenge. Instead, he hit into 11 bunkers, missed a 3-foot birdie putt on the final hole and signed for a 77. It was his highest score at Torrey Pines since a 78 in the third round of 2005.

"Obviously, I made some bad swings just in the wrong spot and so forth," Mickelson said. "I felt like my game was ready heading in, and I don't know what to say about the score. Because it was pathetic."

A year ago, the fairways were pinched in and the rough was unusually high on the North Course, helping to make up for the 604-yard difference between the two courses. Based on the scores, that's no longer the case.

Pampling, Vijay Singh, Josh Teater and PGA Tour rookie John Huh were at 64, with Huh making three eagles. Camilo Villegas and Justin Leonard were among those at 65.

Of the 54 players who shot in the 60s, only 13 of them were on the South Course. One of them was Paul Goydos, who doesn't buy into the theory that with two vastly different courses, the tournament really doesn't start until Saturday when everyone has played both.

"Ten under is leading the tournament, and anyone who says differently is full of it," Goydos said. "I looked at the leaderboard."

He would argue that some players simply have better vibes on the different courses. What might be a big difference to one player might be much less to another.

"All I know is that I'm six shots back and I've got to deal with it," he said.

One thing that left little room for debate ? the weather could not be any more gorgeous for late January along the Pacific coast, a day of endless sunshine and warm temperatures that made even the South play a little shorter.

Levin noticed only one big change in his game, and that was putting the ball in play. That made quite the difference, for hit set up short irons and plenty of birdie opportunities.

"I had some putts for birdies instead of pars, and kind of added up to a good score," Levin said.

The turning point came when Levin thought he might made bogey. He drove into the bunker on No. 7, leaving him an uphill shot to a difficult green, blocked partially by a tree.

"I was thinking I wouldn't have a shot. I was thinking it's probably going to be a bogey, and I'll go back to even (par)," Levin said. "I cut an 8-iron around and go on the right side of the green and hit a 20-footer ? it probably broke 10 feet ? and I made it. So it felt like at least a one-shot swing."

He followed with a birdie on the par-5 ninth, and making the turn at 3 under instead of 1 under changed everything for him.

Haas, coming off a sluggish start in Kapalua and the California desert, was at 8 under with four holes to play when he missed the green well to the right on the picturesque, downhill, par-3 sixth hole. His long pitch from the rough didn't reach the green, he chipped some 15 feet past the hole and made double bogey.

That made him upset.

He finished with two strong birdies, which eased the sting and could lead to some momentum on Friday.

"I would love to be 10 or 11 under," Haas said. "But to get over that and finish with two good birdies, I was pleased with that."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-27-GLF-Farmers-Insurance/id-ad3579705c0d46d19b1026f4afa26b1a

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Video: Stocks Up Sharply Higher on Fed News

Discussing the Fed's plan to keep interest rates low, and whether it is a boon or bust for banks & the economy, and its impact on the markets, with Dick Bove, Rochdale Securities; Keith McCullough, Hedgeye Risk Management; and Jack Bouroudjian, Index ...

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46140236/

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

SoulCalibur for iPhone review

Classic arcade fighting game SoulCalibur has hacked and slashed its way onto the iPhone, with all of the vibrant characters and flashy moves you remember, but there are still a few gaps to fill.


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/2CHGBEXKhv0/story01.htm

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

High court: warrant needed for GPS tracking (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The decision was a defeat for the government and police agencies, and it raises the possibility of serious complications for law enforcement nationwide, which increasingly relies on high tech surveillance of suspects, including the use of various types of GPS technology.

A GPS device installed by police on Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones' Jeep helped them link him to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before the appeals court overturned the conviction.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

"By attaching the device to the Jeep" that Jones was using, "officers encroached on a protected area," Scalia wrote. He concluded that the installation of the device on the vehicle without a warrant was a trespass and therefore an illegal search.

All nine justices agreed that the GPS monitoring on the Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure, a decision the American Civil Liberties Union said was an "important victory for privacy."

Washington lawyer Andy Pincus called the decision "a landmark ruling in applying the Fourth Amendment's protections to advances in surveillance technology." Pincus has argued 22 cases before the Supreme Court and filed a brief in the current case on behalf of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group with expertise in law, technology, and policy.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the court's decision is "a victory for privacy rights and for civil liberties in the digital age." He said the ruling highlights many new privacy threats posed by new technologies. Leahy has introduced legislation to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a 1986 law that specifies standards for government monitoring of cell phone conversations and Internet communications.

Scalia wrote the main opinion of three in the case. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor also wrote one of the two concurring opinions that agreed with the outcome in the Jones case for different reasons.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote, in the other concurring opinion, that the trespass was not as important as the suspect's expectation of privacy. Police monitored the Jeep's movements over the course of four weeks after attaching the GPS device.

"The use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy," Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor in her concurring opinion specifically said she agreed with Alito on this conclusion.

Alito added, "We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the four-week mark."

Regarding the issue of duration, Scalia wrote that "we may have to grapple" with those issues in the future, "but there is no reason for rushing forward to resolve them here."

Alito also said the court should address how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. Alito noted, for example, that more than 322 million cellphones have installed equipment that allows wireless carriers to track the phone's location.

"If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass ? suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car ? the court's theory would provide no protection," Alito said.

Sotomayor agreed. "It may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to their parties," she said.

A federal appeals court in Washington had overturned Jones's drug conspiracy conviction because police did not have a warrant when they installed a GPS device on his vehicle and then tracked his movements for a month. The Supreme Court agreed with the appeals court.

The case is U.S. v. Jones, 10-1259.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_hi_te/us_supreme_court_gps_tracking

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Deepak Chopra: Cancer: A Preventable Disease Is Creating a ...

Cancer is the most dreaded of all diseases, and ever since a "war on cancer" was declared 40 years ago, massive research has made progress, although the battle is far from won. Very little of this research has been directed at prevention. Advanced medicine, like the person on the street, has tended to think of cancer as something we have no control over: It happens to us or it doesn't.

Visualization is courtesy of TheVisualMD.com

The reason for thinking this way can be seen under a microscope, which reveals that malignant cells are misshapen compared to normal cells. Disastrous mutations at the genetic level lead to abnormal cell division, causing cancer cells to become rogues in the body, multiplying without check, crowding out normal cells, and in general wreaking havoc by losing communication with the body's fine-tuned intelligence.

Yet we may be seeing a revolution in our whole approach to cancer. Some highly-placed researchers now believe that 90-95 percent of cancers are preventable with drastic lifestyle changes. This represents a total reversal from what used to be taught in medical school, which held that only 5 percent of cancers could be traced to environmental factors like diet or chemical toxins. If the new view is correct, then for the first time we may have found an open road to ridding society of its most dreaded scourge.

To begin with, the genetic trail hasn't led to a cure, only to greater and greater complications. A disease like breast cancer, when examined at the genetic level, isn't one disease but hundreds. Yet at the opposite extreme, genetic mutations may be playing a much smaller part than anyone ever thought. Craig Venter, who led a private effort to successfully map the human genome, neatly summarizes the situation:

"Human biology is actually far more complicated than we imagine. Everybody talks about the genes that they received from their mother and father, for this trait or the other. But in reality, those genes have very little impact on life outcomes. Our biology is far too complicated for that and deals with hundreds of thousands of independent factors. Genes are absolutely not our fate."

In some cancers, inheritance certainly plays a major factor. For example, childhood cancer, of which the most common is a form of leukemia, has a simpler genetic profile than adult cancers. By targeting specific mutations, doctors who treat childhood cancer have raised their success rate from 20 percent to 80 percent in the past 40 years. Children with cancer must undergo severe regimens of chemotherapy and radiation, but it's no longer a case, as it once was, of killing the tumor before the treatment killed the patient.

For a vast majority of oncologists, targeting a malignant cell with chemo and radiation, along with surgery to remove the tumor, remains the mainstream approach. The track of prevention is all but unknown to them. There is no doubt that a cell has to mutate in order to become cancerous. Yet an inherited mutation isn't the same as an acquired mutation, one that develops during the lifetime of the patient. Let's simplify the case and divide acquired mutations into two types: those that result from accident and errors on the part of a person's DNA, and those that are linked to lifestyle. The revolution that is looming in cancer is based on believing that the lifestyle link is so strong that it accounts for 90 percent or more of cancer occurrences.

Let's pursue this line of reasoning with the expectation that doing everything you can to prevent cancer is clearly the best choice.

What medicine refers to as environmental and lifestyle factors include some familiar culprits: overweight, lack of exercise, poor diet, smoking, overuse of alcohol and overexposure to UV and other forms of radiation. Of all cancer-related deaths, it's thought that 25-30 percent are due to tobacco; 30-35 percent are linked to diet; and about 15-20 percent are due to infections, many of them preventable.

What is cancer?

Cells in adults normally have tightly-controlled patterns of growth. They divide in a regulated manner and have definite lifespans. Because of this, the number of cells in a healthy body remains roughly the same over time.

Cancer cells, however, display uncontrolled growth. The rate of division is faster in some cancers than in others, but in all cancers, the cells never stop dividing. In effect, they have infinite lifespans. Malignant tumors invade neighboring tissues and may metastasize, spreading to distant parts of the body. Cancerous tumors have the ability to produce activator molecules, such as vascular endothelial growth factor. Activator molecules induce the formation of new blood vessels to supply the tumor, allowing for cell reproduction and tumor growth.

Cancer is not one but hundreds of different diseases. Breast cancers, for instance, have individual characteristics and display different patterns of growth than lung cancers. That's why a cancer that originates in the breast and metastasizes to the lungs is referred to as metastatic breast cancer, not lung cancer.

How does cancer begin?

Cancer begins when a cell undergoes a mutation: one or more of its genes are damaged or lost. A number of different mutations have to happen before the cell becomes a cancer cell. If a cell carries a mutation, it usually either destroys itself or is recognized as being abnormal by the immune system and killed. This is why cancer usually occurs in older people: There has been more time for mutations to occur and for exposure to cancer-causing agents.

Genes may be damaged by:


  • Free radicals produced in the normal process of metabolism

  • Carcinogens, such as radiation, chemicals, tobacco, and infectious agents

  • Random errors in DNA replication

  • Inherited mutated genes

Almost from the time they first arise, cancerous tumors shed cells into the bloodstream. In fact, it's estimated that a 1-cm tumor sheds more than a million cells into the circulatory system in just 24 hours. Most of these cells are killed by cells of the immune system or die due to injury, but some may survive. Traveling cancer cells may become stuck in a capillary and adhere to its lining. From there they penetrate into surrounding tissues or organs, where they may generate secondary tumors. Cancer cells may also penetrate into the lymphatic vessel and travel in the circulating lymph fluid until it becomes lodged in the small channels inside a lymph node.

Cancer prevention

That the vast majority of cancers are not caused by genetic defects means that in most cases we have the power to modify or eliminate most of the factors that lead to it.

Most of the known risk factors for cancer have one thing in common: they create chronic (long-term) inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a normal part of your body's immune system response to injury. Problems arise when that inflammation becomes chronic. When that happens, levels of many potent inflammatory chemicals go up. These substances include cytokines (including TNF, IL-1, and IL-6), enzymes (such as COX-2 and 5-LOX), and adhesion molecules. All of these various chemicals have been linked to the development of cancerous tumors, and chronic inflammation precedes tumor growth in most types of cancer.

Solutions

Obesity, smoking, alcohol, infectious agents and carcinogens in food and in the environment have been shown to cause chronic inflammation in the body. The longer the inflammation continues, the greater the risk of cancer.

Maintain a healthy weight

There's a clear link between obesity and cancer. It's thought that, in the U.S., excess weight or obesity cause 14 percent of cancer deaths in men and 20 percent of cancer deaths in women. Obesity is linked to many cancers, including cancers of the colon, breast, endometrium (uterine lining), esophagus, and kidneys.

Clearly, it's important to keep your weight at a healthy level to help prevent cancer. It's important for other reasons as well. You can also prevent the many co-morbidities of obesity, including diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease and osteoarthritis.

Exercise to protect yourself against cancer

Numerous studies have shown that being physically active exerts a protective effect against cancer. Regular exercise lowers levels of IGF-1, a cytokine implicated in tumor growth, and other cytokines in the bloodstream. Interestingly, it does this even if the person who exercises is overweight and remains overweight. The lower levels of these cancer promoters are one possible explanation for the protective effect of regular exercise.

Exercising regularly reduces a woman's chances of getting breast cancer, possibly because doing so lowers blood levels of insulin and estrogen. Risk of colon cancer, too, is greatly reduced when you exercise, probably because being active decreases the amount of time it takes food to pass through the intestines. That means the colon is in contact with potential carcinogens for a shorter period of time.

Eat anti-cancer foods

It's estimated that diet causes about one-third of all cancer cases, almost as many as tobacco. Because cancer is so strongly associated with chronic inflammation, eating foods that fight inflammation can have a chemoprotective effect.
Chief among cancer-protective foods are fruits and vegetables. They contain numerous cancer-preventing, anti-inflammatory chemicals, including:

  • Carotenoids, especially lycopene, found in watermelon, guava, grapefruit, and tomatoes
  • Resveratrol, found in grapes, peanuts, and berries
  • Quercitin, found in red grapes, citrus fruits, tomatoes, broccoli, and leafy green vegetables as well as tea and wine
  • Sulforane, found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli


Cancer-fighting chemicals are found in teas and many spices, including:

  • Green tea
  • Turmeric
  • Garlic
  • Chilies
  • Ginger
  • Fenugreek
  • Fennel
  • Clove
  • Cinnamon
  • Rosemary

Whole grains contain potent antioxidants and are rich in fiber, which speeds the transit of food through the colon. Eating whole grains has been found to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.

Don't smoke or use tobacco in any form.

In the U.S., 30 percent of cancer deaths are due to tobacco. That smoking causes lung cancer is well known; it's less known that tobacco use increases the risk for at least 14 different types of cancer. Smoking combined with drinking increases the risk of cancer synergistically. Smokeless tobacco, touted as a "safer" alternative, is responsible for 400,000 cases of oral cancer worldwide -- 4 percent of all cancers.

Drink alcohol only in moderation

If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation, if at all (two drinks a day for men, one a day for women). Chronic alcohol consumption is a risk factor for cancers of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts, including cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus, as well as for cancers of the liver, lung, and breast. Risk goes up with increasing consumption.

Avoid UV radiation

Skin cancer is extremely common and frequently fatal, if it isn't caught in time. Both sunlight and artificial sources of UV radiation (like tanning beds) are dangerous. Avoid peak radiation hours during the day (10 a.m.-4 p.m.) if possible. If you can't avoid being out in the sun, wear a hat and cover exposed areas. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15. And don't use indoor tanning beds or sunlamps.

Get immunized

I realize that vaccination, once the pride of preventive medicine, has become a hot-button issue. There are popular movements that attribute many kinds of risks to being vaccinated. Let me simply give the accepted protocol here. Vaccination won't be a priority in cancer prevention, but a thorough approach, as dictated by some oncologists, would target specific cancers through being immunized against them. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer. A protective vaccine is recommended for girls ages 11-12 and for girls and women ages 13-26 who haven't completed the full vaccine series. Hepatitis B can increase the risk of developing liver cancer. All babies and some high-risk adults should be vaccinated.

For many people, these lifestyle changes are so drastic that adopting them will take time, patience, and knowledge. The threat of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes hasn't been potent enough to cause wide swaths of the public from giving up bad lifestyle choices. Now we find that cancer can be added to the list, so far as some researchers are convinced of the link between cancer and environment.

You aren't called on to become a cancer expert. But weighing all the evidence, it's clear which way the wind is blowing. The likelihood that cancer is not enmeshed with lifestyle is diminishing year by year. Yes, cancer is immensely complicated, but everything you can do to support your body's innate intelligence is a positive step in allowing that intelligence to block the cellular changes that create malignancy. A decade from now, I expect that we will tune in and find that this ray of hope has become even brighter.

For more health information from Deepak go to www.deepakchopra.com.

For more by Deepak Chopra, click here.

For more on cancer, click here.

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Follow Deepak Chopra on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeepakChopra

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/cancer-information_b_1219678.html

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

iBooks 2 and card.io payments lead iOS Apps of the Week (Appolicious)

It may be the middle of the school year, but this week?s top iPhone apps will get you back in the learning spirit thanks to some apps that are offering online courses and inexpensive digital textbooks. For those who checked out of school long ago, there are some good apps to help you relax and keep yourself entertained, too.

Students with heavy backpacks everywhere take note, iBooks 2 might just change your life. Apple?s updated iBooks app now features multi-touch textbooks for as low as $14.99 a book. The app will remain free, of course. As good as those prices are, I?m sure some relief from the considerable strain of heavy textbooks will be even better news for iPad owners still attending classes regularly.

Accepting credit card payments just got a little easier with card.io payments. You can accept payments from people simply by using your iPhone camera to take a picture of their credit card. The app then takes the information on the card and securely accepts the payment designated. There are no setup or monthly fees to use the card.io payments service but the app does take a 3.5% cut on all purchases plus an additional 30 cents per sale.

Working nicely in concert with iBook 2, iTunes U presents users with the opportunity to take free courses from numerous universities like Stanford, Yale, MIT and more. The app offers over 500,000 lectures and texts on all sorts of subjects. Now you can take a course on iTunes U and maybe grab a companion textbook from iBooks 2 if you feel like reading on!

If you?ve ever been to a gas station where short TV show clips played as you pumped your gas, you have a pretty good idea of how TouchTV works. The app offers up short news clips and bits of TV shows on your iPad. If you don?t have the time to watch a whole news broadcast but want to get a quick story in, now you can do so quickly, skipping right to the story you?re most interested in. Channels like E!, ESPN, OWN, National Geographic, ABC, and NBC are among those currently supporting TouchTV, with more sure to follow.

If you?re looking for a robust yoga app that you can use even where your iPhone doesn?t get much of a signal, All Yoga is up to the task. It features hundreds of poses with step-by-step images and instructions breaking down each pose. All of the poses are loaded right in the app so you don?t need a 3G or Wi-Fi signal to check them out, either. All Yoga also comes with a calendar feature so you can chart and track your progress as you attempt to attain some spiritual balance in your daily routine.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_appolicious_com_articles10838_ibooks_2_and_card_io_payments_lead_ios_apps_of_the_week/44283436/SIG=138umnknr/*http%3A//www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/10838-ibooks-2-and-card-io-payments-lead-ios-apps-of-the-week

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Canadian man gets 18 years for credit fraud (AP)

FARGO, N.D. ? He was unemployed and receiving welfare, but Adekunle Adetiloye was somehow still living lavishly, complete with a Range Rover vehicle, extended trips to England and an expensive condominium.

That alone piqued authorities' interest, but then there were two credit cards tucked away in his wallet that seemed to confirm suspicions that the Canadian man was up to something nefarious. The pieces of plastic each bore different names ? Donald Douglas and Vincent Andriole ? and helped authorities prosecute a case they describe as one of the largest high-tech bank robberies in U.S. history.

Adetiloye was sentenced Monday to nearly 18 years in prison on fraud charges. During the hearing in North Dakota, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Chase said the 40-year-old had an "insatiable hunger for other people's money."

Authorities believe Adetiloye masterminded a scheme to open nearly 600 fraudulent bank accounts and bilk 22 major banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson handed down a 214-month prison term and scheduled a Feb. 15 hearing to discuss returning nearly $1.5 million in losses to credit card companies and banks. The judge has said losses may have been as much as $5 million.

"Characterizing this fraud scheme as massive, if anything, is an understatement," Chase said in court documents.

Defense attorney Richard Henderson had asked for a sentence of fewer than 16 years. Henderson said any prison time for his client, a native of Nigeria, is more difficult than it would be for American citizens because he has no family in the United States. No decision has been made about whether he plans to appeal, said Neil Fulton, lead federal public defender for North Dakota and South Dakota.

"The sentence imposed today should send a strong message to those who would seek to scam the citizens and businesses of North Dakota and the United States," U.S. Attorney Timothy Purdon said in a statement released Monday. "We take the growing problem of foreign financial fraud seriously here and seeking justice for the victims of such crimes is a priority for our office."

Attorneys from both sides declined to detail the case ahead of sentencing, but investigators' efforts to deconstruct the multifarious case are laid out in the nearly 12,000 pages of court documents filed by lawyers in federal court.

Greg Krier, lead credit card fraud investigator for U.S. Bank, testified that it was the most complex case he had ever seen. His company, which has its own fraud unit, launched special training sessions focusing on the case in hopes of catching the culprits.

The case wound up in North Dakota after U.S. Bank's customer service center in Fargo intercepted calls by Adetiloye and others. The complexity of the scheme, which took five years to investigate and litigate, was highlighted in a sentencing phase that has lasted nearly a year and included numerous hearings and briefings.

The lead investigator, one of 25 people who worked on the case, put in 2,000 hours, authorities said.

Defense attorneys had argued that their client, the only person charged in the case, was a "marginal and minimal participant" whose role was to handle mail and withdraw money from ATMs. The government and the judge have said otherwise.

Investigators said the operation accessed information of nearly 16,000 people, about 500 of whom had their identities stolen for the purpose of obtaining credit cards. It's alleged that more than 100 commercial mailboxes were opened under false or stolen identities.

The government said Adetiloye went so far as to mask his handwriting after a judge ordered a test of his calligraphy

Erickson, the federal judge, said in court documents ahead of the sentencing that the evidence "indisputably demonstrates" that Adetiloye was a leader or organizer of the scheme. The judge has calculated losses to banks at about $1.5 million, but said it could have been as high as $5 million if credit limits had been maxed out.

The trauma cannot be measured, Erickson said.

"The non-monetary harm to the victims was substantial," the judge wrote. "They lost sleep, they lost time with their families, they lost time at work, and they lost their sense of security. Some victims spent hours trying to reclaim their credit record and their identities."

Court documents show that U.S. Bank suffered the most number of tainted accounts, at 130, for a total loss of about $76,000. The companies alleged to have lost the most money were Citibank, at about $271,000, and Discover, at about $248,000.

Brett Bogan, the security investigations manager at Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis and ChoicePoint, told the court that data breaches of this type are extremely rare and knew of only one other case like it. He said the company sent out notices to more than 32,000 people whose personal information was compromised by the scheme.

"With their combined extensive and nationwide perspective, those entities place this fraud scheme at or near the top of their historical lists in terms of size and complexity," Chase said in court documents.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_us/us_credit_card_fraud

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Belief in evolution boils down to a gut feeling

Gut feelings may trump good old-fashioned facts, and even religious beliefs, when it comes to accepting the theory of evolution, new research suggests.

"The whole idea behind acceptance of evolution has been the assumption that if people understood it, if they really knew it, they would see the logic and accept it," study co-author David Haury, an associate professor of education at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

But, he noted, research on the matter has been inconsistent. While one study would find a strong relationship between knowledge level and acceptance, another would not. Likewise, studies have contradicted each other on the relationship between religious identity and acceptance of evolution, he said.

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Haury and his colleagues figured that another unexplored factor must be at work. Previous research has shown that the human brain doesn't judge the merits of an idea solely on logic, but also on how intrinsically true the idea feels: Could this process of intuitive reasoning help explain why some people are more accepting of evolution than others?

To find out, the researchers recruited 124 pre-service biology teachers at different stages in a standard teacher preparation program at two Korean universities. They chose to look at students in Korea because teacher preparation programs in the country are quite standardized. "In Korea, people all take the same classes over the same time period and are all about the same age, so it takes out a lot of extraneous factors," Haury explained.

Moreover, about half of Koreans don't identify themselves as belonging to any particular religion, he said. In the U.S., only about 16 percent of people are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. (Religion can be a reason for not accepting evolution, as some think it goes against a god as a creator.)

The researchers first asked the students a series of questions to measure their overall acceptance of evolution, teasing out whether they generally believed the main concept sand scientific findings that define the theory of evolution. Next, they tested the students on their knowledge of evolutionary science with questions about various processes, such as natural selection. For each question, the students wrote down how certain they felt about the correctness of their answers ? an indicator of their gut feelings.

They found that intuition had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs. Even students with a greater knowledge of evolutionary facts weren't more likely to accept the theory unless they also had a strong gut feeling about the facts, the results showed.

The study has important implications for the teaching of evolution, the researchers said. Informing students about this conflict between intuition and logic may help them judge ideas on their merits.

"Educationally, we think that's a place to start," Haury said. "It's a concrete way to show them, 'Look, you can be fooled and make a bad decision, because you just can't deny your gut.'"

The study was published in the January 2012 issue of Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46076744/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Hello? Is this called an introduction? Nope.

This is not an introduction. It is in fact, something else. It may be close to one, which is as to why I'm posting it here. But, what is it called? It is a brief preview to what else I may post on this forum, as well as a few things about myself. But most importantly, THIS IS NOT AN INTRODUCTION so don't reply with anything alongside the words of: "hi" or "greetings".

Here are a few things about myself that are important to know:

  • I am female.
  • I have college, so I may be too busy to post in some RPs.
  • I'm absolutely bored out of my mind, so I do RP.
  • I post at least 100 words in each IC post I make.
  • I'm looking to find some interesting roleplays to join. Roleplays I find interesting are ones that are for OCs only. They also tend to be fantasy ones with original worlds and plots. Some romance is good but I don't like a lot. I don't like too fast or too slow RPs.
  • I googled to find this site.
  • I spend no money over the internet so don't advertise crap to me.
  • i love good writing mechanics.

Did I make myself clear enough?

I'm also planning on making a Fighting-style RP where everyone gets to control the plot and play as their ideal self. But that's the only thing tro look forward for.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/AEGfkLPT5R8/viewtopic.php

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Karzai says he met with Afghan insurgent faction (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan ? Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says he has personally met with a delegation from the insurgent faction Hizb-i-Islami for peace negotiations that he hopes "will have good results."

Karzai's Saturday announcement to parliament appears to assert his own standing in any future peace process by showing his ability to bring militant factions other than the Taliban to the negotiating table. He did not specify when the meeting took place.

The U.S. has been pushing for talks with the Taliban outside the country. Special American representative Marc Grossman is to meet Karzai on Saturday to discuss progress and plans.

Hizb-i-Islami is a radical Islamist militia that controls territory in Afghanistan's northeast. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former U.S. ally now listed as a terrorist by Washington.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says he has personally met with a delegation from the insurgent faction Hizb-i-Islami for peace negotiations that he hopes "will have good results."

Karzai's Saturday announcement to parliament appears to assert his own standing in any future peace process by showing his ability to bring militant factions other than the Taliban to the negotiating table. He did not specify when the meeting took place.

The U.S. has been pushing for talks with the Taliban outside the country. Special American representative Marc Grossman is to meet Karzai on Saturday to discuss progress and plans.

Hizb-i-Islami is a radical Islamist militia that controls territory in Afghanistan's northeast. Its leader, Gulbiddin Hekmatyar, is a former U.S. ally now listed as a terrorist by Washington.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

AC Milan striker Alexandre Pato out 3-4 weeks

Associated Press Sports

updated 7:39 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2012

MILAN (AP) -AC Milan forward Alexandre Pato will be out for three to four weeks after the latest in a series of muscle injuries.

Pato scored in extra time to give Milan a 2-1 win over Novara and put his team into the Italian Cup quarterfinals Wednesday but then exited four minutes from time grasping his left thigh.

Milan announced late Thursday that Pato has a mild left thigh muscle tear, saying he will be out "three to four weeks, barring complications."

Pato already missed the start of this season due to a muscle problem, and his entire career with Milan has been marked by similar injuries.

Meanwhile, Milan announced it has signed Djamel Mesbah from Lecce and given the Algerian midfielder a contract through 2016.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45998541/ns/sports-soccer/

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Pakistan PM defends president at Supreme Court (AP)

ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's prime minister struck a conciliatory tone in an appearance before the Supreme Court Thursday, trying to cool down a political and legal crisis destabilizing the nuclear-armed country.

The unusual appearance by a head of government before a high court was the latest move in a high-stakes struggle between the civilian regime, the judges and Pakistan's powerful army generals, who have seized power three times since 1947.

At stake is the future of Pakistan's leadership and its ties to the U.S. Relations between the two countries have been strained since last May's unilateral U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan's elected government is locked in bitter conflict with the army over a secret memo asking for Washington's help in curtailing the power of the generals after the bin Laden raid. The army was outraged by the memo, allegedly sent by the government, and pushed the Supreme Court to set up a commission to investigate. The government insists it did not send the memo.

On Thursday the Supreme Court stepped into another part of the struggle, a decade-old Swiss corruption case involving President Asif Ali Zardari. Some believe the military is maneuvering the court to depose Zardari and his government, while others point to bad blood between the president and the court's chief justice.

Against that complicated and tense background, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to honor a summons to appear before the court to answer charges he was ignoring the judiciary.

The court wants government prosecutors to formally ask Swiss authorities to reopen a shelved graft probe against Zardari, who was found guilty in absentia in a Swiss court in 2003 of laundering millions of dollars in kickbacks from Swiss companies. Zardari appealed, but in 2009 Swiss prosecutors dropped the case after a request from the Pakistani government.

Gilani insisted that Zardari is immune from prosecution. Judges didn't immediately accept that, but they adjourned for two weeks to hear more arguments in the case.

For two years, the government has been refusing orders to reopen the decade-old corruption case against Zardari, infuriating the judiciary. Zardari loyalists have long claimed that the court wants to get the president out of office, regardless of the law.

"It is my conviction that he (Zardari) has complete immunity inside and outside country," Gilani said in a 10-minute speech that was laced with humility. "I have no intention of ridiculing the court. We have the highest regard for the court."

Later, Gilani's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, offered a concession to the court, agreeing to argue the issue of the president's immunity when the hearing resumes on Feb. 1. The government previously insisted presidential immunity was a right, and therefore didn't need to be debated in court.

"I will bow to the court order and will also speak on immunity to satisfy the court that the president has complete immunity," Ahsan told reporters.

Security was especially tight during the court session, which was also attended by several of Gilani's ministers and coalition partners. Police lined the roads in front of the Supreme Court, and two helicopters hovered over the building during the hearing.

Supporters and opponents of the government competed for attention outside the court. A group of about a dozen women chanted, "Long live Zardari!" while several dozen lawyers shouted slogans in favor of the court chief justice and against the president.

Political analysts said events at the court Thursday indicated something of a thaw.

"This will definitely contribute to reduce the tension, but it is not the end of the problems for the president," said political science professor Hasan-Askari Rizvi.

The crisis is distracting Pakistan's leaders from the severe economic and security challenges it faces, not least the threat posed by Islamist militants with links to al-Qaida who are waging war on the state.

On Thursday, gunmen seized two foreign aid workers, an Italian and a German, from just outside their office in the central Pakistan town of Multan, police and intelligence officials said.

The men were bundled into a car in a supposedly secure part of Multan, said the officials, who didn't give their names because of the sensitivities surroundings crimes involving foreigners.

The Italian government confirmed one its citizens had been kidnapped in Multan.

The men were working for a development agency helping victims of the 2010 floods, the officials said. They declined to say who they believed abducted the men.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in Pakistan. Islamist militants also abduct people and are currently holding at least three foreigners.

Last year, gunmen kidnapped an American from the Punjabi city of Lahore, and al-Qaida now claims to be holding him.

___

Associated Press writer Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Khalid Tanveer contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Schools close, flights canceled as storm nears NW (AP)

SEATTLE ? Schools preemptively closed, crews salted down streets and more than two dozen flights into two Pacific Northwest cities were canceled as the region prepared for a potentially major snowstorm on Wednesday.

Forecasts called for about 3 to 5 inches of snow in the Seattle metropolitan area, with heavier amounts expected in communities along the Interstate 5 corridor south of the city. The city's schools canceled classes, as did their counterparts in other western Washington cities such as Tacoma, Olympia and Bellingham.

Alaska Airlines announced late Tuesday that it canceled 38 flights into and out of Seattle and Portland, Ore. The airline was waiving rebooking fees for passengers traveling Tuesday through Thursday in those cities.

Conditions on the roads were expected to be dangerous as the storm was forecast to begin dumping snow on the area just before the morning rush hour.

"Wednesday is going to be a good day to stay at home," said Brad Colman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle. "The road is going to be treacherous."

Several inches of snow have the potential to paralyze the city of Seattle, which owns relatively few snowplows. Its drivers are mostly inexperienced with driving in snow or ice.

Several downtown hotels reported all their rooms were booked. Elsewhere, shoppers stocked up on groceries.

In Everett, north of Seattle, police reported a thief broke into an Everett School District parking lot early Tuesday and drove off in an old pickup equipped with a snow plow. The faded yellow truck had the snow plow in front and a full hopper of sand in the back, Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

Snow has been falling steadily in parts of western Washington and Oregon since the weekend, but Weather Service meteorologists said the biggest amounts could be on the way.

Bec Thomas, who lives on Camano Island north of Seattle, stocked up on bottled water and food. As her children built snowmen, made snow angels and sledded in nearly a foot of fresh snow on Tuesday, she made food that could be reheated on her wood stove.

The last snowstorm knocked out her power for a week.

"We take it very seriously," said Thomas, a fine arts photographer. "We'll probably be snowed in until Thursday."

Forecasters said 3 to 6 inches of new snow could fall in the Olympia area and 1 to 2 inches north of Seattle. The Cascade Mountains could see 1 to 3 feet of new snow through late Wednesday, and officials warned of high avalanche danger there.

In eastern Washington, forecasters predicted that about 6 inches of snow could fall on Spokane by late Wednesday with several more inches falling Thursday. The Pullman area could see as much as 12 inches of new snow by Wednesday night.

State troopers advised motorists to be prepared.

"The No. 1 thing is to drive for the road conditions," Trooper Keith Leary said. "People need to slow down, take their time. If they're not prepared, don't get out on the roadways."

John Lee, a Mill Creek graphic designer decided to work from home Tuesday rather than face a snowy commute into Seattle, said it was "a bit exciting" because it was the first snow of the season.

But he added: "I hope it doesn't escalate to something bigger."

___

AP Writer Rachel La Corte in Olympia and Donna Blankinship in Seattle contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_re_us/us_washington_snow

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