Friday, November 30, 2012

Sports Car Insurance ? Lower Your Auto Insurance | Sport Cars ...

Sports car insurance premiums seem to continually get higher. There are a lot of factors to cause your car insurance rates to increase, but did you know there are things you need to do to be sure you are getting a good rate on sports car policies?

Many times people wonder why classic autos and vintage autos insurance premiums are high just like cars that have the big fast engines like what you see in corvettes or other fast sports cars. The bottom line is insurance actuaries calculate the insurance rates and if you want to get the best deal on your insurance you have to know how insurance companies think.

It is obvious that you get insurance to protect your car and you do not want just any insurance, you want good auto insurance because your car is special. But you also want to balance getting coverage you want at affordable prices.

So if you are a sports car driver and you want to get good insurance then here a few things you need to consider.

First, if you have multiple policies with the same company you can many times get a multi-policy discount. You probably have the coverage for your house or apartment already so it is simple to make sure you have it with the same company that is covering your sports vehicle and this can lower your auto insurance rates.

Another tip to lower your premiums is to ask to have your liability and collision coverage suspended in the winter time if you are not driving your sports car. Now this is said with a big caution. You can not drive your car while the coverage is suspended and if you do then your insurance will not pay for a claim. But this tip can reduce your out of pocket insurance premiums.

Still yet another tip to make your car insurance rates easier on your wallet is to use the excuse of your high insurance rates to negotiate a lower car price. In other words the money is coming out of your pocket to pay for your sports car as well as to pay for your sports car insurance premiums so the car sales person knows you will have to pay high premiums so use this fact to get the dealership to give you a better price. If the dealership wants to earn your business then they will move on their price.

A final tip to help you if you are thinking of buying a sports car and if you are shopping for insurance is to be sure you have a good driving record. If you have tickets your insurance premiums will be high. To be sure to get the best deal you really need to have a clean driving record. There are some companies that specialize in different types of auto insurance including, but not limited to getting classical car insurance, historical auto insurance, and of course sports car insurance.

Get Quotes Online.

Source: http://www.laveudelespanyolista.com/387-sports-car-insurance-lower-your-auto-insurance.html

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HBT: Mets made their 'best offer' to Wright

Andy Martino of the Daily News says that the Mets have made their ?best offer? to David Wright and now await his response. ?The offer is said to be a total of eight years and $140 million, which presumably includes the option year of 2013 plus seven more.

Martino says that the offer is backloaded with some deferred money, and in structure would be much like the Jose Reyes offer of last year. ?the contract Jose Reyes ultimately signed with the Mets. (note: D.J. reminded me that the Mets never actually made Reyes an offer, only talked parameters; my bad).

Some have reported that it?s important to Wright that his total deal exceed the $137.5 million Johan Santana received from the team. If that?s the primary concern, I suppose it?s met, even if the per-year dollars are a good bit lower than that which Santana is getting these days.

In any event, the ball is in Wright?s court.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/29/the-mets-have-made-their-best-offer-to-david-wright/related

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Daily Kos: Daily Bucket - What is a Mole?

The Daily Bucket is a place where we post and exchange our observations about what is happening in the natural world in our neighborhood. Each note about the bugs, buds, and birds around us is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns of nature that are quietly unwinding around us.
I posed the question to the Google to define mole. Here is what I got.

? 1. A highly spiced Mexican sauce made chiefly from chili peppers and chocolate, served with meat.

? 2. A small, often slightly raised blemish on the skin made dark by a high concentration of melanin.

? 3. A large solid structure on a shore serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway.

? 4. The SI unit of amount of substance, equal to the quantity containing as many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12.

? 5. An abnormal mass of tissue in the uterus.

? 6. A small burrowing insectivorous mammal (family Talpidae) with dark velvety fur, a long muzzle, and very small eyes. Several species.

Interesting set of results, don't you think? This diary is about #6.

Don, my next door neighbor, and I live at the edge of a wooded area. There are lots of moles burrowing in the woods. They tend to come into our yards foraging. To stop them, we have discovered a device that seems to keep them at bay. It looks like a cylindrical stake 12" long and 1.5" in diameter. It has a yellow top with a small LED. Put 3 D-cells in it and every 30 seconds it emits a high pitched vibration for 2 seconds. We space them about 30' apart across the back. The moles stay away.

We've had several killing frosts and hard freezes. The temperatures have gone to 12 degrees a couple of times. We thought the moles would be hibernating, or whatever they do in cold weather. So, we put our mole stakes away. The next warm day they made a bee line for the space between our houses. The lawn is laced with burrows. They were quick.

Come below the orange mole burrows for more.

First, a blockquote from Wikipedia about moles...

Moles are small cylindrical mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have velvety fur; tiny or invisible ears and eyes;[clarification needed] relatively atrophied hind limbs; and short, powerful forelimbs with large paws oriented for digging. The term is especially and most properly used for the true moles, those of the Talpidae family in the order Soricomorpha found in most parts of North America, Asia, and Europe. It also refers to other completely unrelated mammals of Australia and southern Africa which have also evolved the mole body plan; it is not commonly used for some talpids, such as desmans and shrew-moles, which do not fit the common definition of ?mole?, as well.
This diary is confined to the North American Species. World wide there are over 30 species according to the official web site of the British Traditional Mole Catchers Registry. That's a group we should all join.

Eastern Mole


This is the mole in my yard here in Iowa. It is in all of south and eastern TX up to MN and east to the coast. Basically, it lives in the SE quarter of the country. Map link.

Star Nosed Mole


Widest distribution of any North American mole. It lives farther north than other species including Cape Breton Island and to eastern Manitoba. In the U.S., it is found all along the Atlantic coast from northern Florida to eastern Tennessee and western South Carolina. Map link.

Hairy Tailed Mole


In Canada, southern Ontario and southern Quebec and maybe to New Brunswick. In the U.S., south into Conneticut, and along the Appalachian Mountains into northeastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. Map link.

American Shrew Mole


These little ones are only found in the western parts of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Map link.

Coast Mole


These are also found in the western parts of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Some are found in parts of eastern Washington and Oregon and a small part of western Idaho. Map link.

Townsend Mole


This mole is more confined to a smaller region of western WA, OR, and CA than the coast mole. Townsend's mole is typically a lowland species. Map link.

Broad Footed Mole


This species is a California native. It does reach Baja and western NV and southern OR. Map link.


So, what do you think? You got mole problems? What do you do about them? What else would you like to toss in the bucket for today? Tell us where you report from. Don't be shy.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/29/1165514/-Daily-Bucket-What-is-a-Mole

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Mobile LTE subscribers expected to double by 2014

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, has suffered a stroke but is OK and resting in a Las Vegas hospital, a family friend said on Thursday. "He was doing well and says he's feeling OK," close family friend Brian Oxman told Reuters. Oxman, Michael Jackson's one-time attorney, said the 83-year-old patriarch of the pop music family started experiencing weakness on Wednesday while walking in a park near his home and was later admitted to a hospital. Jackson has a history of strokes, Oxman said. "He was talking fine," Oxman added. "He sounded excellent to me." A former ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mobile-lte-subscribers-expected-double-2014-031121151.html

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Audit firms sued in HP's Autonomy acquisition

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new shareholder lawsuit over Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of British software firm Autonomy has named Big Four audit firms Deloitte and KPMG as defendants, alleging they missed numerous red flags about Autonomy's accounting.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Jose, California, also named HP's board of directors, officers, and former executives, alleging breach of duty and negligence for their role in HP's acquisition Autonomy.

HP is expected to face a barrage of lawsuits by investors seeking to recoup losses. Its shares fell 12 percent to a 10-year low last week after it announced an $8.8 billion write-down on its acquisition of Autonomy.

HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman has repeatedly said that the company relied on audits of Autonomy, done by the UK arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, when it paid $11.1 billion for Autonomy last year.

HP last week blamed the majority of its $8.8 billion write-down on improper accounting at Autonomy.

Whitman also said HP relied on KPMG's audits of Deloitte's work.

In a statement, KPMG said it was not engaged to do any audit work or oversee the Deloitte audit work being questioned. KPMG provided limited services not related to Autonomy's audit and "we can say with confidence that we acted responsibly and with integrity," the firm said.

Deloitte said it had nothing to add to its statement last week that it was not responsible for due diligence on the Autonomy acquisition. Deloitte also denied last week that it had any knowledge of any accounting improprieties or misrepresentations in Autonomy's financial statements.

It said its last audit opinion on Autonomy was for the year ended December 2010.

Tuesday's lawsuit also named as defendants Whitman, HP Chief Financial Officer Catherine Lesjak, and former HP CEO Leo Apotheker.

It said the defendants' inadequate due diligence caused billions of dollars of damages to HP and resulted in HP "grossly" overpaying for Autonomy.

A spokesman for HP declined to comment.

The lawsuit was filed by Philip Ricciardi, an HP shareholder since 2007.

The case is Philip Ricciardi, derivatively on behalf of Hewlett-Packard Co, v. various defendants, U.S. District court for the Northern District of California, San Jose, No. 12-6003

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Editing by Howard Goller and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/audit-firms-sued-hps-autonomy-acquisition-000251764--sector.html

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Biomarker May Help Mesothelioma Patients Combat Resistance to ...

Nov282012

Biomarker May Help Mesothelioma PatientsInnovation in mesothelioma research is happening at a staggering pace. This year alone, the clinical trials at multiple research institutions have yielded a myriad of improvements in how oncologists treat mesothelioma.

Currently, chemotherapy, such as crizotinib, is the most used method of treatment for inhibiting the growth of the disease and slowing the symptoms. There are multiple chemotherapeutic methods that can be used to treat mesothelioma but problems arise when the cancer becomes chemo-resistant, which essentially renders the treatments useless. Medical researchers, however, believe they have found a new biomarker that may help identify chemo-resistance in mesothelioma and lung cancer patients and potentially restore drug sensitivity.

Mesothelioma researchers have reported that they have identified a key gene that determines a patient?s resistance to a host of different chemotherapy drugs.? Researchers have found a biomarker that can forecast a patient?s reaction to cancer drugs and aid oncologists in determining the best strategy of treatment.

A biomarker is a molecule or gene in the body that indicates a biological state.? Researchers can use biomarkers to measure how certain people react to various types of treatment.?Mesothelioma researchers have also been looking at biomarkers to diagnose mesothelioma and other types of cancers in the early stages and evaluate which treatments work best in patients.?

Professor Rene Bernards of the Netherlands Cancer Institute was the senior author in a study that evaluated how a specific biomarker influenced drug resistance.? Bernards and his team of researchers began the study to determine why some patients developed resistance to crizotinib. The group discovered that a protein involved in cell growth and cell death was enhanced when the MED12 biomarker was suppressed. Furthermore, certain cancer drugs, such as crizotinib, were rendered ineffective. The drug responsiveness was restored, however, when the researchers inhibited TGF-betaR signaling in MED12-deficient cells.

In order to prevent drug resistance in mesothelioma patients, Bernards says that researchers must first understand the mechanisms of drug resistance.?After establishing what effects that blocking the escape route in MED12-deficient cells has in a mesothelioma patient, researchers may be able to restore a patient?s resistance to chemotherapy drugs.

The mesothelioma lawyers at Baron and Budd applaud the efforts of Professor Rene Bernards and his team of researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.?For almost 35 years, the mesothelioma law firm has been dedicated to the advancement of mesothelioma treatment. The firm is committed to delivering the most current, relevant and cohesive information to the mesothelioma community in addition to fighting against the asbestos companies responsible for asbestos-related diseases.

To learn more about how Baron and Budd fights to protect those affected by mesothelioma, visit here.

Tagged chemotherapy, Crizotinib, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Rene Bernards

Source: http://baronandbudd.com/protecting-whats-right/2012/11/biomarker-may-help-mesothelioma-patients-combat-resistance-to-chemotherapy-treatments/

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Powerball profits don't all go where you think they do

44 min.

Ed Rodriguez, the father of two school-aged kids in Otisville, N.Y., had high hopes of? winning the $580 million Powerball jackpot last night. Either way, he figured at least some of?the money went to a good cause.

"Some of it goes to education," he said after buying a ticket Wednesday at a Citgo station on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. With many school budgets in his area facing tight budgets, "it helps a lot."

He'd be disappointed on both counts. He didn't win the largest Powerball drawing in history, which went to ticket holders in Arizona and Missouri. And the money doesn't do as much good for education?as he thinks.

About 72 cents of every state lottery dollar goes somewhere else. About 60 cents goes to the winner. Some goes to run the lottery. A piece of it goes to a private, Italian-based conglomerate that operates lotteries and slot machines in 50 countries around the world.

Depending on what state you live in, that leaves as little as 11 cents left to pay for the government services these games were created to help.

Critics argue that, aside from being an inefficient way to raise money, the use of lottery sales to pay for government services also?shifts the overall tax burden to those who can least afford it.

?It?s a very regressive tax," said Lucy Dadayan, a senior policy analyst at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. ?And any time a government relies on a regressive tax it not the best policy option.?But it?s easier for state officials to promote gambling rather than to increase income taxes or sales taxes.?

State-run lotteries have been around since the U.S. was founded, but the modern era of government games dates to the 1960s. Since then, they?ve spread to 44 states, which took in nearly $69 billion in sales in the 2012 fiscal year.

After paying the winners and operating expenses, the roughly $19 billion in remaining?proceeds went to fund a long list of state and local programs and services, from education to social services,?according to ?David Gale, ?Executive Director, North American Association of State and Provincial?Lotteries.

?If lotteries were not in existence those programs and services would be cut or they would have to be funded through another source,? he said.

The bulk of the money collected from tickets ? about 60 cents of every dollar on average - goes back to the winners, said Gale. After expenses ? everything from advertising, fees paid to vendors selling tickets and salaries for lottery commission staff - ?the amount left over varies widely from state to state.

In Rhode Island, just 11 cents in net profits was returned to the 2012 state budget to support a variety of programs, from education to social services. Oregon?s lottery, the most profitable in the country, generated 50 cents in profits for each?dollar of ticket sales last year to help pay for education, economic development and natural resource programs.

Profits can vary for a number of reasons, said Pierce. Some states use some of the revenues to pay for gambling addiction counseling programs. Some states have?laws governing how much money can be spent on advertising.

To try to boost the take, a handful of states are considering turning over their lottery operations to private companies, like GTECH, which already provides a variety of services ? from computer systems to retail terminals ? to about half the states. ?Illinois and Indiana have signed on and New Jersey officials are considering the move, according to Robert Vincent, a company spokesman

"They?re saying, 'We think we can make more money for good causes if we put this in the hands of a private manager,'" he said. ?We think we can drive more sales over the course of the contract.?

With revenues of more than $1 billion last year, GTECH is owned by Lottomatica Group, an Italian-based global gaming giant with 8,000 employees in more than 50 countries worldwide. Vincent said many state-run lotteries simply have don?t have the expertise to maximize their profits and boost tickets sales.

?You?re competing with Altoids,? he said. ?You?re on the counter of a convenience store and it's an impulse purchase whether you?re going to buy a lottery ticket or buy something else that?s there competing for your attention. That?s a very different environment than other government agencies that are there to protect, collect and manage infrastructure.?

States' hard-pressed tight budgets can use all the tickets sales they can get, which has increased pressure on lottery commissions to raise more money.?

But critics of the reliance on lotteries to fund government argue that it shifts the funding burden unfairly onto the poor and working class.

The link between lottery sales and low-income purchasers has been fairly well established. In 2004, three Cornell economists reviewed 10 years of data from 39 states and found a strong correlation between lottery sales and poverty rates.

?State o?cials laud the bene?ts of lottery proceeds and promote the fun and excitement of participation,? the researchers wrote. ?This entertainment value is one explanation for lottery demand by the poor: individuals with lower incomes substitute lottery play for other entertainment.?

By contrast, the researchers found little correlation between poverty rates and sales of movie tickets.,

In some cases, lottery revenues have been used to cut income and sales taxes, further shifiting the burden of paying for state services to the poor, according to Patrick?Pierce, a political scientist and author of "Gambling Politics: State Government and the Business of Betting."

Pierce found that in the early stages of initiating a lottery, spending on services like education went up for a few years, but then began to level off as the new lottery winnings eventually replaced taxes collected as general revenue.

?Governors could then take the political credit for no tax increases or tax cuts while they were governors,? he said. ?The only reason they were able to do it was because of the lottery. They didn?t make state government more efficient. They didn?t do anything other than benefit from this voluntary tax that state residents were paying.?

State officials have found another reason to rely more heavily on lottery revenues. While revenues from sales and income are slowly recovering from the 2007 recession and weak recovery, profits from state lotteries have bounced back sharply ? up 37 percent in the past two years.

Despite high unemployment and little or no wage growth, lottery ticket buyers are durable customers.

?When their situation becomes more desperate because of the economy, you get some folks playing the lottery precisely because their situation is more desperate,? said Pierce. ?And this is the only route they see to escaping the situation that they?re in.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/powerball-profits-dont-all-go-where-you-think-they-do-1C7324290

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Who Pays The Alternative Minimum Tax? | DINKS Finance

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All,

In case you missed it, the Washington Post has a great infographic on who pays the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax). In a nutshell, people who earn between $200,000 and $1,000,000 are mostly subject to the AMT, as well as people in California, New Jersey and New York. No surprise as to why ? these are the locations where places and people where wealth is most concentrated.

Click here to check the full article.

Source: http://www.dinksfinance.com/2012/11/who-pays-the-alternative-minimum-tax/

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Google Nexus 10 Take Apart First Look

November 16th, 2012


Today we received and promptly disassembled the Google Nexus 10. In usual fashion we?ll release the take apart video next week, but wanted to go ahead and post the preliminary take apart steps and photos. The model we?ve taken apart is the 16GB Wi-FI model. Model # GT-P8110.

One thing that struck us about this disassembly was the complete ease of taking this tablet apart. Whereas Apple seems to be making it more and more difficult to repair devices by combining parts and using as much glue as possible, Google seems to be taking the complete opposite approach. The end result is a device that is extremely repairable. Go Google!

Another interesting note is how many of the components in the device are manufactured by Samsung. It appears that the battery, processor, and flash memory are all made by Samsung. Is this Google?s way of capitalizing on the drift between Apple and Samsung?

To view the Part Locator (Exploded View) for the Nexus 10, click here.

Click on any photo below to view a larger image.


Source: http://www.powerbookmedic.com/wordpress/2012/11/16/google-nexus-10-take-apart-first-look

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Report: Microsoft Prepping 'Xbox TV' Set-Top Box

Xbox Logo

Over the years, the Xbox 360 has morphed from a gaming console to a full entertainment experience thanks to the addition of streaming video and other apps.

According to The Verge, Microsoft plans to spin off the entertainment component of the console and introduce a set-top box that is basically an Xbox 360 without the more serious gaming option.

Instead, it would focus on movie and TV show streaming, as well as casual gaming and other apps supported by the platform.

This "Xbox TV" device will be introduced next year, the blog said, and might include deals with TV makers to add the Xbox software to Web-connected TVs. Presumably, consumers could pick up an Xbox TV for a price that's cheaper than the full Xbox 360 console.

In line with Microsoft's current move for a total Windows experience, The Verge said the effort might allow for the full Xbox experience on a Windows Phone.

Microsoft would not confirm the report, telling The Verge only that it is "always thinking about what is next."

The news comes amidst reports that Apple is working on a similar service. In a note to investors, Jefferies analyst James Kisner cited a source within an unnamed, North American cable provider who told him that the cable firm was "working to estimate how much additional capacity may be needed for a new Apple device on their broadband data network." A Piper Jaffray analyst, meanwhile, thinks Apple will introduce an actual TV set next year.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412410,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000757

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Bucks County Residents Welcome Winter Weather

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By Jericka Duncan

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (CBS) ? A four-wheeler with a plow attached helped to remove snow off the sidewalks in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

While some people have welcomed fall with a smile, accepting winter with open arms may not be as easy.

?This is what we have to look forward to the next couple months,? said one woman.

At Nonno?s coffee shop, customers are cozy, ordering hot drinks, watching the snow fall from inside.

?It?s nice watching traffic and relaxing,? said Bill Dunn of Doylestown.

For the people, children imparticular, who love this type of weather, playing in the snow never gets old. Five-year-old Mackenzie Maroney of Seattle,Washington built a snowman at her grandfather?s house and begged him to take her?sledding?while she?s in town.

Source: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/11/27/bucks-county-residents-welcome-winter-weather/

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

3 Renewable-Energy Nanotech Projects to Watch

According to three studies published in the journal?Technology and Innovation ? Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors, nanotechnology research being conducted in Florida could improve energy efficiency in several different applications.

One such project, which is being developed by researchers at the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center at Florida Atlantic University, will attempt to use the energy in ocean waves and current, Phys.org reported. Through research and development of materials and marine current turbines, great advances in harnessing the ocean's kinetic energy can be made, according to researchers.

Another project, which is being developed by engineers from the University of South Florida's Clean Energy Resource Center, attempted to use ?rectenna? devices to convert waste heat into electrical energy. These devices capture thermal radiation, which oftentimes is an overlooked source of renewable energy, according to Phys.org. Rectennas, which are a combination of an antenna and a tunnel diode, could be more efficient than solar power if the technology is made to be more efficient.

Physicists from the University of South Florida are looking at ways to use nanotechnology in greenhouses to improve energy efficiency. For use in hydroponic agriculture, a new lighting device -- called a nanophosphor-based electroluminesence lighting device --?could be used to create precise wavelengths of light required for indoor photosynthesis, eliminating wasted energy and saving growers money.

More information on these and other research projects can be found at the Technology and Innovation journal.

Photo of hydroponics courtesy of Shutterstock

?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/govtech/topics/green/~3/6gUH5KB3DmY/3-Nanotechnology-Energy-Projects.html

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Video: Touching on Tablet Wars

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/49968752/

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Paws for Pets: Heather Marie | WTVR.com ? Richmond News ...

RICHMOND, Va (WTVR) ? Heather Marie is a one and a half year old grey tabby. She had a litter of kittens whom all got adopted. Now Mom needs a home. She is great with other cats and dogs and is very sweet and loving.

If you?re interested in Heather Marie you can call AARF at 262-9592.

Source: http://wtvr.com/2012/11/26/paws-for-pets-heather-marie/

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Marion Cotillard Explains The Katy Perry-'Rust And Bone' Connection

"Rust and Bone," the Cannes entry and the latest film from critically-lauded French director Jacques Audiard, doesn't exactly sound like the kind of movie that would feature a Top 40 hit from Katy Perry on the soundtrack. The story of how two lost souls find each other after one of them suffers an accident during [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/11/27/marion-cotillard-katy-perry-rust-and-bone/

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

US defends 'enormous' climate efforts at UN talks

Organizers are seen on stage at the opening ceremony of the 18th United Nations climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it. The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

Organizers are seen on stage at the opening ceremony of the 18th United Nations climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it. The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

Organizers are seen on stage at the opening ceremony of the 18th United Nations climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it. The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) attends the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change conference in Doha, Qatar, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it. The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal)

(AP) ? Anticipating an onslaught of criticism from poor nations, the United States claimed "enormous" strides in reducing greenhouse emissions at the opening of U.N. climate talks Monday, despite failing to join other industrialized nations in committing to binding cuts.

The pre-emptive U.S. approach underscores one of the major showdowns expected at the two-week conference as China pushes developed countries to take an even greater role in tackling global warming.

Speaking for a coalition of developed nations known as the G77, China's delegate, Su Wei, said rich nations should become party to an extended Kyoto Protocol ? an emissions deal for some industrialized countries that the Americans long ago rejected ? or at least make "comparable mitigation commitments."

The United States rejected Kyoto because it didn't impose any binding commitments on major developing countries such as India and China, which is now the world's No. 1 carbon emitter.

American delegate Jonathan Pershing offered no new sweeteners to the poor countries, only reiterating what the United States has done to tackle global warming: investing heavily in clean energy, doubling fuel efficiency standards and reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants. Pershing also said the United States would not increase its earlier commitment of cutting emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. It is half way to that target.

"I would suggest those who don't follow what the U.S. is doing may not be informed of the scale and extent of the effort, but it's enormous," Pershing said.

"It doesn't mean enough is being done. It's clear the global community, and that includes us, has to do more if we are going to succeed at avoiding the damages projected in a warming world," Pershing added. "It is not to say we haven't acted. We have and we have acted with enormous urgency and singular purpose."

The battles between rich and poor nations have often undermined talks in the past decade and stymied efforts to reach a deal to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F), compared to preindustrial times. Efforts taken in the absence of a deal to rein in emissions, reduce deforestation and promote clean technology are not getting the job done. A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are expected to increase by up to 4 degrees C (7.2 F) by 2100.

Countries are hoping to build on the momentum of last year's talks in Durban, South Africa, where nearly 200 nations agreed to restart stalled negotiations with a deadline of 2015 to adopt a new treaty and extend Kyoto between five and eight years. The problem is that only the European Union and a handful of other nations ? which together account for less than 15 percent of global emissions ? are willing to commit to that.

Delegates in the Qatari capital of Doha are also hoping to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to a shifting climate.

"We owe it to our people, the global citizenry. We owe it to our children to give them a safer future than what they are currently facing," said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led last year's talks in Durban.

Environmentalists fear holding the talks in Qatar ? the world's biggest per capita emitter ? could slow progress. They argue that the Persian Gulf emirate has shown little interest in climate talks and has failed to reign in its lavish lifestyle and big-spending ways.

There was hope among activists that Qatar might use Monday's opening speech to set the tone of the conference. But Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, the president of the conference and a former Qatari oil minister, didn't offer any voluntary emission targets or climate funding for poor nations.

"Some countries, especially the one where we are sitting, have the potential to decrease their carbon emissions. They have the highest per capita emissions, so they can do a lot," said Wael Hmaidan, a Lebanese activist and director of the Climate Action Network.

"If nations that are poorer than Qatar, like India and Mexico, can make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions, then countries in the region, especially Qatar, should easily be able to do it. ... They still haven't proven they are serious about climate change."

Al-Attiyah defended Qatar's environmental record at a later news conference, insisting it was working to reduce emissions from gas flaring and its oil fields. Qatar is already doing plenty to help poor countries with financing, he said, adding that it was unfair to focus on per capita emissions.

"We should not concentrate on per capita. We should concentrate on the amount and quantity that each country produces individually," al-Attiyah said. "The quantity is the biggest challenge, not per capita."

The concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week. The report also showed that there is a growing gap between what governments are doing to curb emissions and what needs to be done to protect the world from potentially dangerous levels of warming.

At the same time, many scientists say extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Sandy's onslaught on the U.S. East Coast, will become more frequent as the Earth warms, although it is impossible to attribute any individual event to climate change. The rash of violent weather in the U.S., including widespread droughts and a record number of wildfires this summer, has again put climate change on the radar.

"While none of these individual events are necessarily because of climate change, they are certainly consistent with what we anticipate will happen in a warming world," Pershing said. "The combination of these events is certainly changing minds of Americans and making clear to people at home the consequences of increased growth in emissions."

In Washington, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., urged the U.S. delegation at the talks to "heed the warnings from Sandy and other extreme weather supercharged by climate change."

"If the United States does not aggressively pursue sharp reductions in carbon pollution following the droughts, storms and other extreme weather events we have endured, the rest of the world will doubt our sincerity to address climate change," Markey said. "It's time to attack the carbon problem head on, and adapt to a climate already changed for the worse."

Many countries referenced Hurricane Sandy as a rallying cry for tough action to cap emissions, including a group of small island nations that said the monster storm may have jolted the world to recognize "that we are all in this together."

"When the tragedies occur far away from the media spotlight, they are too often ignored or forgotten," the island nations said in a statement.

___

AP reporter Karl Ritter contributed to this report.

__

Follow Michael Casey on https://twitter.com/mcasey1 and Karl Ritter on www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-26-Climate%20Talks/id-218b19d9d4cc4aa6b7d12f2096683d09

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Linux and the GPL: A Storm Erupts

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone in the land of stars and stripes, it's a pretty safe bet that blood pressures are rising and tensions are high here in the Linux blogosphere. The holiday season is hard upon us, after all, and Linux Girl, for one, has resorted to her preferred coping strategy of warming the barstools down at the blogosphere's seedy Punchy Penguin Saloon.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/25f8fb33/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C766980Bhtml/story01.htm

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Purdue make quick decision to fire Hope

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? A strong finish for Purdue wasn't enough to save Danny Hope's job.

One day after Purdue retained the Old Oaken Bucket and became bowl-eligible for the second straight season, athletic director Morgan Burke announced that Hope had been fired. The school has called a 6:30 p.m. news conference to make it official.

Hope went 22-27 in four mostly injury-ravaged seasons. He ended the school's three-year bowl drought last season and brought Purdue its first bowl title since 2007 by winning the Little Caesars Bowl in Detroit and was given a two-year contract extension in December that runs through the 2016 season.

Last year's late-season success raised expectations inside and outside the program ? expectations that fell flat this season and resulted in too many empty seats in the stands.

The move was not a big surprise.

Speculation had been swirling about Hope's future in West Lafayette since mid-October when the Boilermakers began a five-game losing streak with blowout losses at home to Michigan and Wisconsin.

The rumors grew so loud by Oct. 29 that Burke took the unusual step of issuing a statement that essentially said he would wait until the end of the season before making a decision.

Hope was aware of the talk, too.

"I don't have any idea. But either way, I'm going to be OK," he said when asked about returning next season after Saturday's 56-35 victory Saturday over archrival Indiana. "Like I said, I've learned to live life on the hot seat here at Purdue. Any time that you have a contract that has some weak spots in it, I didn't have a lot of leverage when I came here. I don't have that strong of a contract from a buyout standpoint or a compensation standpoint, any time you're dealing with a contract like that, you can be on the hot seat on a regular basis."

The buyout was only $600,000 and declined by $100,000 each successive year.

Players also had a sense the move was coming.

After Saturday's win, Hope hugged his wife and one of his players before leading the team in singing the school's fight song in front of the student section. Afterward, two players hoisted Hope their shoulders briefly before posing with the trophy that is awarded annually to the winner of the Indiana-Purdue game.

"It was really a special moment. I've never had that happen before," Hope said of being lifted up by his players. "We're a very close football team, a very close football family and there was a point in time this season probably all the way up till about 20 minutes ago, all we had was what was in that locker room ? us ? and we did a great job of locking arms and keeping the down side away and really believing in each other."

During postgame interviews, players expressed support for their head coach, none more emphatically than sixth-year quarterback Robert Marve. He thanked Hope for giving him multiple second chances and allowing him to play this season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Defensive tackle Kawann Short, who is projected to be a first-round pick in April's NFL draft, also credited Hope for helping with his development as a player.

But Hope and his players opened this season by talking about reaching the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis, putting the program back on the national map and possibly returning to a New Year's Day bowl game.

When that didn't happen, it sealed Hope's fate.

"I've worked 85 to 100 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for the last 4 1/2 years to try and return this program to national prominence and we're a long ways away in many phases of our program and what it took was elbow grease and commitment to get us back to where we are right now, where we're in postseason play back-to-back and we've made improvements in every phase of the program. It's just that plain and simple."

Purdue went 5-7 under Hope in 2009, then 4-8 in an injury-plagued 2010, finished strong last year to go 7-6 and won their last three this year to get to 6-6. It's the first time since 2006 that Purdue closed the Big Ten season on a three-game winning streak.

Hope is 57-49 in his head coaching career, which began at his alma mater, Eastern Kentucky.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/purdue-quick-decision-fire-hope-230509459--spt.html

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Graham Daesler: Cutters' Way - The Mysterious Art of Film Editing

Cutters' Way: The Mysterious Art of Film Editing
by Graham Daesler
Bright Lights Film Journal

...

Porter's experiments, however fumbling they appear in hindsight, point us to a curious quandary at the heart of filmmaking: what is it that makes cutting work? How is it that we accept such a violent transition ? whether it be from a wide shot to a close-up, from Paris to the Sahara desert, or from the seventeenth century to the present ? as a cut? "Nothing in our day-to-day experience seems to prepare us for such a thing," Walter Murch observes. "From the moment we get up in the morning until we close our eyes at night, the visual reality we perceive is a continuous stream of linked images: In fact, for millions of years ? tens, hundreds of millions of years ? life on Earth has experienced the world in this way. Then suddenly, at the beginning of the twentieth century, human beings were confronted with something else ? edited film."11 What prepared them for this? Not painting, not theater, not even literature, cinematic as some of Dickens's scenes now appear. Murch speculates that it was dreams. "We accept the cut because it resembles the way images are juxtaposed in our dreams," he writes. "In the darkness of the theater, we say to ourselves, in effect, 'This looks like reality, but it cannot be reality because it is so visually discontinuous; therefore, it must be a dream.'"12 Director John Huston saw it differently. Cinema, he said, was not just a reflection of our dream lives but the very essence of conscious thought, with its fitful jumble of visuals and sound: "To me the perfect film is as though it were unwinding behind your eyes, and your eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were seeing what you wished to see. It's like thought. It's the closest to thought process of any art."13 Watch the final moments of his film The Dead (1987) and you'll have some idea of what he's talking about. As Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) gazes out the frosty filigree of his Dublin window, somberly musing on the emptiness of his life, the film, with no more than a few simple cuts, slips aboard his stream of consciousness as it glides from thought to thought: from past memories to future projections to the lonely churchyard on the hill where his wife's lover lies buried.

The first person to truly discover this cinematic language was D. W. Griffith, who was to early cinema what Jane Austen was to the English novel. He saw what Porter failed to see in The Life of an American Fireman: that you could crosscut between different points of view in a scene to create suspense. Perhaps his most signal technique, for which he is still remembered today, is the accelerated pace of cutting that he used during moments of heightened tension, as in The Lonely Villa (1909), The Lonedale Operator (1911), and The Birth of a Nation (1915), rapidly cutting between heroes and villains during chases and rescues. In this manner, he showed that, with some clever editing, he could subjugate time to his demands, either drawing it out for suspense or speeding it up for sudden denouement. Likewise, he dispensed with the custom, so reminiscent of the stage, of beginning a scene when a character enters a room, cutting instead at the moment of the important action, thereby accelerating the pace of the story. To show characters in thought, he used close-ups and cutaways (from a man's face, for example, to a shot of his sweetheart miles away) rather than the cartoonish dream balloons employed by previous filmmakers. Not only did this last technique prove that simple cuts could simulate consciousness, it established a dividing line between screen acting and stage acting that still exists to this day. In a tight close-up, a good actor need only think a thought to express it, rather than histrionically projecting to the back rows of the theater.

Early film cutting was a sometimes excruciating process. Editors viewed their movies in negative, making it difficult to tell one take from the next. Lacking any numbers on the film to guide them, they were forced to pore over millions of frames by hand, using minute alterations in the image to find their bearings. "Sometimes there'd be a tiny pinpoint on the negative and then you knew you were right," Margaret Booth recalls. "But it was very tedious work. Close-ups of Lillian Gish in Orphans of the Storm would go on for miles, and they'd be very similar."14 Most prohibitive, though, was the equipment, or rather the shocking lack of equipment. The essential tools of the trade consisted of a rewind bench, a magnifying glass, and an ordinary pair of scissors. The only way you could see the film in motion was to screen it, so editors took to pulling the film through their fingers to simulate movement. The work must have been exceedingly tiresome, yet it evokes a wonderful image, like some kind of strange tailor's shop, with reams of footage dangling from the walls and the editors, strands of film clenched in their teeth, unspooling bolts of celluloid before their eyes. If they wanted three seconds of footage, they held the film to the tip of their nose and pulled it out to the length of their arm. If they wanted to view it in progress, they hauled it into the projection room and screened it, then carried it back to the editing table to get chopped up some more.

All this changed with the invention of the Moviola in 1919. A chunky, frog-green machine with foot pedals to run the film and a four-inch spy hole to view it, the Moviola was the brainchild of Iwan Serrurier, a Dutch-born electrical engineer who designed the contraption on a whim, as a diversion from his job at the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in Pasadena. Originally, Serrurier tried to sell his gadget as a home-entertainment device (the name itself, Moviola, was chosen for its happy harmony with Victrola, the popular phonograph), but, at $600, it was too expensive for most families in 1920 to afford. Then in 1924, Serrurier ran across an editor at Douglas Fairbanks Studios who suggested he adapt it as an editing table for the movie industry. Serrurier "roughed together" a model that very weekend, turning it on its side and attaching a viewing lens and a hand crank he'd lifted from a clock.16 With that, the first editing machine was born. It arrived just in time, too. With the coming of sound, there was no way an editor, no matter how sharp-eyed, could sync sound to silent lips. To accomplish this aural feat, the Moviola was simply fitted with an additional sprocket for the soundtrack to run on, making possible the explosion of talkies that burst from Hollywood, beginning in 1927. After that, the device changed little. It was hefty, ugly, noisy (more than one editor compared the clanking it made to a sewing machine) and, because of its tilted viewer, required the user to sit hunched over all day at a forty-five-degree angle. Yet it remained the mainstay of the film industry for the next seventy years, an unequivocal, if curious, testament to its durability, almost as if the Model T had persisted as the car-of-choice until the new millennium.

To Read the Entire Essay

Source: http://dialogic.blogspot.com/2012/11/graham-daesler-cutters-way-mysterious.html

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GSK to raise stake in India unit in $939 million deal

MUMBAI (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc plans to buy up to an additional 31.8 percent stake in its Indian consumer products arm GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd for 52.2 billion rupees ($939 million), sending shares of the Indian unit to a record high.

GlaxoSmithKline plans to raise its stake in GSK Consumer Healthcare to 75 percent from 43.2 percent, paying 3,900 rupees per share through an open offer, it said in a statement. The price represents a premium of 28 percent to the stock's Friday close.

The offer period is expected to begin in January 2013.

"This transaction represents a further step in GSK's strategy to invest in the world's fastest growing markets and, we believe, offers a liquidity opportunity at an attractive premium for existing shareholders," said David Redfern, chief strategy officer at GlaxoSmithKline.

Shares in GSK Consumer Healthcare were locked at 3,659.20 rupees, up 20 percent, their maximum daily trading limit, while the Mumbai market was up 0.23 percent, by 10.47 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Securities regulations in India require a minimum public shareholding of 25 percent for a company to maintain a public listing.

($1 = 55.5850 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni and Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gsk-raise-stake-india-unit-939-million-deal-045552725--finance.html

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Monday, November 26, 2012

Events and News items of interest - CambsPSA - Blogs

Events that may be of interest:

News stories that may be of interest:

We provide here a list of news stories we have seen ? there is more news here and here.

26th November 2012 ? Nile Rodgers? battle with prostate cancer ? (source: BBC news)

and then read Niles? own blog here: Walking on Planet C

30th July2012 ? Join me and Prostate Action on 22 September 2012 in Battersea Park, London for a 5km fun run called Pants in the Park. Wear your pants on the outside of your clothes to raise awareness of prostate disease and help raise funds to beat this dreadful disease. ? (source: Pant In The Park blog)

28th July 2012 ? Coronation Street actor Geoffrey Hughes (?Eddie Yeats?) dies aged 68 ? (source: BBC news)

3rd July 2012 ? Eddie Nestor ? Let?s drag prostate cancer into public awareness ? (source: Huffington Post)

19th June 2012 ? Male tea drinkers ?may be at greater risk of prostate cancer? ? (source: BBC news)

18th June 2012 ? Actor and ex-Flying Pickets singer Brian Hibbard dies ? (source: BBC news)

26th April 2012 ? We learnt some sad news that Helen Patterson, one of oncologists at Addenbrookes, who has helped many Prostate Cancer patients, died on 18th April, following her own fight against cancer. Dr Patterson will be fondly remembered by all at CambsPSA as the majority of us have survived as a result of her and her team at the Oncology Dept.- (Obituary)

17th April 2012 ? New prostate cancer treatment may reduce side-effects ? (source: BBC news)

17th April 2012 ? How new prostate treatment works ? (source: BBC news)

29th March 2012 ? Cancer: ?Book of knowledge? published ? (source: BBC news)

26th March 2012 ? Prostate Cancer Womens Campaign ? (source: Prostate Action charity website)

23rd March 2012 ? Robotic surgeon successful in first prostate snip ? (source: The Register website)

14th March 2012 ? Today we heard the sad news that our member, Mike Vogel, died on 23rd February 2012. Please visit this website and perhaps make a donation to the fund raising efforts of his family ? (source: Just Giving website)

13th March 2012 ? Circumcision linked to lower risk of prostate cancer ? (source: Yahoo Lifestyle website)

6th March 2012 ? Cancer fear and denial ?is killing thousands? ? (source: BBC news)

5th March 2012 ? Rock guitarist Ronnie Montrose dies at the age of 64 ? (source: BBC news)

2nd March 2012 ? We now have a Facebook page ? please visit via the link shown and maybe ?Like? it?.?? (source: Facebook website)

2nd March 2012 ? March 2012 is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month ? find out what it is and some background info on the symptoms and what YOU can do to ensure you (or your partner) can receive treatment (source: Yahoo Health website)

8th February 2012 ? March 2012 is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month ? sign up here to help raise awareness in YOUR area (source: Prostate Cancer website)

8th February 2012 ? Dave?s Journey ? a?member of the Oxfordshire Prostate Cancer Support Group has made a video of his last day of radiotherapy treatment ? (source: YouTube)

2nd February 2012 ? NICE: Prostate cancer drug too costly for NHS ? (source: BBC News)

30th January 2012 ? Prostate cancer discovered in ancient mummy ? (source: Yahoo Lifestyle websites)

22nd January 2012 ? Glasgow scientists create 3D image of cancer protein ? (source: BBC News)

15th November 2011 ? Is oral contraceptive pill fuelling prostate cancer? ? (source: BBC News)

11th November 2011 ? Skin transformed for cancer fight ? (source: BBC News)

26th October 2011 ? Raconteur on Prostate Cancer ? (source: Raconteur Media)

19th September 2011 ? Signs you may have a prostate problem ? (source: Yahoo Health News)

19th August 2011 ? Lockerbie bomber Megrahi?s survival attributed to pills ? (source: BBC News)

20th June 2011 ? Gene therapy vaccine to treat prostate cancer ? (source: Yahoo News)

24th May 2011 ? Brisk walks fight prostate cancer ? (source: BBC News)

21st May 2011 ? Robo Doc Fights Cancer ? (source: ITV News)

21st May 2011 ? FOUND: KEY GENE IN PROSTATE CANCER FIGHT ? (source: Express Newspaper)

18th May 2011 ? Heavy coffee drinking wards off deadly cancer in men ? (source: The Register)

17th May 2011 ? Coffee ?cuts prostate cancer risk? US study suggests ? (source: BBC News)

11th May 2011 ? Selenium ?does not prevent cancer? ? (source: BBC News)

2nd May 2011 ? Denis Law starts Manchester Shine cancer charity walk (Mr Law is a survivor of Prostate Cancer) ? (source: BBC News)

March 2011 was Prostate Cancer Awareness Month

31st March 2011 ? Researchers learn why why PSA levels reflect prostate cancer progression ? (source: physorg.com article is dated 13th Jan 2011).

14th March 2011 ? Patient turns genetic detective ? (source: BBC News)

4th March 2011 ? Les Ferdinand (footballer) tackles issue of prostate cancer (video) ? (source: BBC News)

1st March 2011 ? Are You Aware? ? 6 male celebrities sport their M&S pants for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month ? (source: M&S webshop)

1st March 2011 ? Prostate cancer test is ?twice as good?, say researchers ? (source: BBC News)

9th February 2011 ? Prostate cancer ?gene test? hope ? (source: BBC news)

24th January 2011 ? Blocking a gene stops cancer cells spreading ? (source: BBC news)

News from previous years:
6th December 2010 ? Experts scrap prostate screening proposal ? (source: BBC news)

1st December 2010 ? Index finger length prostate cancer clue ? (source: BBC news)

14th October 2010 ? Prostate cancer urine test nears ? (source: BBC news)

11th October 2010 ? Trial confirms prostate drug promise ? (source: BBC news)

1st June 2010 ? Men still unaware of prostate cancer risk ? (source: Yahoo Lifestyle website)

29th May 2010 ? Actor Dennis Hopper has died from complications following a battle with metastasised prostate cancer ? (source: BBC news)

30th April 2010 ? Whistling Bob Harris, the radio presenter, has spoken of his treatment for prostate cancer in 2007 ? (source: BBC news)

8th April 2010 ? Warn men of prostate test distress, study urges ? (source: BBC news)

2nd Feb 2010 ? Dave Prowse (Darth Vader) in remission from prostate cancer ? (source: BBC news)

11th Jan 2010 ? Andrew Lloyd Webber is ?cancer clear? ? (source: BBC news)

26th April 2009 ? Vitamin D hope in prostate cancer ? (source: BBC news)

25th March 2009 ? Oily fish may protect against prostate cancer ? (source: Yahoo Lifestyle website)

25th March 2009 ? March is prostate cancer awareness month ? (source: Yahoo Lifestyle website)

If you find any suitable links to other news stories about Prostate Cancer, which you think may be relevant, please leave a comment below.

Source: http://cambspsa.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/news-items-of-interest/

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Scientists rush to save iconic manta rays

By Rebecca Pilkington-Vincett

A feeding station popular with manta rays is not far from the Misool Eco Resort and Conservation Center in Raja Ampat, eastern Indonesia.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News

RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia ?They?ve been described by one scientist as ?pandas of the ocean.?

?They?re such an iconic species, beloved by divers,? said Andrea Marshall, director of the?Marine Megafauna Foundation, who came up with the description during an interview with NBC News. ?They?re just amazing.??

Unlikely as it might seem, the panda and the manta ray have a lot in common.

Just as scientists still haven?t been able to confirm the number of pandas in the wild, they also have no idea how many manta rays exist.

?Globally we don?t know how many manta rays there are,? said Guy Stevens, director of the U.K.-based?Manta Trust,?whose research is largely based around manta populations in the Maldives.

But -- again, like the panda -- scientists think it?s a small population.

?If they?re lucky, (manta rays) have two pups (over several years).?That?s a very low reproductive rate, especially compared to your average fish,? said Dr. Heidi Dewar, a biologist at the?Southwest Fisheries Science Center, part of NOAA.

Anecdotal evidence suggests mantas are under threat, and China may be a major reason for it.

Manta rays are vulnerable on two fronts: as bycatch ? getting caught in industrial fishing nets targeting different types of tuna ? and, increasingly, because of traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM.?

Manta rays are abundant in the waters around Raja Ampat, eastern Indonesia.

Manta rays are harvested for their gill rakers, which allow the fish to filter food from water.? Some Chinese believe they have healing properties or are good at cleaning out toxins. One Chinese-language?website claims gill rakers enhance the immune system, promote blood circulation and aid in the treatment of cancer, skin disease and infertility.

?It?s just cartilage,? said Dewar, echoing skepticism expressed by many scientists.

Medicinal fad?
Conservationists say manta rays aren?t even considered ?traditional? medicine and argue no reference to the animal can be found in TCM books dating back a century. But with rising incomes that enable Chinese consumers to readily adopt medicinal fads, the impact on manta rays has accelerated over the past 10 to 15 years.?

?A lot of it is completely unrecorded,? said Stevens, who worked on a project founded by Shark Savers and WildAid to document the scope of gill-raker harvesting.?

Understanding the beauty and diversity of Raja Ampat, aka 'Underwater Eden'

Researchers looked at the location, value and species involved. ?It does seem the majority of all of those gills that are being traded are ending up in China,? Stevens said.

The conclusion, published in a report called?Manta Ray of Hope, found that roughly 3,400 manta rays and 94,000 mobulas?(related to the manta ray family) are caught each year, but the numbers reflect only reported catches. ?Unreported and subsistence fisheries will mean true landings are much higher,? the report said.?

On patrol with a shark ranger in Indonesia's marine treasure trove

Visits to random TCM shops in Beijing and Shanghai turned up no gill rakers. In fact, a veteran pharmacist at Tongrentang, a long-established purveyor of traditional Chinese and herbal medicines, said she had never heard of manta rays being used this way.

But the Manta Ray of Hope report estimates a mature ocean manta could yield up to 15 pounds of dried gills that can bring in as much as $230 a pound in a market in China.?

Australia moves to ban fishing trawler with 900-foot-long net

Marshall said she has noticed an uptick in manta fishing. ?I?ve been (in Mozambique) in the last decade ? and we?ve seen an 87 percent decline in the population because of the fishing.??

Unlike many shippers, Chinese merchants who transport cheap products from the mainland for export to Africa ?want to fill [their unloaded cargo vessels] with resources wherever they go.? In Africa, they fill it up with wood, fish or shark?s fin,? she said.??They?ll go out to the local fisheries along the coastline and scout for these products.??

The scientist has spoken to members of local communities, who say the Chinese offer ?new nets, new lines, new hooks.?(The Chinese traders) say to them, ?If you get the sharks or the mantas or the turtles, you get all the meat. You can keep all the meat. You just sell us the things you don?t normally eat.'??

Protecting a ?threatened? species
Mantas were listed last year as ?threatened? under the international Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species.

The?International Union for the Conservation of Nature?has classified the manta ray as ?vulnerable? to extinction.?

PhotoBlog: Raja Ampat archipelago: The world's last paradise

Chinese scientists have also weighed in.?

?In the last two years, we have conducted evaluations of the manta ray and submitted a recommendation to the government to list it as a protected species,? said Professor Wang Yanmin from Shandong University?s Marine College.

?There is no regulation for protecting the manta ray so sales of mantas are not illegal,? said Feng Yongfeng, founder of Green Beagle, a group that promotes environmental protection.

Groups like Manta Trust are focusing on getting manta rays listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). But scientists have their work cut out for them.?

?It?s very difficult to get listed on CITES.? They ask for a lot of detail that is difficult to pin down,? said Marshall. ??Maybe in the terrestrial world, biologists can provide those kinds of details. ?When you?re talking about the megafauna [or large marine species] world, it?s very difficult.??

Marshall ? who discovered a second type of manta ray in 2008 and is in the process of identifying a third -- acknowledges little is known about them.

AFP - Getty Images file

A huge manta ray weighing more than 2,200 pounds and measuring nearly 9 yards in length was caught off the eastern coast of China this past September.

Manta births a mystery?
Vexing questions include the manta?s life span, details of their reproductive ecology and migratory patterns.?

?I could wrap my life up in 20 minutes if I could talk to them,? she joked. ??It has been driving me insane for the last ten years because I haven?t been able to figure out where they give birth.? It?s 2012 and nobody has ever seen a manta give birth in the wild.??

And research is painstaking. For one, concentrations of the animal tend to be around far-flung islands.?Stevens of Manta Trust cited the costs of tracking mantas and the difficulty in locating and knowing how to study them.?

With technological improvements, however, scientists are gaining some ground. Satellite tags are one way to help the research.??What do they do when we can?t observe them? I?d love to follow an animal to find out how they spend their time,? said Stevens. ?The tagging gives you small glimpses of them.??

Two dive instructors at the Misool Eco Resort and Conservation Center in Raja Ampat have uncovered a revenue stream to offset research costs: tourism.

?One manta ray can raise $1 million (U.S. dollars) in tourism income over its lifetime,? said Rebecca Pilkington-Vincett, citing a figure contained in the Manta Ray of Hope?report.

PhotoBlog: Raja Ampat archipelago: The world's last paradise

With the blessing of the resort, Pilkington-Vincett and Calvin Beale launched a research project off the surrounding reefs. ?

Last season, the duo raised $32,000 from donations by recreational divers who accompanied them on dives to gather DNA samples and tag the mantas.?

With the money, they have bought three satellite tags and collected numerous DNA samples.? They are sending off the data to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for analysis by a graduate student.?

With online databases such as the?Manta Research Project, where some of Pilkington-Vincett and Beale?s data are logged, or the?Manta Matcher, developed by Marshall and operating much ?like the FBI fingerprint online database,? research on the manta ray has become rooted in a global exchange among scientists and amateurs alike.?

Until its secrets are fully revealed, the manta?s mystique seems guaranteed.?

?I think it?s fascinating,? said Dewar of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, ?that there is such a large and amazing creature that has so many mysteries attached to it.??

Additional research by Le Li, Johanna Armstrong and Yanzhou Liu.

More world stories from NBC News:

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Source: http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/24/15054305-scientists-rush-to-save-manta-rays-the-pandas-of-the-ocean?lite

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

A Dryer Vent Through The Roof Is A Very Dangerous Thing

A dryer vent through the roof is a very dangerous thing.

I have written about dryer vents before, in many contexts.? Including through a roof!

But this one is so dangerous I have to reiterate my points.

I always prefer to see a dryer vent on the side of a house.? Even if it's high.

Why?

How do you know a dryer vent needs cleaning?? YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT IT.

How do you clean a dryer vent?? MANUALLY.

This dryer vent is NOT visible from the ground.? How do you know it needs cleaning?

With great effort.

This house leaves four choices to clean the dryer vent -

1.? A climb up in front and traversing a metal roof.? They can be slippery.
2.? A 40' ladder from the rear of the house, with another trip over the ridge of the house, negotiating fairly steep aspects up, over and down.? THEN you have to go back up, over and down the roof to get onto the top of a 40' ladder to climb down!? Yikes!
3.? Slither out a bedroom window, walk along a ledge on top of a metal roof, and climb up a fairly steep shingled roof 12' to get to this vent.
4.? Hire somebody!? And that would necessitate two people with a long ladder.? Not cheap.

That is all ridiculous!?

Look at this vent.? It is 100% clogged!? Someone has been up here before because I see roof tar above and beside the vent.? Is this the builder's "installation" job?? Did it leak and is this the "fix?"? The house is seven years old.? Has this vent ever been cleaned?

This roof is the third floor of the house.? The laundry room is on the first floor.? Looking at the house geography from inside the exhaust tubing servicing this vent goes straight up!? It is not accessible from inside the house.? I could not see it from the attic, so it is difficult at best to get at from inside there.

It must pass through a portion of the attic.? Is it insulated?

What happens when it snows deeper than 3"?? This vent is clogged even more!

In my opinion a dryer vent through a roof is less than smart.? How much less depends on its placement.

My recommendation:? all in all this is a dangerous vent, not just now but in the years to come.? How often should a dryer vent be cleaned?? When it's clogging!? I always look for the dryer vent on home inspections.? It is important to see where it is and if it needs cleaning.? We fortunately found this one, and only because I took a risk and went out a window to see if it was where I suspected!?

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Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC??

Based in Bristow, serving all of Northern Virginia

www.jaymarinspect.com


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Source: http://activerain.com/blogsview/3529492/a-dryer-vent-through-the-roof-is-a-very-dangerous-thing

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"Searching for Sugar Man," "First Cousin Once Removed" Win at International Documentary Festival

While camping in the Grand Canyon with her boyfriend earlier this month,? Samantha Busch, 22, decided to pull a prank on her overprotective mom, Rebecca. Busch texted a photo of herself looking like she was falling off a cliff, when in reality, she was perfectly...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/searching-sugar-man-first-cousin-once-removed-win-233820456.html

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Capital Sports ? Life support decision divides Camacho family


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, November 24- The mother of Hector ?Macho? Camacho, the Puerto Rican ring great declared brain dead after being shot, said he will be taken off life support, a move the ex-champion?s eldest son opposes.

Camacho?s mother, Maria Matias, said in a press conference that she has accepted the doctors? verdict rendered Thursday that the three-time world champion was clinically brain-dead and could not recover.

She said the family would wait until Saturday, so that all of Camacho?s children will have a chance to say goodbye.

But Camacho?s eldest son, Hector Camacho jnr, insisted Friday night that ?the fight is not over until the final round,? and that he believed Camacho should stay connected to the respirator keeping him alive.

?Doctors make mistakes. Men make mistakes. God does not make mistakes,? Camacho jnr said after visiting his father again at Centro Medico hospital in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. ?He is a fighter and the fight will continue until the end.?

However, Camacho jnr acknowledged that the final decision would belong to Matias ? ?my grandmother, the woman who gave birth to my papa.?

Flanked by friends and family members, Matias told reporters that on Saturday she would do the only thing left she could do for her son.

?I lost my son three days ago,? she said in a firm and determined voice.

?He?s alive only because of a machine. My son is not alive. My son is only alive for the people who love him.?

She said that she had been told by one friend who had visited Camacho in hospital that he remained alive, that his legs had moved.

?But in reality, it?s electricity,? she said. ?The reality is that my son has gone.?

Dr Ernesto Torres said Thursday morning that Camacho showed no sign of brain activity.

The 50-year-old ex-fighter was shot on Tuesday while in a car in San Juan outside a liquor store. The boxer?s driver, Alberto Mojica Moreno, 49, was killed in the shooting.

It was not immediately clear if they were deliberately targeted or simply caught up in a random act of violence. The bullet damaged three arteries in Camacho?s neck, crippling the flow of blood to his brain.

Camacho was one of the most colorful boxers of the 1980s, winning world titles at super lightweight, lightweight and light welterweight.

With a career record of 79-6-3 with 38 knockouts, he took on all comers, including big names Oscar De La Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez, Sugar Ray Leonard, Felix Trinidad, Ray Mancini and Greg Haugen.

But battles with drugs and alcohol led to numerous brushes with the law outside the ring.

Earlier this year, US police charged him with child abuse for allegedly slamming his son into a floor at his ex-wife?s home in Florida.

Ismael Leandry, a friend and former manager and a key figure in Camacho?s ring career, told AFP that Puerto Rico?s secretary of recreation and sport, Henry Neumann, along with the boxing commission, were already preparing a tribute to the fighter.

While a public funeral could be held in Puerto Rico, some in the family have expressed a desire to see him buried in New York, where he spent much of his life.

Author: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE has written 2250 posts

Source: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/sports/2012/11/24/life-support-decision-divides-camacho-family/

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