saltcellar atrophy: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Fruits and veggies added to Fla. parade

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A variety of fruits and vegetables have been added to the Orlando parade that is traditionally a celebration of all things citrus.

Green peppers, watermelons and cucumbers will be on the floats during the annual parade through downtown Orlando Saturday.

The parade, previously known as the Citrus Parade, is now being called the Fresh From Florida Parade for the first time.

The change comes courtesy of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which paid $325,000 for a yearlong sponsorship of the parade.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/31/2567971/fruits-and-veggies-added-to-fla.html

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Key to school improvement: Reading, writing, arithmetic ... and character?

ScienceDaily (Dec. 30, 2011) ? A study of 20 elementary schools in Hawaii has found that a focused program to build social, emotional and character skills resulted in significantly improved overall quality of education, as evaluated by teachers, parents and students.

The concept includes organized activities to build character that go beyond more traditional rules or policies to control or punish problem behaviors. But it still takes only about an hour a week away from traditional education, and previous research has documented much lower numbers of suspensions, lower absenteeism, and better reading and math scores on standardized tests.

The latest study, being published by researchers from Oregon State University in the Journal of School Health, found for the first time that teachers believed this approach improved "overall school quality" by 21 percent, with parents and students agreeing in slightly smaller numbers. It was based on findings from racially and ethnically diverse schools, half using the program and half that did not.

"Improved social and character skills leave more time for teachers to teach, and students to learn and be more motivated," said Brian Flay, an OSU professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences. "What we're finding now is that we can really address some of the concerns in our schools by focusing more on character in the classroom.

"These are not new concepts, they're the kind of things that have always been discussed in families, church and social groups," Flay said. "A third-grade lesson, for instance, might be helping kids to understand how other people feel, to learn about empathy. That may seem simple, but in terms of educational performance it's important."

School quality, as defined in this research, includes a safe environment, involvement and satisfaction among individuals, student support, continuous improvement, standards-based learning and other features.

Past policies to curtail substance abuse, violent behavior and other problems have shown only limited results, researchers said in the study, in part because they don't address underlying issues such as student's sense of self and social attachment. The new trend being explored is what they call social-emotional and character development.

The program used in this research includes K-12 classroom curricula, a school-wide climate development component, teacher and staff training, parent and community involvement, continued positive reinforcement and other techniques.

Lessons include topics related to self-concept, physical and intellectual actions, managing oneself responsibly, getting along with others, being honest, and self-improvement.

The results have been impressive. Previously published results showed 72 percent fewer suspensions, 15 percent less absenteeism, and much better reading and math skills based on state tests. National tests showed a 9 percent improvement in these academic subjects.

"The current research supports the hypothesis that these programs can generate whole-school change and improve school safety and quality," the researchers wrote in their report. "The present study shows improvements in school quality were made by relatively underperforming schools."

The findings suggest that schools, districts, states and the federal government should consider policies and funding directed toward social and character programs of this type, the researchers said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon State University.

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

Journal Reference:

Frank J. Snyder, Samuel Vuchinich, Alan Acock, Isaac J. Washburn, Brian R. Flay. Improving Elementary School Quality Through the Use of a Social-Emotional and Character Development Program: A Matched-Pair, Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial in Hawai'i. Journal of School Health, 2012; 82 (1): 11 DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2011.00662.x

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

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

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111230134836.htm

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TheAtlanticWire: Today in sports: taunting Tebow, leering at LeBron, and more http://t.co/QL5Powhg

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Friday, December 30, 2011

[OOC] Metal Gods

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Metal Gods?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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The Painkiller: Member for 0 years

Oh, man I want in on this...but only if your heart is in the right place.

List all of your favorite bands. Now. Right now. Open your iTunes and go down the list.

Then I'll decide.

Pfauxmeh: Member for 0 years

Yeah, I feel no need to show if my 'heart is in the right place'. :v Feel free to decide if you wish, but asking for my favourite bands should not be the category for deciding. You should be looking at what the ideas are for the bands themselves.

(Also: Nile, Death, Judas Priest, Mot?rhead, Deicide, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Suffocation, Gallhammer, Carcass, Napalm Death, Deep Purple, Atheist, Amebix, Cynic, Nasum, Bohema, The Beatles, Weather Report, Art Blakey, and Naked City are, in general, some of my favourite bands. Make of that what you will, I guess.)

The Painkiller: Member for 0 years

Don't take it the wrong way!
I just don't think that being in a metal band, no matter how real or fake it is, with clashing musical interests doesn't work for some people. Myself included!

Payce.

Pfauxmeh: Member for 0 years

Fair enough. Though you know, there are two bands. If you disagree with my musical tastes or where I want Band 1 to go, Band 2 offers a different approach.

The Painkiller: Member for 0 years

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Nintendo: Don?t expect Facebook games from us

Do you honestly, REALLY believe that Nintendo would even consider such a thing?

Nintendo has never, ever done such a thing.

And frankly, Facebook gaming can die, for all I care. It's the worst thing that has ever happened to gaming, legitimizing practices that have no purpose but to suck dry the wallets of those who play them.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/nintendo-dont-expect-facebook-games-from-us/6659

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JeremiahOshan: I can't believe they allow bowl games to be played on arena football fields.

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Developers release legal Siri port | TG Daily

Two hackers have come up with a Siri port that they say brings all the voice assistant's functionality to any jailbroken iOS 5 device - legally.

Grant Paul and Ryan Petrich say their Spire installer brings all the iPhone 4S Siri functionality to the jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs,iPod Touch and iPad.

And unlike other Siri ports created in the last few weeks, they say, it's perfectly legal. "Spire uses a new method to obtain the files necessary for Siri, so it doesn?t have the copyright issues encountered by previous attempts," says Paul.

It's not the easiest of solutions, though. Apple still requires authorization to use Siri, so information from an iPhone 4S is still required, and this means using a proxy.

Paul points out that for anyone who already owns an iPhone 4S - or has a friend that does - it's just a matter of using the phone's ownauthentification tokens. Otherwise, he says, it may be possible to use Google Chrome?s speech API, hooked up to code that can decode the Siri requests and parse Google?s result.

"Maybe in the future someone will find a way to evade the authorization requirement, but from my position here that?s unlikely," he says. "Hopefully, however, you?ll be able to figure something out."

In the longer term, once the iPhone 4S is jailbroken, there shouldn't be any need for the proxy server, he says.

Spire is available free on Cydia now. Paul warns that it uses about 100MB of data, meaning that a Wifi connection is necessary.

Source: http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/60423-developers-release-legal-siri-port

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Israeli airstrikes kill Gaza militant

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip?? Israel carried out a series of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip late Tuesday, killing a Palestinian militant wounding others. Israel said it targeted militants before they could carry out an attack on the border between Israel and Egypt.

Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said the militant was killed and another two injured in the explosion when a rocket hit his motorcycle Tuesday evening.

The Islamic Jihad, a violent Palestinian group that frequently fires rockets and mortars at Israel, said the he was a former member. The Israeli military said in a statement it targeted a "terror squad," without elaborating.

Another airstrike hit a Hamas police vehicle later Tuesday, injuring one Hamas officer and four others in the car, the Gaza health official said.

The Israeli military said it targeted "members of a global jihad terror group that were planning to attack the border."

In a statement, the military gave a list of the militants' names and said one of them used to be in Hamas before joining an even more radical jihadi group.

Such Israeli air attacks have been relatively rare since the end of a three-week Israeli war against Gaza militants three years ago.

It said the military will "not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and soldiers, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against Israel."

In August, Palestinian militants who apparently sneaked out of Gaza into the Egyptian Sinai desert attacked Israelis on a border road in Israel, killing eight. Israeli forces pursuing the militants killed six Egyptian soldiers by mistake, setting off a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Also Tuesday, a hard-line Israeli group said it was launching plans for a new tourist center at the site of a politically sensitive archaeological dig in a largely Arab neighborhood outside Jerusalem's Old City, drawing fire from Palestinian officials.

The project's sponsor, the Elad Foundation, said the new visitors center and parking garage will be built above a section of the excavation area known as the City of David, leaving the ruins below accessible. Construction, which must pass several zoning committees, was still several years away.

Only on msnbc.com
1. The top 11 scientific twists from 2011
2. Should scientists create deadly viruses? Yes, says bioethicist
3. Rick Perry sues Virginia to get on primary ballot
4. 'I'm here': Ambien awakens stroke victim
5. Gingrich memo praised Romney's health reform
6. Regis Philbin talks about his television future
7. Military brides say ?Yes? to free dresses

Israeli archaeologists at the City of David, named for the biblical monarch thought to have ruled from the spot 3,000 years ago, are investigating the oldest part of Jerusalem.

The site is just outside the Old City walls at the edge of the neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, the part of the city the Palestinian Authority says it wants as the capital of a hoped-for state.

Israeli construction in east Jerusalem is regularly subject to international criticism. Critics say the new plan will cement Israel's hold on Silwan and could destabilize the volatile neighborhood, where Palestinian residents clash on occasion with Jewish residents and police.

___

Additional reporting by Matti Friedman in Jerusalem.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45794905/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Video: 90 Seconds with Art Cashin

CNBC's Bob Pisani and UBS's Art Cashin discuss what it will take for the ECB to restore confidence in Europe. People need to believe that the governments are going to be more austere, first, says Cashin.

2011's top 11 twists from the world of science

Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors watch an on-screen presentation at the "Universe of Particles" exhibition at CERN, where physicists are trying to track down the Higgs boson as well as faster-than-light neutrinos.

By Alan Boyle

The past year brought us the supercomputer that trounced?flesh-and-blood champions on the "Jeopardy" TV show ... genetic discoveries that showed us the tangles in humanity's family tree ... a tsunami that shouldn't have been as catastrophic as it was ... and neutrinos that shouldn't be going as fast as they seem to. Which scientific twist of 2011 do you find most intriguing? Now's the time to cast your vote for the top science story of 2011.

This year's crop of top stories is trickier than usual because they cross so many lines. I've pared them down to a list of 11, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because of the way the lines are being drawn. I've already touched on two of the biggest science stories of 2011 in our "Year in Space" roundup: the end of the space shuttle era and the avalanche of extrasolar planets.?Our "Ancient Mysteries" roundup casts a spotlight on the big stories in archaeology, anthropology and paleontology.?I'm also leaving out?some big?stories with technology angles, such as the Arab?Spring protests?and the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

So what's left? In this list, I'm stressing the twists in science and technology that go against expectations ? or set up great expectations for the year ahead. I'm also including some personal favorites that you can feel free to quibble over. Check out this chronological?list, review the details by clicking on the links, then cast your vote for the year's top science story:

Live Poll

What's the top twist of 2011?

171741
Japan's nuclear crisis.
15%
171742
AIDS virus on the run.
8%
171743
Climate highs and lows.
5%
171744
Quest for the Higgs boson.
8%
171745
Faster-than-light neutrinos.
42%
171746
Watson wins on 'Jeopardy.'
3%
171747
Protein puzzlies untangled.
4%
171748
Our tangled genetic tree.
4%
171749
Personalized medicine works
4%
171750
Heaviest antimatter created.
2%
171751
Prehistoric fingerpainting.
1%
171752
None of the above.
3%

VoteTotal Votes: 450

Japan hit by quake, tsunami, nuclear crisis: The magnitude-8.9 quake that hit Japan in March qualifies as a top story on any scale, but the safety gaps at the Fukushima nuclear facility showed scientifically how nature can confound engineers' best-laid plans. It was just this month that Japan's prime minister announced the facility was in a stable state of "cold shutdown."?Fukushima may be an albatross around the neck of the nuclear power industry for years to come.?Or maybe not. Check out "After the Wave," msnbc.com's special report about the?earthquake's aftermath.?

AIDS virus on the run? An international study finds that people who take antiretroviral drugs ? medicine that weakens the HIV virus that causes?AIDS ? not only benefit from treatment but are far less likely to?infect their sexual partners. The finding?was so remarkable that the results were made public four years early, and last week the editors of the journal Science hailed it as the year's top breakthrough.

Climate highs and lows:?This month, a U.N. climate conference?reached agreement on a new plan to control greenhouse-gas emissions, but it's not clear whether the plan will pay off. Meanwhile, a former climate skeptic says he no longer doubts the reality of global warming, the climate issue creates a controversy on the GOP campaign trail, "Climategate 2.0" fails to gain traction, and Arctic sea ice is?close to?record lows.??

Goodbye, Tevatron ... hello, Higgs boson? After 28 years of service, the Tevatron collider was shut down in Illinois in September, leaving the Large Hadron Collider as the only experiment hunting for the elusive Higgs boson. Discovery of that particle could show scientists how mass arose in the universe. Researchers at the LHC suspect that they've got the?subatomic bugger cornered, but the actual discovery (or determination that it doesn't exist after all) will have to wait until next year.

Faster-than-light neutrinos? Physicists at CERN and Italy's Gran Sasso laboratory say they've clocked bunches of neutrinos traveling between the two labs at a speed that's just a bit faster than the speed of light ? something that relativity theory contends should be impossible. Most observers are confident that the claim will be proven wrong in 2012, due to some sort of experimental error. But a rerun of the test in November, under somewhat different conditions, came up with the same result. Stay tuned...

Watson wins on 'Jeopardy': IBM programmed a supercomputer named Watson?to dominate the "Jeopardy" TV trivia game, and dominate it did. The point of the exercise wasn't to win the $1 million prize, which was donated to charity; rather, the technology behind Watson is being applied to medical diagnoses and other applications. We puny humans can take heart in the fact that Watson is not infallible. After all, it thought Toronto was a U.S. city, and it actually lost a game to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (although, come to think of it, that might have been a political move on Watson's part).

Gamers untangle protein puzzles: Game-playing humans struck back this year by figuring out the molecular structure of a key enzyme in an AIDS-like virus that afflicts rhesus monkeys. The protein-folding?achievement, accomplished by the players of an online game called Foldit,?served as further evidence that non-scientists can help conduct valuable scientific research through collaborative software. Foldit's game-playing teams even came up with new mathematical algorithms for solving?biochemical puzzles more efficiently.

Genetic family tree gets tangled: Late last year, researchers announced that they found genetic twists in our DNA that pointed to a previously unknown branch of our ancient family tree. Some of our ancestors interbred?with?creatures in Siberia that were not like modern humans or Neanderthals, but were of a distinct strain now known as the Denisovans. This year, geneticists reported that interbreeding with Denisovans and Neanderthals gave a big boost to our ancestors' immune systems. There's also evidence that our ancestors swapped genes with other now-extinct populations even before they left Africa. "Everywhere you look now, we find a little bit of interbreeding," said University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer.

Personalized medicine really works: Scientists have been saying for years that someday we'll all have our entire genomes sequenced, and that genomic analysis will open up a brave new world of personalized medicine. This year, it really happened. Physicians found a flaw in a California teen's genetic code that guided them to prescribe new medication for her bouts of sudden breathlessness. The success story serves as "the leading edge of what will become, pretty soon, a deluge of such reports," said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

Heaviest antimatter created: Researchers at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reported seeing traces of antihelium-4 nuclei, made up of two antiprotons and two antineutrons. These are the heaviest bits of antimatter ever detected on Earth, and that record's likely to stand for a long, long time. Sorry, Dan Brown: The antimatter bomb you wrote about in "Angels?& Demons" will have to remain firmly in the realm of fiction.

Fingerpainting at prehistoric preschool: Here's something completely different: Researchers measured the widths of finger marks? to figure out that kids as young as?2 years old?exercised their artistry?on prehistoric cave walls, with an occasional boost from the grown-ups. It's amazing how archaeology can bring a 13,000-year-old culture to life.

So what am I forgetting? Space-time cloaking devices? New York's new bee species? Remember that I have a whole 'nother list of top stories?for space exploration as well as for ancient mysteries, and that I'm putting the Arab?Spring and Steve Jobs' death in a different category.?Let me know what else is?missing by leaving a comment below, and get ready to take a walk on the wild side later this week when it's time to judge the 2012 Weird Science Awards.

More year-end reviews:

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/27/9748604-11-scientific-twists-from-2011

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Friday, December 23, 2011

"Happiness Is the Best Revenge" [Quotables]

"Happiness Is the Best Revenge" "That's the best revenge of all: happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life." ~ Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and several other novels.

Note: For those of you who have an issue with the language in this quote, read this post.

Although this is a quote from author Chuck Palahniuk, its essence stems from an old saying that goes something like "the best revenge is a life well-lived." Chuck's version is just a bit more...direct. And clear. Things little and large can upset us from day to day, and unfairness and tragedy is nearly inevitable even when we try to do the right thing. We always have the option of spreading more hate and anger when bad things happen, but that's not necessarily the most effective revenge. On the other hand, if your life is great despite someone's attempt to make it worse then, by default, you're rendering their attempts ineffective. That's what really drives people crazy, and all you have to do is let go.

My dad told me some version of this belief when I was younger and I've since lived by it. Whenever I feel slighted, overlooked, demeaned, or hurt by another, I spend a little time being angry and then remember that the best thing I can do is something amazing. You can't simply change people because you want to, and you'll rarely get anywhere by exacting punishment. As hard as it can be sometimes, you just have to be better. You won't be happy trying to make other people miserable.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/okFKBOQTPJo/happiness-is-the-best-revenge

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

What It?s Like To Be James Franco?s Professor

When I was assigned to be James Franco?s adviser in the English department at Yale, I was not exactly sure what to think. I was not on the admissions committee that had enrolled him, and to be perfectly honest, I?d never read anything he?d written. (I had, of course, seen a few James Franco films, but who hasn?t?) I am also fairly new at Yale, and so was not sure what sort of ?advice? I could offer beyond, I guess, ?study hard, and good luck.? When he came to my office, he was already deep into classes on Romanticism, Walt Whitman, and modern American literature. He had also just received an Oscar nomination. James? personal assistant had called the day before to ask if I could meet in the afternoon, rather than the morning, since he had been invited onto the Colbert Report that day. I was flexible, and happy to accommodate, but remember feeling a little stunned at having to speak with one of my students in such a Hollywood manner?his people calling my people.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=a78c61c64b4165f33f3defd0236b132e

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Monday, December 19, 2011

NYC police: Man says he set woman afire over debt (AP)

NEW YORK ? As Deloris Gillespie went up the elevator to her fifth-floor Brooklyn apartment, carrying groceries, a man was waiting. His face was one her neighbors later recognized, and that she surely must have.

Surveillance video from inside the small elevator shows that he looked something like an exterminator, with a canister sprayer, white gloves and a dust mask, which was perched atop his head like a pair of sunglasses. The sprayer was full of flammable liquid.

When the elevator opened Saturday afternoon, the man sprayed the 73-year-old woman, who turned around and crouched down to try to protect herself, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. The attacker sprayed Gillespie in the face and continued to spray her "sort of methodically" over her head and parts of her body as her bags of groceries draped off her arms, Browne said.

Then, Browne said, the attacker pulled out a barbecue-style lighter and used it to ignite a rag in a bottle. He waited a few seconds as Gillespie huddled on the floor. Then he backed out of the elevator and tossed the flaming bottle in.

Neighbors in the Prospect Heights building quickly reported a fire, but had no idea that a woman was being burned alive.

Overnight, a 47-year-old man stinking of gasoline went into a police station and implicated himself in Gillespie's death, Browne said. The suspect, Jerome Isaac, told police he set her on fire because she owed him $2,000 for some work he had done for her, Browne said.

Jaime Holguin, who lives on the same floor as Gillespie, saw surveillance pictures of the attacker and said, "Oh, my God!"

Holguin, the manager of news development for The Associated Press, said the man in the surveillance pictures looked like a man who had lived with Gillespie for about six months last year and appeared to have been helping her out. He was certain Isaac was the man who worked for Gillespie after seeing post-arrest pictures of the suspect.

Gillespie's arrangement with Isaac appeared to have ended by early 2011, but months later Holguin started seeing the man nearby on the street, looking "a lot more disheveled" and pushing a cart full of aluminum cans.

Browne said that after setting Gillespie ablaze, Isaac set another fire at his own apartment building nearby, then hid on a roof before turning himself in to police.

Isaac, of Brooklyn, was arrested Sunday on murder and arson charges. The Brooklyn district attorney's office had no information on whether he had an attorney.

Residents were evacuated and kept away from the six-story building for hours Saturday night as police investigated. On Sunday, Holguin said, the fifth floor was a mess, with a melted elevator door and a layer of water on the floor.

Holguin said he and his girlfriend had taken the elevator on their way out of the building shortly before the attack. They didn't see anyone on the floor with them but did notice an odd smell, as if someone was painting, he said.

Holguin said police told them later that the assailant was already in the building and perhaps had hidden on another floor when they left their apartment.

He remembered Gillespie as nice but sometimes a little off. "At least with me, some days she'd be very, very pleasant, and then the next time, she would almost ignore me," he said.

Gillespie also went through a period this year where she would place duct tape over her apartment door whenever she left, Holguin said.

As for the man who worked for Gillespie, Holguin said they had exchanged hellos and occasionally talked about Holguin's dog.

___

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report from New York.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111219/ap_on_re_us/us_woman_torched

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Prosecution to present its case against Manning

FORT MEADE, Maryland (AP) ? The prosecution will start presenting its case Saturday against the young soldier blamed for the largest leak of classified material in American history.

The long-awaited court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning may hinge on whether the U.S. government overzealously stamped "secret" on material posing no national security risk.

The trial is moving ahead after the defense asked the presiding officer to step aside because of alleged bias. Lt. Col. Paul Almanza rejected the request.

Manning is a one-time intelligence analyst stationed in Baghdad who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive items: Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, State Department cables and a classified military video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 11 men, including a news photographer and his driver.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-17-Manning-WikiLeaks/id-3ef93b9cebb94de8b8ebc731f43cdf54

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Film details Jerry Lewis' 'Method to the Madness' (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Gregg Barson is a documentarian, not a comedian. But when Jerry Lewis let him know that more than a dozen people were waiting in line to tell his story, Barson offered a persuasive punch line.

"Yeah, but they're not me," was Barson's comeback, followed by a momentary quiver of fear that he'd gone too far with the veteran star.

"He said, `I like that. You know why? Because you remind me of me,'" Barson recalled. That chutzpah-fueled exchange led to "Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis," debuting 8 p.m. EST Saturday on Starz.

The film focuses on what makes the 85-year-old ? and still working ? Lewis tick as a performer and filmmaker. Those looking for dish on his family life or breakup with stage and screen partner Dean Martin or abrupt departure from the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon he'd nurtured for six decades won't find it here.

Barson, who describes himself as "in heaven" when he caught a Lewis film on TV as a youngster, said his intent was to focus on Lewis' career from vaudeville on and his contributions to comedy and movies.

Younger people without exposure to Lewis' work likely consider him as "that telethon guy. Hopefully, the film will open their eyes as opposed to thinking he did one thing one day a year," Barson said.

During more than three years of filming, Barson had near-complete access as he followed Lewis from his yacht in San Diego to his home in Las Vegas to concert dates and to the Cannes Film Festival in France, the country that idolizes Lewis as a cinematic genius.

He was good company, Barson said. "He's always up, funny and playful. ... The sparkle, he didn't put in on for the camera. He's being real."

"Method to the Madness," which opens with Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy and other comedians anointing Lewis as comedy royalty, is an unabashed valentine. It is also a reminder that Lewis inspired rock-star levels of fan devotion, and of how impressively "The Bellboy" (1960) and many other films starring and written and directed by Lewis ruled the box office.

Barson, who made the well-received Phyllis Diller documentary "Goodnight, We Love You," sees parallels between Diller and Lewis, including their work ethic.

"She was 84 when she retired, and he's 85 and still working. They never rest on their laurels," Barson said. "They still care. They're not phoning it in."

And that, he said, is part of Lewis' method: Every aspect of his performance is planned.

"As Eddie Murphy says (in the film), slapstick looks simple but the reason it's been around so long is how well thought out it is," Barson said.

Lewis is pleased with the film. And his health is good, according to the filmmaker, who spills one appropriately quirky personal secret on his subject: "He drinks a lot of orange soda. Maybe that's the fountain of youth."

___

Online:

http://www.starz.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_en_tv/us_tv_jerry_lewis

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Jeb Bush: I???m not behind robocall in New Hampshire (Daily Caller)

A spokeswoman for Jeb Bush told The Daily Caller that the former Florida governor is not behind a mysterious robocall in New Hampshire that includes him as a possible choice in the 2012 Republican presidential race.

?News reports of the polling calls is how we first learned it was taking place,? Jaryn Emhof, a spokeswoman for Bush, told The Daily Caller.

?We don?t know who is behind it,? she stated flatly. ?Nothing has changed ? Gov. [Bush] is not running in 2012.?

There were multiple reports?on Wednesday of the existence of the calls, which once again?sparked speculation that the popular brother of former President George W. Bush could make a late entry into the race for the White House. He has repeatedly denied interest in running.

It?s possible the poll is from someone trying to convince Bush to take a second look. It?s also a possibility that it is from someone trying to make the point that voters desire someone other than the existing choices.

There?s still time for another candidate to jump in the race as late as February and win, University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato recently said on Fox News.

?I think for the Republicans, they would go back to the big stars who said ?no,?? he said.

Follow Alex on Twitter

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Romney predicts tea party will turn on Gingrich (AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. ? Mitt Romney is mocking Newt Gingrich's long record in Washington and says conservative tea party voters eventually will reject the former House speaker who's Romney chief presidential rival.

Romney tells reporters in South Carolina that he thinks the state's tea party voters will turn on Gingrich because of his work for the mortgage company Freddie Mac and his consulting time in Washington.

Romney, who's been endorsed by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, isn't sure whether the work Gingrich did after he left the House is considered lobbying. But Romney says that "when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, typically it's a duck."

South Carolina holds its first-in-the-South primary Jan. 21. Gingrich leads Romney in South Carolina polls and has emphasized his tea party support.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111217/ap_on_el_pr/us_romney_tea_party

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Jurors deadlock in $1B lawsuit against Microsoft (AP)

SALT LAKE CITY ? A federal jury on Friday failed to reach a verdict in a Utah company's $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. in a case so important to the computer giant that it put Bill Gates on the stand for two days last month.

Novell Inc. sued the software giant in 2004, claiming Microsoft duped it into developing the once-popular WordPerfect writing program for Windows 95 only to pull the plug so Microsoft could gain market share with its own product.

Novell says it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss.

The trial began two months ago with jurors getting the case on Wednesday. After much confusion, and some perplexing questions from the panel, they told U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz they were deadlocked by early Friday evening.

He repeatedly asked them if they could keep trying.

"This has been a very long and expensive case," Motz told the panel.

Novell attorneys pleaded with Motz to give the panel just one more day. In the end, however, the 12 jurors told the judge they were "hopelessly" deadlocked, and they later told lawyers a single holdout refused to vote in Novell's favor.

"He had strongly held views about the technical evidence and refused to budge," Novell attorney Jeffrey Johnson said. Jurors offered no comment after the trial.

Novell was left with little to show for a decade of effort, but the company said it will seek to retry the case with a new jury.

"Although it's a technically complicated case, we're hoping to convince another jury that our claims have merit," Novell's corporate counsel Jim Lundberg said.

Microsoft said it would file a motion asking the judge to dismiss Novell's complaint for good and avoid a second trial.

"We remain confident that Novell's claims don't have any merit and look forward to the next steps in the process," said Steven Aeschbacher, Microsoft's associate general counsel.

Novell waited until 10 years after Microsoft left WordPerfect behind to file the lawsuit. The company said it was waiting for the U.S. government's antitrust enforcement against Microsoft to wrap up. At first Novell's case was dismissed, but it was later reinstated on appeal.

Microsoft lawyers have argued that Novell's loss of market share was its own doing because the company didn't develop a compatible WordPerfect program until long after the rollout of Windows 95. WordPerfect once had nearly 50 percent of the market for word processing, but its share quickly plummeted to less than 10 percent as Microsoft's own Office programs took hold.

Gates testified last month that he had no idea his decision to drop a tool for outside developers would sidetrack Novell. Gates said he was acting to protect Windows 95 and future versions from crashing.

He said that the company's preferred Word software was superior to WordPerfect, which was a "bulky, slow, buggy product" that did not integrate well with Windows 95.

Novell could have worked around the problem but failed to react quickly, he said.

Novell has argued that Gates ordered Microsoft engineers to reject WordPerfect as a Windows 95 word processing application because he feared it was too good.

Novell's lawsuit is the last major private antitrust case to follow the settlement of a federal antitrust enforcement action against Microsoft more than eight years ago.

Novell is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group, the result of a merger that was completed earlier this year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111217/ap_on_hi_te/us_antitrust_lawsuit_microsoft

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FBI contacted phone monitoring firm about software (AP)

WASHINGTON ? A senior executive at a technology company that makes monitoring software secretly installed on 141 million cellphones said Thursday that the FBI approached the company about using its technology but was rebuffed. The disclosure came one day after FBI Director Robert Mueller assured Congress that agents "neither sought nor obtained any information" from the company, Carrier IQ.

The company's statement will likely inflame suspicion about the monitoring tool and its usefulness to the U.S. government.

Andrew Coward, vice president of marketing for Carrier IQ of Mountain View, Calif., told The Associated Press that the FBI is the only law enforcement agency that has contacted the company. Coward would not say when, why or how often the FBI has reached out to Carrier IQ, but he said the company is not working with the bureau. "There is no relationship between us and the FBI," Coward said.

During an oversight hearing Wednesday, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI "neither sought nor obtained any information from Carrier IQ in any one of our investigations." Mueller was responding to a question by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairman of the committee's privacy and technology panel, who has said collecting personal information from people's cellphones could violate federal law.

FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said in an emailed statement that the bureau's technical staff "communicates routinely with many technology companies, including Carrier IQ, relative to new and emerging technologies and capabilities."

The company's technology is designed as a diagnostic tool that gives mobile telephone companies the ability to gather and analyze information that helps them improve the performance of devices that operate on their networks, Carrier IQ said. The software is typically installed by the phone company or the manufacturer of the handset.

Most cellphone users were unaware the company or its software existed until last month when a security researcher, Trevor Eckhart, posted online a video he made showing how keystrokes and messages from his smartphone were logged by the Carrier IQ software.

Eckhart said the software is hard to detect and difficult to turn off. Other researchers who subsequently studied Carrier IQ's software said it does not appear to transmit the contents of emails or text messages but captures detailed information about recipients or destinations of messages, the physical location from where messages were sent or received and details such as the phone's battery level.

Even before Thursday's disclosure by Carrier IQ about the FBI contacting the company, the FBI had fueled questions about whether it sought to use the monitoring software in federal investigations or even whether it was investigating Carrier IQ. The FBI denied a request the AP made on Dec. 2 for internal documents about its interactions with Carrier IQ, citing a provision in the Freedom of Information Act that excludes from disclosure any documents relevant to a "pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding." The FBI also told the AP that releasing the records that it sought could "reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings."

The AP had asked for copies of correspondence from FBI officials requesting access to information stored on Carrier IQ's servers or asking questions about such information. The AP also requested copies of records indicating visits by FBI officials to Carrier IQ's offices and the results of any testing performed by the FBI on Carrier IQ's technology.

Eckhart's online video sparked concerns among privacy advocates about which information Carrier IQ's software is recording and who can view it. In late November, Franken wrote to Carrier IQ's president and asked him to answer a series of questions by Dec. 14 about the kind of data that the software can collect, how long the data is stored and whether any of this information is shared with third parties.

"These actions may violate federal privacy laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," Franken wrote. "This is potentially a very serious matter."

A few days later, Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, co-chairman of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, asked the Federal Trade Commission whether it was investigating "the installation of software that secretly tracks and reports back the activities of cellphone users."

Earlier this week, Carrier IQ sought to contain the damage by organizing meetings with officials at the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission and several Senate offices, including Franken's, to explain what the software is intended to do. The company said it is not aware of an official investigation into its products or practices.

"Our data is not designed for law enforcement agencies and to our knowledge has never been used by law enforcement agencies," the company said in a statement. "Carrier IQ have no rights to the data gathered and have not passed data to third parties. Should a law enforcement agency request data from us, we would refer them to the network operators. To date and to our knowledge we have received no such requests."

The company posted a 19-page statement on its website that explains what its software does. It said the only data collected is to help solve common problems, such as batteries that drain too quickly or calls that fail to connect.

The software, called IQ Agent, typically transmits 200 kilobytes of diagnostic data ? the equivalent of 50 typed pages ? once each day when the phone is not being used, the company said, but decisions about what information to collect and how it is analyzed is determined by the phone companies and the agreements they have with their customers.

___

Online:

Carrier IQ: http://www.carrieriq.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/software/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_hi_te/us_fbi_phone_tracking_software

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Friday, December 16, 2011

Cobertura dos Indicados ao SAG AWARDS 2012 - AO VIVO

Meryl Streep - A Dama de Ferro

Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Viola Davis - Hist?rias Cruzadas

Tilda Swinton - Precisamos Falar Sobre Kevin

Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs

Christopher Plummer - Toda Forma de Amor

Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill - O Homem que Mudou o Jogo

Armie Hammer - J. Edgar

Nick Nolte - Warrior

Source: http://indicadossagawards2012.blogspot.com/?altcast_code=99e073fedf

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US natural gas supplies shrank last week (AP)

NEW YORK ? The nation's natural gas supplies fell last week, the government said Thursday.

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that natural gas in storage shrank by 102 billion cubic feet to 3.729 trillion cubic feet for the week ended Dec. 9.

Analysts expected a decline of 94 billion to 98 billion cubic feet, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

The inventory level was 10.3 percent above the five-year average of 3.382 trillion cubic feet, and 4.3 percent above last year's level of 3.575 trillion cubic feet, according to the government data.

Natural gas futures rose 5.1 cents to $3.187 per 1,000 cubic feet in New York.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_bi_ge/us_natural_gas_storage

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U.S. lawmakers freeze $700 million to Pakistan, ties strained (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? A U.S. Congressional panel has frozen $700 million in aid to Pakistan until it gives assurances it is helping fight the spread of homemade bombs in the region, a move one Pakistani senator called unwise and likely to strain ties further.

Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid and the cutback announced is only a small proportion of the billions in civil and military assistance it gets each year.

But it could presage even greater cuts. The aid freeze targets funds used to fight Taliban insurgents.

Calls are growing in the United States to penalize Islamabad for failing to act against militant groups and, at worst, helping them, after the secret U.S. raid on a Pakistan garrison town in which al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in May.

Salim Saifullah, chairman of Pakistan's Senate foreign relations committee, warned that relations, which are already at a low point, could worsen further following the decision by the U.S. House-Senate panel.

"I don't think this is a wise move. It could hurt ties. There should instead be efforts to increase cooperation. I don't see any good coming out of this," Saifullah told Reuters.

Homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are among militants' most effective weapons against U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan as they struggle to fight a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

Many are made using ammonium nitrate, a common Fertilizer smuggled across the border from Pakistan.

The freeze on U.S. aid was agreed as part of a defense bill that is expected to be passed this week.

The United States wants "assurances that Pakistan is countering improvised explosive devices in their country that are targeting our coalition forces," Representative Howard McKeon, a House Republican, told reporters.

The United States has allocated some $20 billion in security and economic aid to Pakistan since 2001, much of it in the form of reimbursements for assistance in fighting militants.

But U.S. lawmakers have expressed increasing frustration with Pakistan's efforts in the war.

There have been many proposals to make U.S. aid to Pakistan conditional on more cooperation in fighting militants such as the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, which Washington believes operates out of Pakistan and battles U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan's civilian leaders have in the past warned against aid cuts, saying it would only harden public opinion against the United States.

Pakistan says it is doing all it can to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban and has lost thousands of soldiers since it joined the U.S.-led war in 2001, some of them at the hands of coalition troops.

Islamabad has accused NATO of deliberately killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in an air strike near the Afghan border last month and shut down supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan in anger.

"I must say that the aeriel attacks on our army border posts on November 26, 2011, constituted a huge setback to the prospects of much needed cooperation between all important stakeholders," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told a gathering of Pakistani ambassadors to other countries.

The decision to freeze aid could prompt Pakistan to harden its stance towards Washington.

"I think the Pakistan side will understand the type of signal that is coming, which shows it's not only a question of aid," former general and security analyst Talat Masood said.

"The whole attitude of the U.S. and the relationship will be affected by these measures because they know Pakistan will not be in a position to control the smuggling."

RAMPANT SMUGGLING

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Abdul Basit, also suggested pressure from the United States would hurt ties, saying Islamabad believes "in cooperative approaches."

U.S. lawmakers said many Afghan bombs are made with Fertilizer smuggled by militants across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

"The vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices used against U.S. forces in Afghanistan originates from two Fertilizer factories inside Pakistan," Republican Senator John McCain said in the Senate last week.

A Congressional Research Service report in October said the Pakistani factories, owned by one of the country's biggest companies, Pakarab, have been producing over 300,000 metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate per year since 2004.

The United States has urged Pakistan to regulate the distribution of ammonium nitrate to Afghanistan strictly. So far, Pakistan has only produced draft legislation on the issue.

Analysts say U.S. demands will be tough to meet because of rampant corruption on both sides of the porous border that makes smuggling easy.

One businessman explained how easy it is to get through security.

"We pay a 1,200-rupee ($13) bribe to the Pakistani Frontiers Corps on the border for every car carrying Fertilizer," said Kamal Khan in the border town of Chaman.

"Fertilizer is smuggled on trucks, pickup trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and donkey carts."

Pakistan's fragile economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, so cutting down on Fertilizer output would hurt the sector.

The provision freezing $700 million in aid was agreed upon by leaders of the armed services committees from both parties in the House and Senate, including McCain. It is part of compromise legislation authorizing U.S. defense programs expected to be approved this week, McKeon said.

The bill would also require the Pentagon to deliver a strategy for improving the effectiveness of U.S. aid to Pakistan, he said.

(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai in CHAMAN and Susan Cornwell in WASHINGTON; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111213/pl_nm/us_pakistan_usa

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Kennedy Center Honors celebrates Streep, Diamond (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama revealed a secret crush and Caroline Kennedy crooned to her namesake song on Sunday at the Kennedy Center Honors, which celebrated actress Meryl Streep and singer Neil Diamond.

The annual awards program, which also honored singer Barbara Cook, jazz great Sonny Rollins, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, brought together stars from the stage and screen in a celebration of music, movies, and Broadway shows.

"Right now, somewhere in America, there is a future Kennedy Center honoree - practicing on some phone books, or writing songs to impress a girl, or wondering if she can cut it on the big stage," Obama said at the White House, greeting the winners before the show and noting the importance of the arts.

It turns out the president once fell for Streep, the actress who has been nominated for 16 Academy Awards and won two.

"Anybody who saw 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' had a crush on her," Obama said, joking that he was straying from his prepared remarks.

Of Diamond, Obama said his songs could be heard everywhere from baseball games to children's movies.

"With a voice he describes as being full of gravel, potholes, left turns and right turns, he went on to sell more than 125 million records," Obama said.

The "Sweet Caroline" singer told reporters he would thank Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy, for being the namesake of that signature song.

"I'm going to thank her for giving me the title for 'Sweet Caroline,'" Diamond said before the show. "The story really is about my former wife and myself, but it is her name that I used, and I have to thank her for that."

Kennedy, who presided over the evening, referred to Diamond with a line from the tune -- "reaching out, touching me" -- to laughter from the audience. She later joined singer Smokey Robinson and other performers for a rendition of the song, crooning along somewhat awkwardly.

HUMOR, MUSIC

In other crowd-pleasing moments, comedian Stephen Colbert gave a humorous introduction to the music of Ma, who first played for a U.S. president at the age of 7.

"Yo-Yo doesn't just play the cello. He rocks it. He shreds it. He cranks it up and he rips off the knob - metaphorically, of course, because the knobs on a Stradivarius are like a half a million dollars a piece," he said.

Obama said he could learn a thing or two from the cellist.

"Maybe the most amazing thing about Yo-Yo Ma is that everybody likes him," Obama said at the White House, drawing laughter. "You've got to give me some tips."

Actor Bill Cosby introduced the portion of the show dedicated to Rollins, saying the musician's tenor sax became a legend. Rollins, 81, told reporters his award celebrated a uniquely American form of music - jazz.

"America is the home of jazz, it's where we started jazz, and people love jazz all over the world," he told reporters.

Actresses Glenn Close and Patti LuPone joined a lineup of top stage stars that sang a series of songs honoring Cook, who achieved fame with roles in "Candide" and "The Music Man" on Broadway decades ago.

"Thank you, Barbara for all the music - the joys, the longing, the sadness and humor with which you infuse each song," said actor Matthew Broderick who, along with wife Sarah Jessica Parker, addressed the audience about Cook.

This was the 34th version of the Kennedy Center Honors. It will be broadcast by CBS on December 27.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/stage_nm/us_usa_kennedy_honors

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