Is there any chance UFC fighters make good golfers? Urijah Faber is hosting a charity golf tournament that will support the Youth Empowerment Society. Last year, several of his buddies showed up. You be the judge on if Chael Sonnen, Mark Munoz or Faber should make the jump from MMA to golfing. If you want to attend this year's event in July and heckle Faber's golfing skills, click here.
Susan Islas waits to collect signatures in an effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in downtown Phoenix. Organizers of a campaign aimed at ousting Arpaio face a deadline Thursday afternoon for handing signatures to force a recall election against the lawman. Recall organizers, who had trouble raising contributions and had to rely on volunteers rather than paid professionals to sign up supporters, face long odds in turning in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures. Arpaio critics are hoping a court ruling last week that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos would draw out more supporters for their cause. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Susan Islas waits to collect signatures in an effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in downtown Phoenix. Organizers of a campaign aimed at ousting Arpaio face a deadline Thursday afternoon for handing signatures to force a recall election against the lawman. Recall organizers, who had trouble raising contributions and had to rely on volunteers rather than paid professionals to sign up supporters, face long odds in turning in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures. Arpaio critics are hoping a court ruling last week that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos would draw out more supporters for their cause. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Simon Lopez, left, and Hiliaro Islas hold signs while trying to collect signatures in an effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in downtown Phoenix. Organizers of a campaign aimed at ousting Arpaio face a deadline Thursday afternoon for handing signatures to force a recall election against the lawman. Recall organizers, who had trouble raising contributions and had to rely on volunteers rather than paid professionals to sign up supporters, face long odds in turning in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures. Arpaio critics are hoping a court ruling last week that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos would draw out more supporters for their cause. (AP Photo/Matt York)
A man signs a petition to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in downtown Phoenix. Organizers of a campaign aimed at ousting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio face a deadline Thursday afternoon for handing signatures to force a recall election against the lawman. Recall organizers, who had trouble raising contributions and had to rely on volunteers rather than paid professionals to sign up supporters, face long odds in turning in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures. Arpaio critics are hoping a court ruling last week that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos would draw out more supporters for their cause. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Susan Islas collects a signature from a motorist in an effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 in downtown Phoenix. Organizers of a campaign aimed at ousting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio face a deadline Thursday afternoon for handing signatures to force a recall election against the lawman. Recall organizers, who had trouble raising contributions and had to rely on volunteers rather than paid professionals to sign up supporters, face long odds in turning in more than 335,000 valid voter signatures. Arpaio critics are hoping a court ruling last week that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos would draw out more supporters for their cause. (AP Photo/Matt York)
PHOENIX (AP) ? A group trying to oust the polarizing sheriff of metropolitan Phoenix faces a Thursday deadline for handing in voter signatures in an uphill battle to force a recall election.
Organizers of the effort to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio face long odds in turning in the more than 335,000 valid voter signatures required by the 4 p.m. deadline. They have struggled to raise funds, have had to rely mainly on volunteers to collect signatures and are mounting a campaign against a politician who has a base of devoted supporters.
Arpaio should be dismissed, they say, because his office has failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex crimes cases, has cost the county $25 million in legal settlements over treatment in county jails, and a federal judge ruled that his office had systematically targeted Latinos in his signature immigration patrols.
"We can't allow the sheriff to stay in office four more years," said recall campaign manager Lilia Alvarez.
Arpaio gained national attention for his often contentious efforts to combat illegal immigration across Arizona's 3,169 kilometer (1,969 mile) border with Mexico.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that Arpaio's deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks. They also accused the sheriff of ordering some immigration patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters and emails from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish.
The recall group said more backers have come forward since the racial profiling decision on Friday. Supporters have been camped outside a county building since Sunday in their final push.
Arpaio supporters say the sheriff won re-election fairly and that recall organizers shouldn't be allowed to contest the election simply because they don't like the outcome. The sheriff, whose campaign fund was depleted after spending more than $8 million during the last election cycle, has cited the recall effort in recent fundraising efforts.
"By their own admission, they have a steep hill to climb," Arpaio campaign manager Chad Willems said of recall organizers.
Alvarez would not say Wednesday how many signatures her group has gathered. Five weeks ago, the group said it had collected 200,000 signatures.
The recall effort began just weeks after the 80-year-old Republican sheriff started his sixth term in January.
Arpaio, through his campaign manager, declined an interview request about the recall effort. In the past, the sheriff has apologized for the bungled sex-crimes investigations and said his office has moved to clear up the cases and prevent a repeat of the problem. He has vigorously denied allegations that his deputies racially profiled people in traffic patrols targeting immigrants who were illegally in the country.
County election workers will face a June 10 deadline for determining whether the group has enough d signatures to meet the threshold. If there are enough signatures, then election workers will have two months to examine the signatures to determine if they are valid. If so, a recall election would be set, likely in March, in which Arpaio would have to run against other candidates.
May 30, 2013 ? Motorway maintenance workers are exposed to various harmful emissions. Surprisingly, motorised hand-held tools such as strimmers (string trimmers) and chainsaws, rather than motorway traffic, are responsible for the highest emissions of particulate matter.
These are the conclusions of a study supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
The study was conducted between May 2010 and February 2012 by researchers working with Michael Riediker at the Institute for Work and Health in Lausanne. They accompanied 18 maintenance workers on 50 working days during tasks such as clearing snow, mending crash barriers, cleaning drains, cutting wood or mowing grass on the motorway central reservation. They measured the levels of air pollution, particulates and noise to which workers were exposed during each activity. The result compared to the average population, maintenance workers are exposed to between three and eight times higher particulate levels. In addition, noise levels often exceed the critical level of 85 decibels.
"Real belchers"
Surprisingly, motorway traffic is not the main source of noise and pollutants. More than 50 percent of airborne particulates are emitted by strimmers and chainsaws. "The small combustion engines which the workers carry on their backs use petrol with oil additives. This makes them real belchers," says Reto Meier, the lead author of the study. The quickest way to reduce particulate levels, therefore, is to improve the engines in these machines. This is primarily a challenge for the manufacturers, but Meier adds that employers can also play a role by considering emission levels when purchasing equipment.
Hearing protection
Maintenance workers are exposed to the highest noise levels when using pneumatic drills. But the use of strimmers or chainsaws and the traffic during maintenance work in tunnels also give rise to noise levels of 90 decibels or more. Researchers noticed that workers wear hearing protection reliably when they are the cause of the noise, but often fail to do so when the noise is caused by their colleagues or by the traffic. "To prevent damage to the ears, protection should be worn whenever possible," says Meier.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Foerderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
R. Meier, W. E. Cascio, B. Danuser, M. Riediker. Exposure of Highway Maintenance Workers to Fine Particulate Matter and Noise. Annals of Occupational Hygiene, 2013; DOI: 10.1093/annhyg/met018
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
A supervisor?s foul temper can alienate employees?and wind up costing an employer big bucks.
Recent case: Shaunta began ?working for United Systems, a small printing company, as an accountant and was eventually promoted to the position of controller.
When hired, she told her supervisor she sometimes needed to take a few days off to undergo minor surgery. After a hysterectomy, she had developed a cyst that regularly filled up and had to be surgically drained. This typically meant a day or two off every few months.
Her routine practice was to let her supervisor know as early as possible and fill out leave forms. On her last absence, however, it turned out that the cyst required several days to drain. She called in and left a message providing the updated information about her plans.
When Shaunta returned to work the following week, she was called into the owner?s office. He de???manded to know why she hadn?t called him personally on his cellphone. When she said she didn?t know she was required to do that, he ordered her to ?sit down, little girl.? She did not, and he ordered her to ?get out? several times.
Shaunta went home, believing she had been fired.
Then she sued. A jury awarded her $180,000 in damages, including $100,000 for mental anguish.
United Systems appealed, but the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said the award was reasonable. (Hudson v. United Systems, No. 12-2572, 8th Cir., 2013)
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May 29, 2013 ? Astronomers expect that stars like the Sun will blow off much of their atmospheres into space near the ends of their lives. But new observations of a huge star cluster made using ESO's Very Large Telescope have shown -- against all expectations -- that a majority of the stars studied simply did not get to this stage in their lives at all. The international team found that the amount of sodium in the stars was a very strong predictor of how they ended their lives.
The way in which stars evolve and end their lives was for many years considered to be well understood. Detailed computer models predicted that stars of a similar mass to the Sun would have a period towards the ends of their lives -- called the asymptotic giant branch, or AGB [1] -- when they undergo a final burst of nuclear burning and puff off a lot of their mass in the form of gas and dust.
This expelled material [2] goes on to form the next generations of stars and this cycle of mass loss and rebirth is vital to explain the evolving chemistry of the Universe. This process is also what provides the material required for the formation of planets -- and indeed even the ingredients for organic life.
But when Australian stellar theory expert Simon Campbell of the Monash University Centre for Astrophysics, Melbourne, scoured old papers he found tantalising suggestions that some stars may somehow not follow the rules and might skip the AGB phase entirely. He takes up the story:
"For a stellar modelling scientist this suggestion was crazy! All stars go through the AGB phase according to our models. I double-checked all the old studies but found that this had not been properly investigated. I decided to investigate myself, despite having little observational experience."
Campbell and his team used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to very carefully study the light coming from stars in the globular star cluster NGC 6752 in the southern constellation of Pavo (The Peacock). This vast ball of ancient stars contains both a first generation of stars and a second that formed somewhat later [3]. The two generations can be distinguished by the amount of sodium they contain -- something that the very high-quality VLT data can be used to measure.
"FLAMES, the multi-object high-resolution spectrograph on the VLT, was the only instrument that could allow us to get really high-quality data for 130 stars at a time. And it allowed us to observe a large part of the globular cluster in one go," adds Campbell.
The results were a surprise -- all of the AGB stars in the study were first generation stars with low levels of sodium and none of the higher-sodium second generation stars had become AGB stars at all. As many as 70% of the stars were not undergoing the final nuclear burning and mass-loss phase [4] [5].
"It seems stars need to have a low-sodium "diet" to reach the AGB phase in their old age. This observation is important for several reasons. These stars are the brightest stars in globular clusters -- so there will be 70% fewer of the brightest stars than theory predicts. It also means our computer models of stars are incomplete and must be fixed!" concludes Campbell.
The team expects that similar results will be found for other star clusters and further observations are planned.
Notes:
[1] AGB stars get their odd name because of their position on the Hertzsprung Russell diagram, a plot of the brightnesses of stars against their colours.
[2] For a short period of time this ejected material is lit up by the strong ultraviolet radiation from the star and creates a planetary nebula.
[3] Although the stars in a globular cluster all formed at about the same time, it is now well established that these systems are not as simple as they once thought to be. They usually contain two or more populations of stars with different amounts of light chemical elements such as carbon, nitrogen and -- crucially for this new study -- sodium.
[4] It is thought that stars which skip the AGB phase will evolve directly into helium white dwarf stars and gradually cool down over many billions of years.
[5] It is not thought that the sodium itself is the cause of the different behaviour, but must be strongly linked to the underlying cause -- which remains mysterious.
More at-risk bird species in Brazilian forest than previously thoughtPublic release date: 29-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sheryl Weinstein 973-596-3436 New Jersey Institute of Technology
In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by NJIT Associate Professor Gareth Russell has applied a novel method for linking large-scale habitat fragmentation to population sustainability.
"Our goal was to assess the extinction risk for bird species in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, a global 'hotspot' of bird diversity," said Russell. "Based on elevation restrictions and forest type requirements, as well as ongoing tropical deforestation, we already knew that most species have access to far less habitat than typically assumed. But what habitat remains is also highly fragmented. Looking at area alone is not enough."
Other researchers included Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology, Duke University; Grant Harris, chief of biological sciences (Southwest region), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Jessica Schnell, recently graduated, now at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany.
More accurate habitat maps show the extent of fragmentation, but researchers still must link the particular habitat distribution of a species to its extinction risk in an objective and consistent manner.
In a recent, more technical publication in the journal Conservation Biology, the same authors showed that a modified version of a metric called meta-population capacity has the right characteristics to assess the impact of fragmentation. Meta-population capacity takes information about the sizes of fragments and the distances separating them and summarizes the influence of these geographic factors on long-term population persistence.
The current study applied this metric to 127 forest-dependent passerine birds inhabiting the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, an area that has lost over 90 percent of its original forest. There were two key results:
First, the species fell into two distinct groups: those where the fragmentation impact was severe, and those where it was relatively mild. There were few species in the middle. This immediately suggests a straightforward way in which fragmentation patterns can contribute to threat assessment.
The authors also found that out of 58 species that have severely fragmented habitat, 28 are not currently considered to be threatened, according to the latest red list published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Taking these results into consideration, the authors recommend that the classification of these species be reexamined.
Russell also hopes this work will have a broader impact. "Assessing extinction risk is enormously challenging, and the dedicated teams that do this work are faced with many unknowns," he said. "The most endangered species are often the most rare, and therefore also the hardest to find and study. Our approach requires only basic knowledge about a species, but optimizes that information by linking it to the recent flood of data about the environment."
The researchers believe that their work could be applied widely, helping to identify at-risk species from many different groups and from many regions of the planet.
###
NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls more than 9,943 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2012 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Division of Continuing Professional Education.
Contact: Sheryl Weinstein, director, public relations, Sheryl.m.weinstein@njit.edu, 973-596-3436; Gareth Russell, associate professor of biological sciences, gareth.j.russell@njit.edu, 973-353-1429; Jessica Schnell, Max-Planck-Institut fr Ornithologie, Germany +49 (0)7732 1501 15
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
More at-risk bird species in Brazilian forest than previously thoughtPublic release date: 29-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sheryl Weinstein 973-596-3436 New Jersey Institute of Technology
In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by NJIT Associate Professor Gareth Russell has applied a novel method for linking large-scale habitat fragmentation to population sustainability.
"Our goal was to assess the extinction risk for bird species in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, a global 'hotspot' of bird diversity," said Russell. "Based on elevation restrictions and forest type requirements, as well as ongoing tropical deforestation, we already knew that most species have access to far less habitat than typically assumed. But what habitat remains is also highly fragmented. Looking at area alone is not enough."
Other researchers included Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology, Duke University; Grant Harris, chief of biological sciences (Southwest region), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Jessica Schnell, recently graduated, now at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany.
More accurate habitat maps show the extent of fragmentation, but researchers still must link the particular habitat distribution of a species to its extinction risk in an objective and consistent manner.
In a recent, more technical publication in the journal Conservation Biology, the same authors showed that a modified version of a metric called meta-population capacity has the right characteristics to assess the impact of fragmentation. Meta-population capacity takes information about the sizes of fragments and the distances separating them and summarizes the influence of these geographic factors on long-term population persistence.
The current study applied this metric to 127 forest-dependent passerine birds inhabiting the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, an area that has lost over 90 percent of its original forest. There were two key results:
First, the species fell into two distinct groups: those where the fragmentation impact was severe, and those where it was relatively mild. There were few species in the middle. This immediately suggests a straightforward way in which fragmentation patterns can contribute to threat assessment.
The authors also found that out of 58 species that have severely fragmented habitat, 28 are not currently considered to be threatened, according to the latest red list published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Taking these results into consideration, the authors recommend that the classification of these species be reexamined.
Russell also hopes this work will have a broader impact. "Assessing extinction risk is enormously challenging, and the dedicated teams that do this work are faced with many unknowns," he said. "The most endangered species are often the most rare, and therefore also the hardest to find and study. Our approach requires only basic knowledge about a species, but optimizes that information by linking it to the recent flood of data about the environment."
The researchers believe that their work could be applied widely, helping to identify at-risk species from many different groups and from many regions of the planet.
###
NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls more than 9,943 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2012 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Division of Continuing Professional Education.
Contact: Sheryl Weinstein, director, public relations, Sheryl.m.weinstein@njit.edu, 973-596-3436; Gareth Russell, associate professor of biological sciences, gareth.j.russell@njit.edu, 973-353-1429; Jessica Schnell, Max-Planck-Institut fr Ornithologie, Germany +49 (0)7732 1501 15
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
May 28, 2013 ? A new NASA and university analysis of ocean data collected more than 135 years ago by the crew of the HMS Challenger oceanographic expedition provides further confirmation that human activities have warmed our planet over the past century.
Researchers from the University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Australia; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., combined the ship's measurements of ocean temperatures with modern observations from the international Argo array of ocean profiling floats. They used both as inputs to state-of-the-art climate models, to get a picture of how the world's oceans have changed since the Challenger's voyage.
The Challenger expedition, from 1872 to 1876, was the world's first global scientific survey of life beneath the ocean surface. Along the way, scientists measured ocean temperatures, lowering thermometers hundreds of meters deep on ropes.
"The key to this research was to determine the range of uncertainty for the measurements taken by the crew of the Challenger," said Josh Willis, a JPL climate scientist and NASA project scientist for the upcoming U.S./European Jason-3 oceanography satellite, scheduled to launch in 2015. "After we had taken all these uncertainties into account, it became apparent that the rate of warming we saw across the oceans far exceeded the degree of uncertainty around the measurements. So, while the uncertainty was large, the warming signal detected was far greater."
Uncertainties around the Challenger's measurements were caused by the limited areas measured during the voyage; the actual depths the thermometers descended to; and the likely natural variation in temperature that could occur in each region during the voyage.
"Our research revealed warming of the planet can be clearly detected since 1873 and that our oceans continue to absorb the great majority of this heat," said researcher and lead author Will Hobbs of the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. "Currently, scientists estimate the oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and we attribute the global warming to anthropogenic (human-produced) causes."
The Challenger expedition measurements also revealed that thermal expansion of sea water caused by global warming contributed about 40 percent of the total sea level rise seen in tide gauges from 1873 to 1955. The remaining 60 percent was likely to have come from the melting of ice sheets and glaciers. Prior to this research, climate models offered the only way to estimate the change before the 1950s.
Results of the study are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
For more on the study, visit: http://www.imas.utas.edu.au/right-column-content/whats-new3/news/century-old-science-helps-confirm-global-warming .
For a while there in 2011, or at least for a few minutes that August, Michele Bachmann was a real contender for the Republican presidential nomination. The race she ran offers several lessons for women who may be thinking of making a White House bid.
The most disconcerting aspect of Bachmann's campaign, from my standpoint, was her explicit embrace of the biblical instruction that wives submit to their husbands. She didn't say that during her presidential campaign, true, but she did at a public church service during one of her congressional campaigns, and the proof is on video.
Her remarks may have been what one analyst described to me as "religious boilerplate," meant to reassure Christian conservatives about her faith, and maybe they did serve that purpose. But the clashing images of the submissive wife and commander in chief are problematic--in fact, irreconcilable. They are also, of course, deeply reinforcing of a stereotype of women as followers or collaborators, rather than leaders of a state, a nation, or the free world.
The lesson here is not that candidates need to abandon their faiths or beliefs, just that it's better to keep such matters private. This may be especially true if you are a conservative Christian woman running for what is widely viewed as the most powerful job in the world.
Bachmann certainly did not lack aggressive instincts or awareness that a female candidate for president needs to prove she's tough. She more than demonstrated her willingness to attack President Obama and her fellow Republican contenders. But she overdid it. Although fact-checkers frequently deemed her policy assertions false or exaggerated, that did not stop her from repeating them. Sometimes in the repetition she went even further afield from facts, as when she suggested HPV virus caused mental retardation.
Rather than underscoring Bachmann's strength or fearlessness, the off-base attacks and contentions undermined her credibility as a serious candidate. There are other ways for women to prove they are tough. Hillary Rodham Clinton conveyed it through resilience, persistence, and performance in office over many years. If there's a profile around that doesn't call her tough at least once, I haven't seen it.
There were some female-oriented aspects of Bachmann's campaign that were beyond her control. One was the news that she suffered from migraines. This is a largely feminine complaint, and one that can be temporarily incapacitating. There was probably no great way to handle the uproar of speculation: How bad were they? How long did they last? How often did they occur? Was this a disqualifier for the presidency? Yes, that last question did get asked.
Back when John F. Kennedy was taking multiple prescriptions for multiple afflictions, the public was largely in the dark and nobody was suggesting he was medically incapable of being president. In this day and age, by contrast, it's not hard to imagine a public debate about the impact of menopause on a candidate. (Not that I'm in a hurry to kick off that discussion, believe me.) The sad truth is that women candidates are better off if their health problems, should they have any, are common to both genders. Again, Hillary Clinton. A stomach virus, a concussion, a blood clot--these are not "women's problems."
One final lesson that Bachmann demonstrated during her brief presidential campaign. It takes a lot of time and money for women to look good on TV and on the campaign trail, and it is worth that time and money. It's not fair, obviously. Male candidates don't have to do much beyond showering, shaving, and throwing on a nondescript suit. Women have to deal with hair, makeup, and complicated wardrobe choices (they seem complicated to me, at least).
But Bachmann--pilloried for a bad makeup day on TV at a CNN debate--usually looked like a consummate political professional, with a bit of rock-star celebrity thrown in. Her debate clothing offered stylish reprieves on stages full of men. On the trail, her look was amplified by the stagecraft of her campaign bus and music, and the crowds loved the whole scene.
Inevitably, Bachmann took criticism for spending too much on her appearance. And maybe she did go overboard. But she also took hits for looking bad. It's not easy to strike that balance, and there will be gossipy punditry no matter what. Hillary Clinton paved the way here, too, with her short, blonde, no-nonsense hairstyle on the 2008 campaign trail, preceded and succeeded by every imaginable way of wearing hair and every imaginable opinion on it.
There's no escape. The answer for women, in my book: Spend what you must to look good, ignore the noise, and build a fact-based case for why you deserve the top job and those other guys don't.
With Apple, Google, Amazon and other multinationals in the hot seat for their tax tactics, world leaders need to focus on transparency in tax policies and curbing the global race to cut corporate tax rates.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board / May 29, 2013
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at a May 21 Senate hearing on offshore profit shifting and the US tax code. Apple Inc came under fire for keeping billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries.
Reuters
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If you find filling out a tax return difficult, try being the leader of a rich nation these days in needing to set new tax policy.
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On the one hand, you want to lower corporate tax rates in a global competition to attract foreign investment. Yet in an age of austerity, you also seek more revenue by chasing down your own companies that shift profits to low-tax ?havens? in other countries.
The attempt to resolve this dilemma helps explain a flurry of recent actions in Europe and the United States aimed at curbing legal tax evasion across borders while preventing a race to the bottom among nations in lowering their corporate tax rates.
On June 17, for example, President Obama and other leaders will meet at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Northern Ireland with the topic of tax avoidance high on the agenda. Britain, as summit president, hopes to strike a deal on the beggar-thy-neighbor tax competition and also make it easier for nations to share information on tax-avoiding multinationals.
The principle at stake is transparency. ?Without a level playing field we will see a transfer of financial activity to ones that lack transparency,? says British treasurer George Osborne, whose own country includes such tax havens as the Channel Islands.
In recent weeks, several big multinational companies have suffered reputational shock for their legal tax evasion. Apple faced a hostile Senate hearing in May, while the tax tactics of Google, Starbucks, and Amazon recently created a public outcry in Britain.
?Some forms of avoidance have become so aggressive that I think it is right to say these are ethical issues,? said British Prime Minister David Cameron in January.
Yet it is governments that must change their ways to reduce the number of companies that globe-trot for lower rates. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, describes international tax rules as ?irrational.? Sir Roger Carr, president of the CBI employers? group, said in a recent speech: ?As governments seek to win the affections of companies by ever lowering tax in a competitive global race, it is hard to argue that paying less tax is somehow socially irresponsible.?
That is one reason why another ?club? of wealthy nations, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has been able to convince more countries to sign an agreement that allows easier exchange of information on tax matters between governments, especially about tax cheaters.
The agreement is ?an important milestone on the road to closer cooperation and more transparency ? to making the international system fair to all taxpayers,? the OECD?s Secretary-General Angel Gurr?a said. The OECD also wants to curb ?hybrids,? or the practice by some companies of exploiting different tax policies between countries for their best tax advantage.
Even Switzerland, once the icon of bank secrecy for tax evaders, has been swept up in all this global reform on taxes. It relented this week to US pressure and agreed to allow Swiss banks to cooperate with foreign tax authorities.
With open, honest, and consistent rules, more nations might be able to ease the competition on corporate tax rates and retrieve more tax revenue from their domestic companies.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday endorsed Massachusetts Senate candidate Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
"Ed Markey is a passionate and effective champion for middle class and working families, and we need him in the Senate to keep moving our country forward," Obama said in a statement. "I share his commitment to common sense efforts to reduce gun violence, and I know he will be a critical vote on this issue. Massachusetts has a long history of Senators who have made a real difference for the Commonwealth and our nation, and I know Ed Markey will continue that great tradition."
Obama's endorsement hardly comes as a shock, considering both are Democrats and hold similar policy positions, with the exception of Obama's proposed cuts to social security, known as chained CPI, which Markey opposes. However, the president doesn't make endorsements in every race.
Markey faces Republican Gabriel Gomez in the general election. Despite speculation that Gomez will be the "next Scott Brown," he trails Markey by about 11 points, according to HuffPost Pollster. The general election is June 25.
On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama will headline a fundraiser for Markey, along with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and William "Mo" Cowan (D-Mass.). Gomez and Markey are running to replace Cowan, who was appointed as an interim replacement for now-Secretary of State John Kerry.
A Markey spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether there were plans for the president himself to get more involved in the race.
Time to dust off the 'ol microphone and get back to podcasting! As many of you have noted, we're coming off of a short hiatus -- thanks to trade shows, conflicting schedules and a certain podcast co-host moving out of his house, all at the same time -- but we're back now, and we're ready to chat it up about what we've seen over the past three weeks. Join us in an hour!
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Older versions of the website for Liberty Reserve, a company U.S. authorities claim was a money transfer hub for criminal gangs trafficking in drugs and child pornography, expressly said the firm "will not do business with anyone suspected of, or directly involved in money laundering."
U.S. prosecutors in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday said that is precisely what the Costa Rican-based Liberty Reserve was doing.
The website for Liberty Reserve has now been seized by the United States Global Illicit Financial Team and prominently displays logos for the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury and the Secret Service.
But older versions of the firm's website, which can be found in the Internet Archive's Wayback machine (http://archive.org/web/web.php) offer a glimpse into Liberty Reserve's past, before most people had ever heard of it.
The versions say Liberty Reserve has the "right to refuse a transaction at any time should suspicion arise that it may be connected to money laundering or criminal activity." The policy also said the company would not do business with anyone using funds from "sources by an illegal activity."
The website provided instructions on how users of Liberty Reserve could go to a number of "exchangers," which the firm said, "will be happy to buy or sell your LR."
LR is how Liberty Reserve referred to its own form of digital currency that authorities say was used to enable criminals to launder money from illegal activities like selling drugs and child porn. The digital currency could be exchanged into cash.
The company also boasted of a product called "LibertyGuard", which it said was a plug-in on Firefox browsers that would ensure users' transactions were secure.
In connection with the indictment, authorities in Spain, Costa Rica and New York said they had arrested five people on Friday and seized bank accounts and Internet domains associated with the company, Liberty Reserve.
Costa Rican prosecutor Jos? Pablo Gonz?lez said Liberty Reserve and related businesses were used to launder funds from child pornography websites and from drug trafficking.
Over the past decade, digital currency has become more popular. The most widely known is called Bitcoin. Liberty Reserve's currency was not connected to Bitcoin.
(Reporting by Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
Remember the parents in Pennsylvania who had a second child die from an entirely treatable condition while on probation for doing the same thing to another child? They?ve now been charged with third degree murder. They also face a separate hearing for violating the probation.
The couple are charged with the third-degree murder of Brandon Scott Schaible. The baby, just over 7 months old, died in April of bacterial pneumonia and dehydration.
?Sadly, there is only one reason for it: his parents,? District Attorney Seth Williams said at a news conference. ?Instead of caring and nurturing him, they ultimately caused his death by praying over his body rather than taking him to the doctor.?
A medical examiner ruled Tuesday that Brandon?s death April 18 was a homicide, the Philadelphia Daily News reported. The medical examiner said the child began experiencing difficulty breathing, irritability and decreased appetite three days before he died.
At the time of their infant son?s death, the couple were already on probation for the 2009 death of their 2-year-old son Kent, who died after they decided to simply pray for his recovery rather than take him for medical care.
They belong to a church that teaches that it is a sin to go to the doctor because it proves that you lack faith in God to heal. Faith is not some vaguely good thing, it?s downright dangerous in many cases.
In celebration of the Inaugural National Health and Fitness Day initiative, the City of Kamloops is hosting a free group fitness class and expo on June 1, 2013.
Everyone is invited to join for this 75-minute fitness class that includes Zumba, cardio, strength, Pilates and yoga. The class will take place at the Tournament Capital Centre?s lower grass field, starting at 9 a.m.
Different instructors from across the community will come together to instruct this one-of-a-kind class, including:
Shalen Curle ? Let?s Move Studio
Laurie Evans ? Zumba Fitness with Laurie
Kristy Plato ? Ladies Only Fitness
Gaudenza Plato ? Ladies Only Fitness
Sandra Labbe ? Gold?s Gym
Cathy Bliault ? City of Kamloops
Cassie Marchuk ? Evolve Pilates Studio
Melissa Phillips ? Evolve Pilates Studio
Tania McCartney ? Grounded&Sound Yoga
Joy Demsey ? Kamloops Hot Yoga
The event will be led by Jo Berry of RUNClub and Nelly Dever of Nelly?s Executive Fitness, and will include random draw prizes for participants. Many facilities from around town will have information booths set up to showcase their facilities and services.
Other free events are taking place throughout the day in support of National Health and Fitness Day:
11 a.m. ? Kenna Cartwright Park Hike (meet at the Home Depot parking lot)
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ? Tim Horton?s Free Skate at Brock Arena
11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ? Swim Doctor at the Canada Games Aquatic Centre
6 to 8 p.m. ? Family games and activities at the Canada Games Aquatic Centre
Visit Tourism Kamloops ?for many other great healthy living initiatives around town.
I would do basically anything to try a bananaberry, kiwigerine or pinegrape. No matter how varied and colorful nature is, I will always want more delicious fruit options. And Ogilvy Brazil knows. They sense my weakness.
We enlarged our back deck a couple years ago. It's been dubbed "the party deck", the grill is on it and we hang out there all the time. With citronella candles it's not bad, the only one that ever seems to have a problem with the bugs is dh. Apparently he's a hell of a lot sweeter than the rest of us.
(Reuters) - A teenage girl's abusive slur aimed at Australian Rules Football player Adam Goodes has jolted the state of Victoria into establishing programs that will educate children on racism, according to local media on Saturday. The 33-year-old Sydney Swans player, who is of Indigenous Australian heritage, was called an "ape" by the 13-year-old spectator at Friday's AFL game against Collingwood at the MCG in Melbourne. Goodes told a news conference he was "gutted" by the remark but added that the girl, who was escorted out of the stadium following the incident, had called him to apologies. ...
Arrested Development is finally back. After Fox cancelled the show in 2006 its popularity has unexpectedly grown, and now a new season commissioned by Netflix for its streaming service is ready for viewing. As is its custom, the service is making all of the episodes available for viewing at once, so fans (in all areas where Netflix is available) can start the Bluth Party binge immediately just by clicking the link below.
Pandora Radio, one of the most recognized names among streaming music services, has undergone two major changes designed to improve the overall user experience. The most obvious change is the new Pandora Premiere feature, which lets you stream entire select albums before they hit stores. The second, and not-so-obvious, alteration is Facebook integration that sees the music service posting "Recent Activity" updates whenever you "Like" or listen to a song. Comprised of Music Genome Project-powered Web service and several mobile apps, the free Pandora Radio (also available as a $36 per year Pandora One premium service) continues as one of the leaders in the streaming audio space, despite missing a few features that its rivals possess.
Design and Interface You begin the musical journey by keying in the name of an artist or song, which causes Pandora Radio to populate a station. The slightly-revamped music player showcases album art as a small square, with lyrics, and song and artist information located just south of it. Below the song and artist information feature ?Buy? and "Share" icons. ?Buy? lets you purchase the track from Amazon MP3 or iTunes; ?Share? lets you share either the station or track with your Facebook or Twitter friends. Joining the pair is the new "Publish" button, which lets you set up Pandora to post listening and "Like" information to your Facebook page's "Recent Activity" field. When Facebook friends click on the song title, they're taken to that tracks Pandora page where they can build a new channel around that piece (they can't, unfortunately, stream that song on-demand). Facebook is represented on the Pandora side, too. You can also see what your Pandora-loving friends are listening to by clicking ?Music Feed.
The Music Genome Project and Customization Pandora Radio's artist recommendations were excellent in my testing. Creating a station based on Jimi Hendrix led to similar classic rock artists such as Led Zeppelin and Cream, but it tossed me a curveball in the form of Steve Wonder?s Superstition?an odd selection for a classic rock station. Another small gripe: The service lacks Slacker Radio's niche genre stations such as one-hit wonders and video games. Certainly, they aren?t necessities; they cater to a niche audience, but the option is a nice one. You can also manually browse genres by clicking the search box, which causes a ?Browse Genres? link to appear.?
Pandora Radio also lets you customize your stations, but it's not quite as thorough as Slacker Radio's method. Clicking "Add Variety" lets you enter additional artists to further seed Pandora Radio's artist selection algorithm. Slacker Radio, however, has a more flexible selection process that displays a long list of similar bands, letting you designate artists from them as favorites. You can approximate Slacker's approach by clicking on a station you created on the left-hand side of Pandora Radio's main screen, and then choosing "Edit Station Details." You can?t, however, play songs on demand or build playlists.
I previously dinged Pandora for opening lyrics pages in separate tabs?but no more. Lyrics now exist on the same page as the other song information. Mousing over the album art opens a menu that informs you why the station is playing a particular track, and even let you move the track to another station if you have one created?very cool.? When I heard a track from Willie Mitchell, an artist I wasn't familiar with, I clicked "Why," which gave me the reasons why this track was selected.
Pandora used to place limitations on the amount of free music that you can listen to, due to its deal with the RIAA?40 hours of free music per month. Now, you can listen to ?unlimited? music, which is really 320 hours. If you come up against that extraordinary high listening wall, you?ll be contacted by the company for potential abuse. You can't rewind or repeat songs, but you can skip six tracks per hour?typical of free streaming audio sites. You can also tell the system whether or not you like a given track?valuable feedback that Pandora Radio folds back into its recommendation algorithms for future choices. Users with free accounts will hear frequent audio ads.
Pandroa Premieres is the service's latest addition and it's one truly unique in the streaming music space. By searching "Pandroa Premieres" or visiting pandora.com/premieres, you can find select albums that you can stream in their entirety before they hit stores. At the time of this writing, John Fogerty's "Wrote a Song for Everyone" and Laura Marling's "Once I Was an Eagle" were the two Pandora Premiere albums available.
Upgrading to the $36 per year Pandora One (it's cheaper than Slacker Radio's $47.88 Slacker Radio Plus premium edition) lets you skip an unlimited number of tracks per day (you?re still limited to six per hour, though), skin the interface, download a desktop app, and enjoy ad-free, 192 Kbps listening experience.
Sound Quality Pandora Radio streamed crisp over my home and office network connections. Unless you're a true audiophile, Pandora Radio's sound quality should satisfy, especially when the audio is pumped through a phone or desktop speaker. However, donning a pair of Sony MDR revealed that Pandora Radio didn't sound as full as Slacker Radio. The low-end sounds were a bit tinny on Pandora. Music is interspersed with the occasional audio ad, but I found these more tolerable than Jango Radio's ads (which covered a large portion of the screen as songs played). I also encountered large 30 second video ads which took me out of music listening mode when they appeared.
Should You Listen to Pandora Radio? Pandora Radio may not have niche stations or on-demand streaming but it's a satisfying streaming audio service that's available on numerous devices. Slacker Radio remains our Editors' Choice among streaming music services for its on-demand playback and playlists, but Pandora?s customization options, Pandora Premiere feature, and decent sound quality make it worth a listen.
An overflowing email inbox can feel like a weight on your shoulders. The email management system app Mailbox, by Orchestra Inc., originally debuted on the iPhone to much hype and demand. It promised a solution, a series of set actions that encouraged users to do something with every message that entered their inbox. When the app initially launched, Orchestra put guards at the gate and limited access to only a few thousand users at a time, with a long waiting list for anyone else who wanted to get their hands on the app. Now, with a few months' experience, Orchestra has opened the floodgates and in addition upgraded the app to spread across the full screen size of iPads and iPad minis. (Mailbox co-founder Gentry Underwood is a fan of the mini in particular.) The Mailbox iPad app is a straightforward port of the original, which is excellent news for those who have found it useful. Not everyone will, though, so it's important to know just how Mailbox aims to solve your email woes before you get sucked into using it as a primary solution for email management.
How to Get Mailbox for iPad While the waiting list for Mailbox is now a thing of the past, it did take me a moment to realize the Mailbox iPad app doesn't actually show up under list of iPad apps in the Apple App Store. I downloaded the copy I found listed under iPhone apps, and heaved a sigh of relief upon installing it when I saw it was in fact the full-sized version.
Mailbox Philosophy and Gestures Mailbox largely adheres to the Inbox Zero philosophy, which loosely states that an ideal inbox has zero messages in it by the time you close it. (As an aside, the creator of Inbox Zero, Merlin Mann, told me in an email conversation recently that Inbox Zero is not about having zero messages at all costs. It's more about having an inbox that doesn't overwhelm you and contains a reasonable amount of information to process and digest.) At the heart of the philosophy is the idea that when you look at email messages, you should do something with them, such as respond, file away, archive, delete, or push them off until later.
Mailbox's implementation of this concept is to give iPad users simple gestures for these actions. A long swipe to the right deletes a message, but a short swipe to the right marks a message as having been completed (so it can be archived). A short swipe to the left snoozes a message, and you can mark when it should reappear in your inbox, while a long left swipe files the message into the folder of your choice.
Mailbox only works with Gmail at the moment, which is a show stopper for a lot of people hoping to use the app for business email processing, particularly when they're on the road and merely need to stay on top of the inbox influx. You can, however, add multiple Gmail accounts, just not email from any other host. The app automatically sets up a few folders ("tags" in Gmail) for you?To Read, To Watch, To Buy, and Later?which you'll see the next time you log into Gmail proper nested inside a new "Mailbox" folder/tag.
Why Mailbox Isn't for Everyone While Mailbox certainly does appeal to people who don't know how to process email and often feel overloaded by it, it's not a great solution for those who already deal with email pretty effectively. One problem is you can't select multiple messages at a time to process in bulk. I'm a rampant deleter, and the inability to delete six, seven, eight, fifteen messages at a shot completely destroys my productivity practices. You can do any of the swipe actions for your entire inbox by scrolling to the very bottom, but you can't hand-pick which messages to include or not include.
The layout of the iPad app takes advantage of the larger screen well, although it doesn't work in portrait orientation. If you like the Mailbox experience on the iPhone, it's definitely worth installing on an iPad, too. Having a consistent way to process email across those two platforms is a step in the right direction. Without support for other email hosting services, though, or the ability to process messages in bulk, Mailbox for iPad's appeal remains somewhat limited.
Jim Harbaugh will return to the city where he quarterbacked the Colts to drive the Indy 500 pace car.
Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -- Jim Harbaugh insists he will coachable when it comes to the tricks of driving the Indianapolis 500 pace car this weekend.
The San Francisco 49ers' coach will return to the city where he spent four years as a player to take part in the Indy 500 festivities. Track officials made the later-than-usual announcement that the former NFL quarterback would be behind the pace car wheel in a news release sent out early Wednesday morning.
Asked how fast he would allow himself to go, or whether he had a mph limit in mind, Harbaugh said his speed was still to be determined - a game-time decision of sorts.
"I'm awaiting my coaching and instructions, and then ready for practice,'' Harbaugh said after a 49ers organized team activity Wednesday.
Harbaugh has strong ties to the Indianapolis area. He was quarterback of the Colts for four seasons, earning the nickname "Captain Comeback,'' and is a part-time owner of Indianapolis-based Panther Racing. JR Hildebrand, who starts 10th, and Townsend Bell, who starts 22nd, both drive for Panther.
"As the No. 1 fan of the Rockford Files, to follow in the footsteps of James Garner, who did it three times, and also Morgan Freeman, and Colin Powell, and Chuck Yeager and so many others, it's just a real honor and a privilege,'' Harbaugh said. "I'm going to do my best to do a great job at it.''
Last September, Harbaugh had an IndyCar racer parked next to the practice fields at 49ers headquarters.
Harbaugh led the 49ers to the NFC championship last season but lost 34-31 in the Super Bowl to a Baltimore Ravens team coached by his older brother, John. Harbaugh's brother-in-law is Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean.
"Really excited. I was really excited just even being considered when they told me that they were considering me,'' Harbaugh said. "To actually be doing it, I've already had a couple of dreams about it. I know I'm going to be excited and nervous. I'm anticipating getting there and getting some practice in for it.''
Harbaugh won't try to bring the Corvette back to the Bay Area as his own.
"That car goes to the winner of the race,'' Harbaugh said. "The winner of the race is always awarded the pace car at the Indy 500.''
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Public release date: 29-May-2013
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In celebration of the Inaugural National Health and Fitness Day initiative, the City of Kamloops is hosting a free group fitness class and expo on June 1, 2013.
