Saturday, December 22, 2012

Video: Obama nominates John Kerry for Secretary of State

Reports of shattering cookware on the rise

Reports of glass pans and other cookware abruptly shattering during normal use have climbed sharply in recent years, NBC News has learned. And a controversy is heating up over whether the pans or the users are to blame.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/50274258/

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OLRTXT WASH MEAST AF POL GEN DIP SY LIST1 PK USAMA US CTXT IR

In Kerry, Obama picks foreign policy leader, loyal stalwart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Kerry gave up his presidential dreams after a narrow loss to Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 U.S. election, but forged a new identity as a congressional leader on foreign policy - and dutiful supporter of President Barack Obama.

Obama rewarded the five-term Massachusetts senator on Friday by nominating him to succeed Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state.

Kerry, a patrician Yankee, will confront a raft of policy problems as the United States' top diplomat, ranging from the Syria crisis and impasse over Iran's nuclear program to mapping out the next phase of U.S. relations with prickly powers such as China and Russia.

He also will face the personal challenge of succeeding Clinton, who has become one of Obama's most popular and most visible Cabinet secretaries during her four years in office.

Obama's choice of Kerry comes after Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who had been the front-runner for the job, withdrew from consideration amid scathing Republican criticism of her handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Even Republicans in Congress said they expect Kerry to sail through the confirmation process.

Kerry has sometimes served as Obama's special emissary in times of crisis. He flew to Afghanistan in 2009, when he helped talk President Hamid Karzai into agreeing to a runoff election, and to Pakistan in 2011 amid an uproar over a U.S. government employee who was arrested for killing two people allegedly trying to rob him.

But Obama has centralized national security decision-making in the White House and analysts say Kerry's selection could signal an even firmer White House hand in Obama's second term.

Kerry, known as an able negotiator and cautious public speaker, is likely to be put to the test soon after taking over at the State Department as two major U.S. foreign policy challenges move to the fore.

The 21-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to be nearing a tipping point as rebels advance, leaving Washington scrambling to map out policies to deal with everything from a power vacuum to the potential use of chemical weapons as a last-ditch defense by Damascus.

As senator, Kerry visited Damascus repeatedly prior to the outbreak of protests and was a proponent of U.S. re-engagement with Assad, partly in hopes of nudging Syria toward peace talks with Israel. He later joined the chorus calling for Assad to step down, saying he had been wrong in his earlier view of the Syrian president as a potential reformer.

On another issue, the United States and other major powers may soon start new talks with Tehran about its nuclear program, hoping to breathe life into thus-far fruitless negotiations aimed at heading off a wider confrontation that could draw in key U.S. ally Israel and wreak havoc on the global economy.

CLOSE TIES TO WHITE HOUSE

Republicans criticized Rice for being more of an Obama ally than a stateswoman. But Kerry, 69, has his own close ties to the Democratic president and little of the personal celebrity wattage that Clinton used to bolster her term in office.

Kerry supported Obama, then a Senate colleague, early in his 2008 presidential campaign and was thought to be a leading contender for his first secretary of state before Obama made the surprise choice of Clinton, his erstwhile rival for the Democratic nomination.

Despite losing out to Clinton, Kerry wan an important Obama ally in the Senate and a strong defender of administration policies on everything from the need to keep funding foreign aid to stepping up sanctions on Iran.

This year, the senior senator from Massachusetts helped the president prepare for his campaign debates with Mitt Romney, standing in for the Republican as Obama practiced for their three head-to-head encounters.

Kerry became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early 2009, replacing Vice President Joe Biden. But he has been a specialist in foreign affairs for years, both boosting and damaging his political career.

The Yale-educated son of foreign service officer Richard John Kerry, he differed from most of well-heeled peers in the 1960s by enlisting in the U.S. Navy and serving two tours of duty during the Vietnam War.

But he broke from - and enraged - the military establishment by becoming a prominent antiwar demonstrator after he returned home, testifying before Congress and even famously throwing away some of his medals.

Foreign policy also helped deal the biggest blow of Kerry's political life - his narrow loss to Republican incumbent Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

Kerry centered his campaign on his opposition to the Iraq war, but Bush's team was able to paint Kerry as a "flip-flopper" for switching policy positions, including his stance on that conflict.

After losing a race for the U.S. House in 1972, Kerry went to Boston College Law School, became a county prosecutor and worked his way up the political ladder before winning his Senate seat in 1984.

He spent his early Senate career in the shadow of his senior Senate counterpart, the late Edward Kennedy. Kerry's background is solidly patrician, like Kennedy's. He can trace his roots back to the first Massachusetts governor, John Winthrop.

He also is one of the Senate's richest members, thanks to his second wife's fortune. Ketchup heiress and philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry was the widow of the late Pennsylvania Republican Sen. John Heinz.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Warren Strobel and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/olrtxt-wash-meast-af-pol-gen-dip-sy-201143512.html

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Source: http://leucabiz.com/blog/earn-more-today-with-this-great-affiliate-promotion-advice/

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Boehner on averting fiscal cliff: 'God only knows'

Majority Leader Eric Cantor from Virginia, center, departs after a House Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 in Washington. Confronted with a revolt among the rank and file, House Republicans abruptly put off a vote Thursday night on legislation allowing tax rates to rise for households earning $1 million and up.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Majority Leader Eric Cantor from Virginia, center, departs after a House Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 in Washington. Confronted with a revolt among the rank and file, House Republicans abruptly put off a vote Thursday night on legislation allowing tax rates to rise for households earning $1 million and up.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, center, departs after a House Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 in Washington. Confronted with a revolt among the rank and file, House Republicans abruptly put off a vote Thursday night on legislation allowing tax rates to rise for households earning $1 million and up.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, center, departs, with reporters nearby after a House Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012 in Washington. Confronted with a revolt among the rank and file, House Republicans abruptly put off a vote Thursday night on legislation allowing tax rates to rise for households earning $1 million and up.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? House Speaker John Boehner signaled on Friday he's still open to negotiations with President Barack Obama on avoiding across-the-board tax increases set to hit taxpayers Jan. 1, but sounded pessimistic about reaching a grand deal with the president.

"How we get there, God only knows," Boehner told a Capitol Hill news conference just hours after his rank-and-file handed him a stunning tactical defeat.

The Republican leader spoke the morning after he was forced by his members to abandon legislation that would have raised taxes on incomes above $1 million. "We didn't have the votes to pass it," Boehner said glumly.

In the aftermath, Boehner said any deal with the president to avoid the looming "fiscal cliff" would require more compromise by Obama and greater involvement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"I'm interested in solving the major problems that face our country," Boehner said. "And that means House leaders, Senate leaders and the president are going to continue to have to work together to address those concerns."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who stood by Boehner's side, said, "We stand ready to continue in dialogue with this president to actually fix the problem."

Boehner dismissed suggestions that the embarrassment late Thursday night over the legislation would cost him his speakership, second in line to the presidency.

"While we may have not been able to get the votes last night to avert 99.81 percent of the tax increases, I don't think ? they weren't taking that out on me," he said. "They were dealing with the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes."

Obama has said he will press ahead with Congress in search of a deal and that the two sides are relatively close to a long-sought budget bargain. But Boehner on Friday depicted an impasse.

"I told the president on Monday these were my bottom lines," Boehner said. "The president told me that his numbers ? the $1.3 trillion in new revenues, $850 billion in spending cuts ? was his bottom line, that he couldn't go any further." Boehner and the White House differ on how to classify key elements of Obama's latest offer, particularly whether to count interest savings on the national debt as a spending cut. The White House says Obama offered $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, matched by $1.2 trillion in higher taxes.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Thursday that Obama has "never said either in private or in public that this was his final offer. He understands that to reach a deal it would require some further negotiation. There is not much further he could go, because after all, unlike his counterparts in this negotiation, he has already gone halfway on both sides of the equation."

Boehner's attempt to retreat from a longstanding promise to maintain Bush-era tax rates for all was designed to gain at least some leverage against Obama and Senate Democrats in the fiscal cliff endgame. Thursday's drama was a major personal defeat for the speaker, who retains the respect and affection of his tea party-infused conference, but sometimes has great difficulty getting them to follow his leadership.

What Boehner called his "Plan B" was crafted to prevent tax increases set to kick in Jan. 1 on virtually every taxpayer. But it also would have provisions that would have let rates rise for those at the upper income range ? a violation of long-standing Republican orthodoxy that triggered opposition inside the party.

The hope was that successful House action on the measure would force Senate Democrats to respond. But Reid made clear that Plan B would have been dead on arrival in the Senate.

The latest events leave little time for Obama and bruised lawmakers to prevent across-the-board tax increases and deep spending cuts from taking effect with the new year. Economists say the combination threatens a return to recession for an economy that has been recovering slowly from the last one.

The House will not meet again until after Christmas, if then, and the Senate is expected to meet briefly on Friday, then not reconvene until next Thursday.

In arguing for legislation with a million-dollar threshold for higher tax rates, Boehner said the president has called for protecting 98 percent of people from a tax increase. His bill would "protect 99.81 percent of the American people from an increase in taxes."

A companion bill that was meant to build GOP support for the tax legislation called for elimination of an estimated $97 billion in cuts to the Pentagon and certain domestic programs over a decade. It cleared the House on a partisan vote of 215-209 and is an updated version of legislation that passed a little more than six months ago.

Those cuts would be replaced with savings totaling $314 billion, achieved through increases in the amount federal employees contribute toward their pensions and through cuts in social programs such as food stamps and the health care law that Obama signed earlier in his term.

Earlier in the week, Boehner and Obama had significantly narrowed their differences on a compromise to avoid the fiscal cliff.

But Republican officials said members of the GOP leadership had balked at the terms that were emerging. Democrats said Boehner's abrupt decision to shift to his Plan B ? legislation drafted unilaterally by Republicans ? reflected a calculation that he lacked support from his own members to win the votes needed for the type of agreement he was negotiating with the president.

By any measure, the two bills in the House were far removed from the latest offers that officials said Obama and Boehner had tendered. The two men don't seem to be that far apart.

Obama is now seeking $1.2 trillion in higher tax revenue, down from the $1.6 trillion he initially sought. He also has softened his demand for higher tax rates on household incomes so they would apply to incomes over $400,000 instead of the $250,000 he cited during his successful campaign for a new term.

He also has offered more than $800 billion in spending cuts over a decade, half of it from Medicare and Medicaid, $200 billion from farm and other benefit programs, $100 billion from defense and $100 billion from a broad swath of government accounts ranging from parks to transportation to education. In a key concession to Republicans, the president also has agreed to slow the rise in cost-of-living increases in Social Security and other benefit programs, at a savings estimated at about $130 billion over a decade.

By contrast, Boehner's most recent offer allowed for about $940 billion in higher taxes over a decade, with higher rates for annual incomes over $1 million.

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-12-21-Fiscal%20Cliff/id-5bb8e4eb914040439bea3389473c1c13

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Friday, December 21, 2012

German scientists seek to clone perfect Xmas trees

(AP) ? The hunt for the perfect Christmas tree may soon become a lot easier: just pick a nice clone.

That's what German scientists are now working on: They are searching a way to ensure that the sensitive saplings of the popular Nordmann fir species grow into impressive specimens.

The fir is native to the Caucasus, but is often cultivated on massive plantations in Germany.

Biologist Kurt Zoglauer of Berlin's Humboldt University said Friday 40 percent of trees don't make the cut when they mature after 10 to 14 years. Some are stunted by frost, while others turn out the wrong shade of green.

Zoglauer's team therefore hopes to refine a method to clone particularly hardy and beautiful trees by 2016.

The project is supported by a German government grant.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2012-12-21-ODD-Germany-Cloning%20Christmas%20Trees/id-cad5290e36634f8ea5652ab50dd38c60

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Few memorials to forgotten victim: Gunman's mother

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) ? When people here speak of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, they use the number 26: the ones killed after Adam Lanza stormed his way into the school.

When the bells of Newtown toll mournfully Friday morning to honor the victims of last week's shooting rampage, they'll do so 26 times, for each child and staff member killed.

Rarely do residents mention the first person police said Lanza killed that morning: his mother, Nancy, who was shot in the head four times while she lay in bed.

That makes 27.

A private funeral was held Thursday in New Hampshire for Nancy Lanza, according to Donald Briggs, the police chief in Kingston, N.H., where her funeral was held. About 25 family members attended the ceremony.

In Newtown, where makeshift memorials of stuffed animals, angels, candles, flowers and balloons have blossomed on patches of grass throughout town, there is only one noticeable tribute to Nancy Lanza. It's a letter written by a friend on yellow paper affixed, screwed and shellacked onto a red piece of wood.

"Others now share pain for choices you faced alone; May the blameless among us throw the first stone," it reads in part.

No one outwardly blames Nancy Lanza for the rampage. But authorities have said the gunman, her 20-year-old son Adam, used the guns she kept at their home to carry out a massacre that became the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history and has stirred lawmakers to call for gun control laws.

Nationwide, churches will ring their bells 26 times at 9:30 Friday morning ? exactly a week after the shooting occurred ? in memory of the victims. Two gold balloons, one a 2, the other a 6, are tied to a bridge. Handwritten tributes mention 26 snowflakes. "26 angels will guide us," reads one.

The dearth of tributes to Nancy Lanza underscores the complicated mix of emotions surrounding her after the shooting.

In a small town where multiple funerals are taking place each day, where black-clad mourners stand in lines waiting to say goodbye to another child, many are incredibly angry at Nancy Lanza for not keeping her guns away from her son.

Some view her as a victim, but one whose guns were used to kill first-graders. And others think Nancy Lanza was an innocent victim, one who should be counted and included at memorials.

"It's a loss of life and, yes, her life mattered," said Christine Lombardi. "Yes, I do believe she should be included."

Others in Newtown are weary of the crush of media and have become reluctant to answer questions after a difficult week. But the subject of marking Nancy Lanza's death, along with those of the children and teachers killed by her son, seemed mainly to surprise two moms who stopped to place flowers at the memorial at Main and Sugar streets with their two grammar-school aged girls.

They paused, appeared bewildered, and looked at each other for a moment. Then one quietly said, "No, no," and they each took a girl's hand and led them away.

Newtown and environs weathered a fourth day of funerals Thursday as mourners laid to rest Catherine Hubbard, Benjamin Wheeler, Jesse Lewis and Allison Wyatt, all 6 years old; and Grace McDonnell, 7.

A service was held in Katonah, N.Y., for teacher Anne Marie Murphy, 52, who authorities believe helped shield some of her students from the rain of bullets. Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan compared her to Jesus.

"Like Jesus, Annie laid down her life for her friends," Dolan said. "Like Jesus, Annie's life and death brings light, truth, goodness and love to a world often shrouded in darkness, evil, selfishness and death."

A bell tolled Thursday at Newtown's St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church at the funeral for Catherine, who her family said would be remembered for her passion for animals and her constant smile.

Trinity Episcopal church on Main Street was filled to capacity for the funeral for Benjamin, described as a budding musician and Beatles fan. His service included a rendition of "Here Comes The Sun." About two dozen Boy Scout leaders lined the front pathway to the church in honor of the former Cub Scout.

In downtown Danbury, mourners filed into the ornate white-pillared First Congregational Church for a memorial service for 30-year-old teacher Lauren Rousseau. Friends wept at the altar as they remembered the spirited, hardworking, sunny-natured woman who brightened their lives with silliness and gave them all nicknames.

Gov. Dannel Malloy has asked people across Connecticut to observe a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. Friday, which will mark a week since the shootings. The White House has said President Barack Obama will privately observe the moment of silence.

Places of worship and buildings with bells have been asked to ring them 26 times, for the victims at the school. Officials and clergy in many other states have said they will participate.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was one of the people to visit Newtown on Thursday, stopping by a firehouse.

The Obama administration will push to tighten gun laws in response to the shooting, Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday, and Speaker John Boehner said the GOP-controlled House would consider the proposals.

Biden, who is overseeing the administration's response to Friday's shooting, said he and Obama are "absolutely committed" to curbing gun violence in the United States.

"Even if we can only save one life, we have to take action," he said.

Gun-control measures have faced fierce resistance in Congress for years, but that may be changing because of the events in Connecticut, which shocked the nation.

After the shooting, Obama signaled for the first time that he's willing to spend significant political capital on the issue. Some prominent gun-rights advocates on Capitol Hill ? Democrats and Republicans alike ? have expressed willingness to consider new measures.

Investigators have said that Nancy Lanza, a gun enthusiast, visited shooting ranges several times and that her son also visited an area range.

Authorities say Adam Lanza shot his mother at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said Nancy Lanza was shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

Adam Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest, during the school attack. Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the rampage.

Friends and acquaintances have described him as intelligent, but odd and quiet.

Friends said he would stare down at the floor and not speak when she brought him into a local pizzeria. They knew that he'd switched schools more than once and that she'd tried home schooling him. But while she occasionally expressed concern about his future during evenings at the bar, she never complained.

"I heard her as a parent. I always said that I wouldn't want to be in her shoes. But I thought, 'Wow. She holds it well,'" said Jon Tambascio, son of the pizzeria operator.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Melia, John Christoffersen and David Klepper in Newtown; Jim Fitzgerald in Katonah, N.Y.; and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/few-memorials-forgotten-victim-gunmans-mother-074052159.html

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So This Is How They Make Clouds, Hmmm?

A cloud factory! If I ever have a kid, I would show him this photo when he asks about how clouds are made.* I mean, it'd be technically true, right? That's evaporated water, after all. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/WT6ewhdtnEI/the-cloud-factory

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Johnston Moore & Family on CBS ?Home for the Holidays ...

With help from the Dave Thomas Foundation, CBS will celebrate foster care adoption again this season with its ?Home for the Holidays? program.? I?m particularly excited that this year they will be profiling the family of our friend Johnston Moore.? Johnston has been a faithful, compelling voice calling Christians to take up the cause of the fatherless since long before this issue received the attention it does today.? Catch a glimpse of tonight?s program HERE.

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Source: http://www.christianalliancefororphans.org/2012/12/19/johnston-moore-family-on-cbs-home-for-the-holidays/

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Thursday, December 20, 2012

Iraqi president stroke fuels succession talk

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was responding to treatment on Wednesday after suffering a stroke that raised fears of a messy succession battle to replace the Kurd leader who has mediated among Iraq's competing factions.

"He is showing clear signs of improvement," Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Iraq's Kirkuk city who is also a doctor, told Reuters.

The 79-year-old former guerrilla, who has helped ease tensions among Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds and in the growing dispute over oil between Baghdad and the country's autonomous Kurdistan, was admitted to hospital on Monday night.

He was in intensive care with a specialist team including doctors from Germany, where he received treatment in the past.

Under Iraq's constitution, parliament elects a new president if his post becomes vacant. Iraq's power-sharing deal calls for the presidency to go to a Kurd while two vice president posts are shared by a Sunni and a Shi'ite.

Talabani survived wars, exile and infighting in northern Iraq to become the country's first Kurdish president a few years after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

He has since been pivotal in navigating through the political turmoil in Iraq's fragile power-sharing government that is split among Shi'ite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and ethnic Kurds who also run their own autonomous enclave in the north.

"He is the Kurd who is closest to the center. He is so close to the Shi'ites and to the Sunnis," said Iraqi political analyst Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie. "He is a very important regional player in creating balance."

But in an early sign that any future succession will likely be messy, senior Sunni political leaders suggested they may present their own candidate for the presidency in a challenge to the Kurds.

"Some Sunni leaders will sprint to try to get this post," a Sunni leader in the Iraqiya block said. "But anyone with any sense knows in the end they won't get it."

SUNNIS FEEL MARGINALISED

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and rise of the Shi'ite majority to power through the ballot box, many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been marginalized, especially under the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Among Kurds, political analysts said former Kurdistan prime minister Barham Salih is favored. But Talabani's exit could also prompt an internal struggle in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party and rival Kurdistan Democratic Party share power.

Iraqi law would see one of the vice presidents take over Talabani's duties before the parliamentary vote. But Iraq's Sunni Vice President, Tareq al-Hashemi, is a fugitive outside of the country after he fled to escape charges he ran death squads.

The other vice president is from Maliki's alliance.

Any parliament vote would also be complex, with Maliki locked in a struggle with Sunni, Kurdish and some Shi'ite rivals over power-sharing. Talabani was crucial in helping Maliki survive a no-confidence motion directed against him this year.

Talabani also recently helped ease a military stand-off between Maliki's central government and the autonomous Kurdistan president, Masoud Barzani, in their long-running dispute over oil-field rights and internal boundaries.

But that situation remains sensitive after both regions sent troops to reinforce positions. Underscoring tensions, Kurdish forces opened fire on an Iraqi army helicopter on Tuesday, saying it was spying on their military positions.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Suadad al-Salhy; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-president-stroke-fuels-succession-talk-110948678.html

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Video: Meredith Whitney: Bullish on Banks

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50240108/

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Barbara Mikulski To Chair Senate Appropriations Committee, Becoming First Woman In Top Spot

WASHINGTON -- Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski is set to become the first woman to chair the prestigious Senate Appropriations Committee, a position left open this week by the death of Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye.

A Democrat, Mikulski was first elected to the Senate in 1986 after serving 10 years in the House. Last year, she became the longest-serving woman in Senate history.

With her ascendancy to the chairmanship of Appropriations, she enters a male-dominated realm that in the past has had sweeping power in deciding how federal dollars will be dispersed around the country.

"It is especially gratifying to be the first woman to lead this powerful committee," the 76-year-old lawmaker said in a statement. "I am grateful for this opportunity to fight for the day-to-day needs of the American people and the long-range needs of the nation."

Senate Democrats are expected to vote Thursday to make her appointment official.

With the death of Inouye on Monday at age 88, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy was in line to take over Appropriations, where he also is a member. But he announced Wednesday that he chose to remain as chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Leahy, a seven-term senator, said in a statement that continuing to chair the Judiciary Committee while "maintaining my seniority on the Appropriations Committee will allow me to protect both the Constitution and Vermont."

That decision in part reflected the changing status of committees in Congress. Judiciary next year is expected to play a leading role in any legislation dealing with gun control or immigration, while Appropriations, which is responsible for drawing up annual federal spending bills, has seen its importance fade somewhat in recent years because of the inability of Congress to pass individual spending bills and restrictions on approving or disapproving special projects requested by lawmakers.

Mikulski, who is also now the longest-serving woman in Congress, attended the same Baltimore high school as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and worked as a social worker before entering politics.

She won her Senate seat on her second try, and was awarded a seat on the Appropriations Committee. But while she has headed several subcommittees, appointment to full chairmanship had eluded her.

Mikulski would have been in line to take over the Intelligence Committee had Leahy moved to Appropriations. That would have allowed Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who now heads the intelligence panel, to take over the Judiciary Committee.

Mikulski currently is third in line on the Appropriations Committee behind Leahy and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is expected to remain as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/barbara-mikulski-to-chair_n_2333849.html

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So Long, 2012: Analyzing The Evolving Mobile Landscape

As we prepare for a new year in the online marketing world, it?s interesting to reflect on where 2012 has brought us. The Web experienced another year of fantastic growth. In the US alone, over 240 million consumers now access the Web ? a market penetration of 78%.

This overall growth is driven by an equally impressive increase in mobile usage. In many parts of the world, mobile phones have long been the primary means for people to access the Internet. Now, that?s becoming true in the US, as well.

By Q4 2012, the US saw over 170 million smartphone subscribers, meaning smartphone owners are now the majority. This massive level of market penetration casts ripples across the Web. In November 2012, over a quarter of all Web traffic on the Chitika Advertising Network originated from mobile devices (both smartphones and tablets).

Consumers can now check social networks, watch the latest YouTube video, and even make a purchase ? all from their mobile devices.

In a study published in July 2012, Chitika Insights found tablet usage to spike by almost 95% during prime time TV hours. This stat is highly indicative of elevated use of second screen devices. These are some of the larger scale trends that signify the coming change across the traditional online landscape as it becomes increasingly more mobile.

In the face of a shifting online environment ? split between diverging mobile platforms ??Chitika Insights conducted a research study to isolate click-through-rates (CTR) of the major mobile operating systems.

The data used in this study was drawn from the Chitika Advertising Network from November 24th to November 30th 2012. This sample was composed of tens of millions of mobile impressions from the US and Canada.

If you are an advertiser or marketer doing business online, the following statistics and analysis will help you best capitalize on these developments:

Based on the chart above, we can see that the iOS user base holds the keys to the proverbial mobile kingdom with an average CTR of 0.92%. Compared to the average Android CTR of 0.86%, iOS users click on ads approximately 7% more frequently than Android users.

As growing mobile volume increases the potential impact of mobile traffic on the bottom line, new opportunities emerge for advertisers and marketers to maximize the ROI of their campaigns.

Recent data from the IAB shows that overall mobile advertising spend grew 95% from $636 million during the first half of 2011 to $1.2 billion during the same period in 2012.

With these impressive growth rates, mobile advertising is clearly the way of the future and a method of reaching out to audiences that advertisers and marketers simply cannot afford to ignore.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land.

Related Topics: Analytics | Analytics & Marketing Column | Mobile Marketing

Source: http://marketingland.com/so-long-2012-analyzing-the-evolving-mobile-landscape-28313

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

FCC publishes AWS-H Block spectrum auction rules

Android Central

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has just published the rules it will apply to a spectrum auction for the AWS-H Block. We saw last week that the FCC finally approved Dish's proposal to use its spectrum holdings for a terrestrial cellular network, and this auction was part of the deal. The auction will have 10MHz of spectrum up for grabs, in the 1915-1920MHz (uplink) and 1995-2000MHz (downlink) bands. This is directly adjacent to PCS G spectrum that Sprint currently owns, and therefore the carrier will be a likely participant in the auction.

Part of the rules to the auction are that the winner must build out its network to 40-percent of the coverage area within 4 years, and 70-percent within 10 years. Also, if a company other than Sprint were to win the auction, they will be required to work closely with Sprint to make sure that its usage does not interfere with Sprint's neighboring spectrum.

It will be interesting to see how the discussions surrounding this auction go, especially considering Sprint's intimate involvement in the process from the beginning.

Source: FCC; PhoneScoop



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/5wVypRTUIgc/story01.htm

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All clear at San Jose City College

Texted and telephoned reports of a possible gunman at San Jose City College prompted police to launch a building-by-building search Tuesday, but after nearly three hours authorities called off the hunt and said they had no confirmation the threat was real.

The school put a shelter-in-place order into effect after receiving "reports of a man with a gun" at about 4:30 p.m., said campus security Officer Pete Luna.

A SWAT team from the San Jose Police Department and campus officers focused on the east end of campus, then searched the technology building. No guns or suspects were found, officials said.

"The police got a text message from someone who said they saw a gunman, and we locked down the entire campus as a precaution," said Elaine Burns, vice president of student affairs.

The text indicated the gunman was near the technology building, Burns said.

Investigators had not eliminated the possibility that the warnings were a hoax.

At 8 p.m., campus President Barbara Kavalier announced the search was over and students were free to move about. Rampages such as last week's Connecticut shooting tend to inspire threats and hoaxes, but Kavalier said her campus is always ready for emergencies regardless of events.

"We've done pretty extensive training at the campus," she said.

The college has about 10,000 students.

Source: http://feeds.sfgate.com/click.phdo?i=5876ecb12a3d504cabfe8efc9bd28ca9

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Opening Anthropology: An interview with Keith Hart (Part 2 of 3 ...

This interview is part of an ongoing series about open access (OA), publishing, communication, and anthropology. ?The first interview in this series was with Jason Baird Jackson (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). ?The second interview, with Tom Boellstorff, is here. ?The third installment of this OA series is with Keith Hart.*? See Part 1 of this interview here.

Ryan Anderson: Earlier you referred to OA as ?a strategy of resistance to privatization of the commons?.? Can you elaborate on that point?

Keith Hart: I meant that private property is still the great unresolved contradiction of modern society, not least because its ubiquity often makes society invisible. For Rousseau, the invention of private property was the origin of social inequality. The liberal Enlightenment looked to anthropology for the knowledge needed to realize a democratic revolution against the Old Regime. Morgan (followed by Engels) used Rousseau?s framework to make the history of unequal society the main object of a democratic anthropology. More recently, L?vi-Strauss, Wolf and Goody renewed this tradition, each in their own way. Now David Graeber has taken it up again. But the ethnographic turn made this a marginal current in twentieth century anthropology.

I grew up in a working class district of Manchester. The doors of our houses had to be kept open for neighbors to come in and out as they wished. Even inside the house, bedroom and bathroom doors were never closed. Privacy was the opposite of being open to the free flow of solidarity. I thought that spirit had gone forever, but I found it again when I moved to France fifteen years ago. Here the tradition of people occupying the streets (manifestation) is very much alive and the notion of a public sphere that belongs to all is palpable.

In my lectures I refer to the example of a Masai warrior who works as a nightwatchman in Nairobi. He buys a watch with his wages. What could be more personal or private than a wristwatch, attached to your skin? He returns to the village and a friend immediately says ?Give me your watch?. He has to give him the watch. Why? The solidarity of age-mates, so vital for the defense of the village?s cattle, is undermined by distinctions based on private property. In our societies, we take private ownership for granted. The institutions that secure it for us are hidden most of the time. Only when we are relieved of our possessions or a contract is broken do we realize that we normally depend on the law; and we complain about the inadequacy of police protection.

Modern economics insists that individual exchange is universal, but the barter myth of money?s origins is based on the assumption of private property. All that is missing from barter is the money. In fact private property law has been invented independently only two or three times, by the Romans, the Chinese and maybe the Aztecs. It was invented by centralized states to secure the property of traders. The Romans made a distinction between rights in persons and rights in things. Ownership was normally based on having made something or using it; and this right was secured by being a member of a particular social group. Traders neither made nor used what they owned, but the state guaranteed their right to the thing against local brigandage, as they would put it.

There has never been a society so committed to private property as the United States and this goes with unusually weak social protection by the state. In the movie Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore asks why American society is so prone to gun violence. He inserts a cartoon at one point to explain that it is because of the history of racism. But the cause is more plausibly an unchecked system of markets based on private property without the social protection of an effective welfare state. This also accounts, in my view, for the apparent anomaly of the US being the most modern society and the most religious. God and guns fill in for the welfare state. Canadians are both secular and less violent. The Europeans are hardly religious at all.

The euro crisis also hinges on privatization. After the Cold War ended, the Europeans decided that the winning side was the free market, forgetting their own long history of formal and informal public institutions shoring up markets. So they introduced a new currency to make a single market, without addressing the gap between North and South or developing fiscal institutions in common. They supposed that markets based on private property would lead them to political union. (The Americans, in contrast, fought a civil war before centralizing their currency.) The basic flaws in all this were hidden by the credit boom, but the financial crisis brought them out with a vengeance.

This is why I spoke of Marx?s early journalism. It underpinned his lifelong attempt to expose and replace an economy founded exclusively on private property. I am suggesting that, if we are distressed by what is going on in the universities today, we need to stand back and address fundamental issues first.

RA: You also highlighted what you call the tension between the maintenance of an intellectual commons and the conservation of ideas as private property.

KH: We still think of private property as belonging to living persons and oppose private and public spheres on that basis. But what makes property private is holding exclusive rights against the world. Abstract entities like governments and corporations, as well as individuals, can thus hold private property. We are understandably confused by this, especially since the corporations? rise to public power rests on collapsing the difference between real and artificial persons in economic law. This constitutes a major obstacle not only to the practice of democracy, but also to thinking about it. Sadly, it has become commonplace for intellectuals to obscure the distinction between living persons and abstractions, as well as between persons, things and ideas.

Private property has not only evolved from individual ownership to predominately? corporate forms, but its main point of reference has also shifted from ?real? to ?intellectual? property, that is from material objects to ideas. This is partly because the digital revolution in communications has led to the economic preponderance of information services whose reproduction and transmission is often costless or nearly so. A similar sleight of hand is at work here as in the claim to corporate personhood. If I steal your cow, its loss is material, since only one of us can benefit from its milk. But if I copy a CD or DVD, I am denying no-one access to it. Yet corporate lobbyists depend on this misleading analogy to influence courts and legislators to treat duplication of their ?property? as ?theft? or even ?piracy.?

The term ?information feudalism? is highly appropriate for our era. Human work was once conceived of as collective physical energy, as so many ?hands?. The internet has raised the significance of intangible commodities. Now that production of things is being replaced by information services, labor is increasingly understood as individual creativity, as subjectivity. And it is this shift that has been captured by big money in the claim that ?intellectual property? deserves closer regulation in the interest of its owners.

The fight is on to save the commons of human society, culture and ecology from the encroachments of corporate private property. This is no longer just a question of conserving the earth?s natural resources, although it is definitely that too, nor of the deterioration of public services left to the mercies of privatized agencies. Increasingly we buy and sell ideas; and their reproduction is made infinitely easier by digital technologies. So the larger corporations have launched a campaign to assert their exclusive ownership of what until recently was considered shared culture to which all had free and equal access. Across the board, separate battles are being fought over music, movies, literature, software, GMOs, pharmaceuticals, the internet and the universities without any real sense of the common cause that they embody.

RA: In your opinion, is this a conflict that can be resolved?? Is there some sort of middle ground solution here?

KH: Well, we do have to take on the corporations, but my answer is yes, there is a middle ground solution and it is one we are well-placed as anthropologists to make use of. Durkheim believed that individuality was more developed in societies with an advanced division of labor because of their increased interdependence. The problem is that this pervasive individualism makes it harder for us to perceive the work of society in shaping our lives. This is especially so in a regime of private property, where the collective forces underpinning individual ownership are for the most part invisible. His key idea was ??the non-contractual element in the contract??. In a market transaction, only the buyer and seller appear to be involved; but it rests on an invisible array of institutions ? of state law, social customs and shared history ? without which it could not take place. How can people be made more aware of the importance of this social glue in their lives?

Some three decades later, Marcel Mauss wrote his famous essay, The Gift, which may be seen as a renewal of his uncle?s mission to make the non-contractual element in the contract visible. But he focused on a range of phenomena that were more prominent in ??archaic?? societies than our own, systems of competitive gift-exchange. He saw these as an individualized variant of a more general form of obligatory community service (prestation). The principle of giving with the expectation of a return persists in societies dominated by capitalist markets. A cooperative socialist, Mauss worked for an anti-capitalist revolution, but one based on developing the human dimensions of market institutions that existed already. He considered the Bolshevik revolution?s violent repression of markets to have been a disaster.

For Mauss, being human always means reconciling freedom and obligation, individual and collective interests. The ??free gift?? is not the opposite of self-interested contracts. It is always interested and often a source of inequality. Nor is ??capitalism?? the whole story when it comes to the modern economy. The gift is the non-contractual element in the contract. By obscuring, marginalizing and even repressing the more humane aspects of markets as well as their intrinsic inequality, bourgeois ideology prevents us from seeing how our current practices might sustain new directions for the economy. Much more sustains the market than the exchange of spot contracts. Most contracts (notably relations of credit and debt) involve deferred payment and thus resemble gifts whose defining characteristic is delayed return. This is to say nothing of the role of institutions like the welfare state in capitalist societies.

Mauss introduced three new elements to his uncle?s original approach. First, he abandoned Durkheim?s sociological reductionism, seeking rather to identify social phenomena in their totality, a dynamic assemblage of persons, networks, groups, things and ideas more readily revealed through ethnography than by specialist disciplines. Archaic gift-exchange brings together individuals and communities, law and economy, magic and religion, art and technology. Mauss advocated an economic movement from below for contemporary societies, aiming at consumer democracy through a combination of cooperatives, mutual insurance and professional associations. The generosity of the archaic gift does not point to a non-market alternative, but rather to the humanity inherent in markets that remains to be liberated by such a modern movement.

Second, Durkheim oversimplified the contrast between primitive and modern societies. Against his uncle?s implicit evolutionism, Mauss held that all economies were plural in practice; indeed, the basic human economic arrangements co-exist in any society, a position later associated with Polanyi and revived by Graeber. It is counter-productive to imagine economic change as the radical replacement of one set of institutions by another. Third, Mauss had an inclusive vision of human history with the boundaries of local societies being pushed ever outwards. Both gift-exchange and markets extend society by taking members out of their locally grounded system of rights and interests to engage with foreigners. Markets and money in some form are universal, since no society can be self-sufficient. Where Malinowski opposed the Trobriand kula to money and markets, Mauss saw a parallel with the free market, at least with the invisible infrastructure of human expansiveness and trust that he believed made markets possible.

Mauss?s counter-intuitive idea that gifts and markets share a common human substance soon gave way to the old notion that they are each other?s opposite, now reified as ??gift economy?? versus ??market economy??, the very contrast that he wrote his essay to refute. He rejected brutal contrasts of this kind and that makes him an ideal starting-point in any search for a middle-ground between extremes of right and left.

?

In the final segment of this interview, we will bring these discussions about property, privatization, and the commons back to the issue of OA and the academy.? To be continued?

?

*Keith Hart lives in Paris with his family and co-directs the Human Economy research program at the University of Pretoria, South Africa (web.up.ac.za/humaneconomy). He is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at Goldsmiths, University of London and has taught in a dozen universities on both sides of the Atlantic, for the longest time at Cambridge where he was Director of the African Studies Centre. He has published widely in economic anthropology, especially about money. Website: www.thememorybank.co.uk. Email: johnkeithhart {at} gmail(.)com. Facebook and Twitter: johnkeithhart.

Ryan Anderson is a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Kentucky. His dissertation research focuses on the politics of tourism development in Baja California Sur. He is the editor of the collaborative online project anthropologies, and also blogs at ethnografix. You can contact him at ethnografix at gmail dot com.

Source: http://savageminds.org/2012/12/16/opening-anthropology-an-interview-with-keith-hart-part-2-of-3/

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Why we should politicize the Newtown shooting, starting right now

By Jeff Greenfield

Two events, each more than a century old, instruct us about how we should act in the face of what happened Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.

On March 25, 1911, fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in lower Manhattan. Because the owners had locked the doors and stairwells, in an effort to prevent theft and unauthorized work breaks, the garment workers were trapped in the fire; 146 of them, almost all young female immigrants, died.

In the wake of the disaster, New York politicians--including future Governor Al Smith and future Senator Robert Wagner-- ?exploited the tragedy.? How? By helping push through a series of reforms that made New York state a model of workplace safety.

Little more than a year later, on April 15, 1912, the unsinkable ocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, taking 1,522 passengers and crew members to the deaths. After the disaster, regulators and public officials ?exploited the tragedy.? How? By insisting that ships carry enough lifeboats for all passengers (the Titanic, operating under then-current rules, had barely enough for half); by insisting that ships man their radios 24 hours a day; by better designs of hulls and bulkheads.

A shocking event is exactly the right time to start, or restart, an argument about public policy. A story like the Newtown killings rivets our attention, forces it to the front our consciousness, insists that we sweep aside the thousand and one distractions that compete for our brain space, and demands that we ask: Is this how we want things to be, and, if not, what do we do about it?

Consider a more recent example. On March 7, 1965, voting rights demonstrators on a March in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery were met by a phalanx of state troopers at the Edmund Pettis Bridge. They met the marchers with fists and billy clubs. A week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to a joint session of Congress. He made no apologies for ?politicizing the tragedy.? Instead, he said:

?At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.?

The speech?which borrowed the famous assertion that ?we shall overcome??propelled the Voting Rights Act into reality and effectively ended 100 years of state-sanctioned repression.

What those images from Selma did?as the images of police dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham had done in May of 1963?was to make real what for most of us had been an abstraction. The images said, This is what it means to be black in Alabama and seek the most elemental of civil rights.

What happened in Newtown, I think, was very much the same story. The day after the shooting, I was with my grandson at his school?s book fair; I would wager that every parent, every teacher, every school staff member there looked at the kids, with their painted faces and their fists filled with cookies, and thought: This could happen to them. Those same thoughts were going through the minds of every parent dropping a child off at school on Monday, I imagine.

This is why the words of President Barack Obama on Sunday struck such a responsive chord. But it must not be forgotten that in the days, months, and years before Newtown, the president has been something less than a profile in courage on the gun question. His response to a question on assault weapons during October?s town hall debate with Mitt Romney is best described as craven: ?What I?m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally,? Obama said in part. ?Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence.?

You can understand the thinking: I can?t get a bill through Congress, it?s a waste of political capital, there are lots of Democrats who hunt and shoot in Ohio. But it does not change the fact that the triumph of the gun lobby has been a bipartisan affair. To be fair, Republicans have been at the forefront of a never-ending effort at the state and federal level to permit guns of all sorts at all sort of venues, from schools to national parks. Before Newtown, it was only a matter of time before some zealot proposed letting citizens purchase Predator drones with Hellfire missiles.

The culture of hunting, and the legitimate case for self-protection, has too often been brushed aside by advocates of restricting gun ownership. But when a Second Amendment stalwart like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia endorses a national commission on gun violence and tweets:

You know the Newtown murders can act as a hinge moment.

Newtown forces us to look at the consequences of decisions--or indecision--squarely, unflinchingly. It forces us to ask ourselves, ?What do we do in the face of this new evidence?? That is as far from exploitation as you can get.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-we-should-politicize-the-newtown-school-shooting--starting-right-now-182303106.html

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Monday, December 17, 2012

Kids Lead Crowd Funded Scientific Mission to Nicaragua: Science Education is the Tide that Lifts All Boats

Enzo, Haley and Emma are ordinary kids working on an extraordinary mission. They are joining up with a team of Special Forces medics and elite, global surgeons to deliver medical aid to the Rama Indians of Nicaragua in the spring of 2013. In partnership with HumaniTV, the journey will be beamed to tens of thousands of kids around the globe by satellite as the three middle school students trek through the jungles of Central America performing research on sustainable agriculture and seeing first hand how science and innovation improves peoples' lives. "We want to send a message to kids that science isn't just about getting a better job and making more money," says team captain and the creator of Exploration nation, twelve year old Enzo. "If it wasn't for science, we'd still be sitting in a cave somewhere chomping on a mammoth bone in the dark." The high profile expedition was created by Enzoology Education, a social enterprise that produces Exploration Nation and HumaniTV, an online network featuring humanitarian aid programming to send the message that "science education is the tide that lifts all boats". Enzo, Haley and Emma are part of the cast of Exploration Nation, an education program that features real kids doing real science research around the globe. These adventures are captured on video and coupled with lesson plans designed to inspire and motivate elementary and middle school students to take up careers in science. America's Future as a Global Innovator Lies at the Feet of our Youngest Citizens According to a 2009 study by Raytheon, about 60% of students lose their interest in science before the age of 13. The study is just one that shows how students start elementary school genuinely excited about science. By the time they hit seventh grade, the majority feel that science is "boring" and irrelevant to their lives. Dave Wilson, director of academic programs at National Instruments, stated "In order for students to remain engaged in math and science, they need to actually experience the theory that educators put before them. Bringing the theory to life through hands-on experiences really helps students understand and learn better and makes the concepts more relevant to them." National Instruments is well known for its technical innovation and dedication to science and math education. "Many science principles have been the same for hundreds of years." says Robert Bourdelais of Ward's Natural Science. "We are using 19th century methods to teach 21st century kids. Students today need to touch and feel science and learn by doing. A lecture environment doesn't inspire today's young students. The way we teach them needs to evolve and align with ever changing technology which is becoming the center of our modern world." It should be no surprise that presenting science in a dry, isolated context to today's super stimulated kids results in students becoming more and more disconnected from how innovation is at the core of human existence. The irony of this belief is lost on the most wired generation in history. It is a terrible irony that young people don't believe science to be relevant to their lives when they are totally immersed in some of the most advanced technological innovation in the history of mankind. Even worse is the idea that any one of these kids has the potential to cure cancer, solve the energy problem or invent the next insanely great thing. Let's just hope those kids are not in the 60% who fall through the cracks. How Does Helping the Indigenous People of Nicaragua Help America's Students? According to world renowned paleontologist Dr. Jack Horner, "I think it's time to do away with traditional classrooms where information is simply disseminated to students who are then expected to regurgitate that same information. We must now create environments where students have to think or create and solve problems or write using their imaginations in order to pass classes..." Horner says. "We need to show kids that active participation in science is exciting and important while motivating them to have their own adventures instead of hearing it second-hand." Team XN: Expedition Central America is designed to inspire students to get actively involved in hands-on scientific study and show them how innovations in agriculture, renewable fuels, ethnobotany and medicine improve the living conditions of all people - especially the impoverished. The Rama Indians of the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua are on the receiving end for the Expedition. "We chose the Rama to illustrate what life would be like minus innovation." says Dr. Alfredo Lopez Salazar, owner of the Rio Indio Lodge in Nicaragua and a long time supporter of the indigenous populations in Central America. Dr. Lopez continues, "The Rama have a sophisticated tradition of thriving in the rain forest and an intimate knowledge of the plants and animals that surround them. But they currently struggle to fulfill their basic needs, such as medical care." Team XN: Expedition Central America The team of kids and doctors will bring access to a wide range of medical procedures, basic drugs like antibiotics and analgesics as well as water purification and curriculum materials for the only school in the village. The fourteen day trek through the jungle will include several stops to create a series of lesson programs for Exploration Nation on subjects ranging from sustainable tropical agriculture and renewable energy to ethnobotany and austere medicine. These lessons will include instructional materials and video for elementary and middle school students. The Expedition is also broadcasting live to classrooms across the United States each day of the journey, free for any educators who want to follow the adventure as a learning experience for their students. The team is raising money for the expedition using a crowd funding strategy a growing trend in the scientific community. Thirteen year old Exploration Nation host, Emma, states, "I'm not sure what to expect. I guess the kids there won't be much different from the kids here. They just don't have as much stuff and when they get sick, they can't go to the doctor. So we are bringing the doctors to them." Learn more about the Expedition here: http://explorationnation.com/expedition-central-america All images by Pete Monfre. Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kids-lead-crowd-funded-scientific-mission-nicaragua-science-140500510.html

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Source: http://kurttasche.com/internet-marketing-articles/international-incomes-com-work-at-home-get-paid-to-take-surveys-make-money-online-work-from-home-earn-money-online-paid-surveys.html

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PFT: Cowboys to wear '53' decals to honor Brown

Detroit Lions v Minnesota ViKingsGetty Images

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson isn?t shy about his ambitions this season: He?s openly talking about breaking Eric Dickerson?s single-season rushing record, and he?s expressing his intention to be the NFL?s Most Valuable Player.

Peterson told the Star-Tribune that he is optimistic about his chances of winning the MVP, although he acknowledged that in a passing league, it?s hard for a running back to top a quarterback.

?The MVP, man, that?s something that I?ve always wanted to grab. I work hard. I want to be the best player to play this game, so with that, MVP awards come,? Peterson said. ?But I know this league and how it is, man. They?re kind of biased to the quarterback, which is unfortunate. They make it hard for other players to win it, but I will.?

Peterson is right that it?s hard for a running back to win the MVP award, even if he reaches 2,000 yards, as Peterson has a chance of doing. In fact, in two of Peyton Manning?s MVP seasons, he beat out a 2,000-yard running back: Jamal Lewis in 2003 and Chris Johnson in 2009. And Dickerson didn?t win the MVP when he ran for 2,105 yards in 1984; Dan Marino won the award for breaking the NFL?s single-season passing mark the same year.

With both Manning and Tom Brady having strong seasons this year, Peterson would seem to be a long shot to win the award this year. But if Peterson were to break Dickerson?s record while leading the Vikings to the playoffs, that might be enough to make Peterson the first running back to win MVP since LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/12/15/cowboys-to-wear-53-decals-to-honor-jerry-brown/related/

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