Mayor says NYC Marathon to go on in wake of Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) ? Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the NYC Marathon will go on as planned Sunday after Superstorm Sandy devastated the city.

Marathon organizers had been moving forward with planning but awaited final word from the city about whether holding the race would be safe and viable with flooding, power outages and transit shutdowns still afflicting the five boroughs.

New York Road Runners President Mary Wittenberg said Wednesday that organizers were preparing to use more private contractors than past years to reduce the strain on city services. Wittenberg insists the race can be an inspiration to New Yorkers and benefit businesses that have lost money because of the storm.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-10-31-NYC%20Marathon/id-417a115cfbef49b5b4905907b0896855

letter from santa sweet potato pie sweet potato pie twas the night before christmas norad santa epic beard man nfl standings

Trial in 1977 killing asks: Were suspects framed?

FILE - In this April 17, 2012 file photo, Terry Harrington, center, stands with his daughter Nicole Brown, left, his mother Josephine James, right, and family and friends outside the Clarinda Correctional Facility in Clarinda, Iowa, after Gov. Tom Vilsack signed his reprieve. Harrington and Curtis McGhee, wrongfully convicted in the 1977 murder of a retired Iowa police officer, hope to prove during a trial that starts Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, that officers coerced witnesses into fabricating testimony that framed them for killing John Schweer. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

FILE - In this April 17, 2012 file photo, Terry Harrington, center, stands with his daughter Nicole Brown, left, his mother Josephine James, right, and family and friends outside the Clarinda Correctional Facility in Clarinda, Iowa, after Gov. Tom Vilsack signed his reprieve. Harrington and Curtis McGhee, wrongfully convicted in the 1977 murder of a retired Iowa police officer, hope to prove during a trial that starts Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, that officers coerced witnesses into fabricating testimony that framed them for killing John Schweer. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) ? Two black men wrongly convicted in the 1977 murder of a white Iowa police officer hope to prove something they couldn't during trials that sent them to prison for 25 years: that detectives framed them to solve a high-profile case.

During a civil trial that starts Wednesday in Des Moines, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee will argue that Council Bluffs police officers coerced witnesses into fabricating testimony against them in the killing of John Schweer.

Schweer was found dead while working as the night watchman at a car dealership. Harrington and McGhee, then teenagers from neighboring Omaha, Neb., say detectives used threats against a group of young black car theft suspects to trump up evidence targeting them because of their race and pressure to solve the retired captain's killing.

Despite little physical evidence, Harrington and McGhee were convicted at 1978 trials and sentenced to long prison terms. They were freed in 2003, after the Iowa Supreme Court found that prosecutors committed misconduct in concealing reports about another man seen near the crime scene with a shotgun. The key witnesses had also recanted their testimony, saying they were pressured into implicating the men.

After winning their freedom, they filed lawsuits against prosecutors and officers they blamed for forcing them to spend their adult lives in the Fort Madison prison. Their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 over the issue of whether suspects have the constitutional right not to be framed by prosecutors. Before justices ruled, Pottawatamie County agreed to pay $12 million to settle claims against two former prosecutors while not admitting wrongdoing.

The settlement did not resolve claims against Council Bluffs and former detectives Dan Larsen and Lyle Brown.

Harrington and McGhee claim Larsen and Brown coerced the group of black car theft suspects into fingering them in the death. Investigators took the star witness, a 16-year-old confessed liar with numerous aliases, to the crime scene, gave him details about the murder weapon, and had him repeatedly change his story until it was plausible, the lawsuit claims.

The witness, Kevin Hughes, was aggressively questioned in Schweer's death after he was pulled over several weeks later driving a vehicle stolen from a Nebraska dealership. He first implicated three other men who had alibis before eventually claiming Harrington pulled the trigger and McGhee drove the getaway car after they went to steal a car from the dealership Schweer was guarding. Hughes said later he lied to get reward money and avoid being charged himself. Other witnesses also recanted.

Jurors will be asked to decide at trial, scheduled to last through Nov. 16, whether detectives, who were both white, and the city violated Harrington and McGhee's civil rights and, if so, how much they should receive in damages.

"We have waited for a very long time to have this trial and we look forward to having an opportunity to present our case," said Stephen Davis, an attorney for McGhee, now married and living in a Midwestern community he does not want to disclosure.

Facing a possible verdict of millions, lawyers for the detectives and the city are making an aggressive defense. They plan to argue that Harrington and McGhee probably were the real killers ? and that even if they weren't, detectives did nothing wrong in focusing on them as suspects under the circumstances.

"There is going to be evidence that this civil jury will hear surrounding Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee's involvement in this crime and it's evidence that the juries in 1978 considered," said attorney Kristopher Madsen. "But importantly, we believe there's going to be lacking any credible evidence to indicate these two police detectives in any way fabricated evidence or coerced or threatened witnesses or violated any civil rights of Harrington and McGhee."

The stakes are high for the city because recent court rulings have concluded it will have little insurance coverage if liable.

Lawyers would not say how much compensation Harrington and McGhee would seek, but they plan to show jurors a mock prison cell to illustrate their lives behind bars. Harrington's daughter, born after he was imprisoned, is expected to testify about the former high school football player's long dream of freedom.

A key question will be why detectives stopped pursuing suspect Charles Gates. Police reports about Gates had been hidden from the defense and were uncovered in 1999 by a former prison barber who became convinced of Harrington's innocence and worked for years for his freedom.

They showed that witnesses reported seeing a man with a dog carrying a shotgun near the crime scene, where Schweer's bullet-riddled body was found surrounded by bloody dog prints. In the nights before his death, the police reports show Schweer reported having altercations with a white man carrying a shotgun and walking a dog ? something Gates was known to do.

Police questioned Gates, a 48-year-old loner, and he failed a lie-detector test. He had also been a suspect in an earlier unsolved murder. Investigators even consulted an astrologer about Gates, but ignored him after Hughes and other teens were stopped in the stolen car. Gates denied in a 2003 interview with police that he was involved in the slaying. Attempts to find Gates and reach him for comment were not successful.

"Larsen and Brown thought it was their lucky day. They could pin the murder on them, or use them to pin it on some 'ghetto dwellers'," plaintiffs' lawyers wrote, using a term detective Larsen once used to refer to Omaha residents. "Either way, Larsen and Brown would be putting blacks in front of a white Council Bluffs jury for the killing of a white Council Bluffs cop. That would mean case closed and they would be heroes."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-29-Wrongful%20Convictions-Trial/id-10f92d04317c487db817081ac6b15f51

ohio state basketball collateral dick cheney heart umf peter frampton elite eight stephon marbury

The Sliming

A frozen ground beef production line in eastern France

Photo by Francois Nascimbeni/AFP/Getty Images.

What do you call a mash of beef trimmings that have been chopped and then spun in a centrifuge to remove the fatty bits and gristle? According to the government and to the company that invented the process, you call it lean finely textured beef. But to the natural-food crusaders who would have the stuff removed from the nation's hamburgers and tacos, the protein-rich product goes by another, more disturbing name: Pink slime.

The story of this activist rebranding?from lean finely textured beef to pink slime?reveals just how much these labels matter. It was the latter phrase that, for example, birthed the great ground-beef scare of 2012. In early March, journalists at both the Daily and at ABC began reporting on a burger panic: Lax rules from the U.S. Department of Agriculture allowed producers to fill their ground-beef packs with a slimy, noxious byproduct?a mush the reporters called unsanitary and without much value as a food. Coverage linked back to a New York Times story from 2009 in which the words pink slime had appeared in public for the first time in a quote from an email written by a USDA microbiologist who was frustrated at a decision to leave the additive off labels for ground meat.

The slimy terror spread in the weeks that followed. Less than a month after ABC?s initial reports, almost a quarter million people had signed a petition to get pink slime out of public school cafeterias. Supermarket chains stopped selling burger meat that contained it?all because of a shift from four matter-of-fact words to two visceral ones.

And now that rebranding has become the basis for a 263-page lawsuit. Last month, Beef Products Inc., the first and principal producer of lean/pink/textured/slimy beef, filed a defamation claim against ABC (along with that microbiologist and a former USDA inspector) in a South Dakota court. The company says the network carried out a malicious and dishonest campaign to discredit its ground-beef additive and that this work had grievous consequences. When ABC began its coverage, Beef Products Inc. was selling 5 million pounds of slime/beef/whatever every week. Then three of its four plants were forced to close, and production dropped to 1.6 million pounds. A weekly profit of $2.3 million had turned into a $583,000 weekly loss.

At Reuters, Steven Brill argued that the suit has merit. I won't try to comment on its legal viability, but the details of the claim do provide some useful background about how we name our processed foods, in both industry and the media. It turns out the paste now known within the business as lean finely textured beef descends from an older, less purified version of the same. Producers have long tried to salvage the trimmings from a cattle carcass by cleaning off the fat and the bacteria that often congregate on these leftover parts. At best they could achieve a not-so-lean class of meat called partially defatted chopped beef, which USDA deemed too low in quality to be a part of hamburger or ground meat.

By the late 1980s, though, Eldon Roth of Beef Products Inc. had worked out a way to make those trimmings a bit more wholesome. He'd found a way, using centrifuges, to separate the fat more fully. In 1991, USDA approved his product as fat reduced beef and signed off on its use in hamburgers. JoAnn Smith, a government official and former president of the National Cattlemen's Association, signed off on this "euphemistic designation," writes Marion Nestle in Food Politics. (Beef Products, Inc. maintains that this decision "was not motivated by any official's so-called 'links to the beef industry.' ") So 20 years ago, the trimmings had already been reformulated and rebranded once.

But the government still said that fat reduced beef could not be used in packages marked "ground beef." (The government distinction between hamburger and ground beef is that the former can contain added fat, while the latter can?t.) So Beef Products Inc. pressed its case, and in 1993 it convinced the USDA to approve the mash for wider use, with a new and better name: lean finely textured beef. A few years later, Roth started killing the microbes on his trimmings with ammonia gas and got approval to do that, too. With government permission, the company went on to sell several billion pounds of the stuff in the next two decades.

In the meantime, other meat processors started making something similar but using slightly different names. AFA Foods (which filed for bankruptcy in April after the recent ground-beef scandal broke), has referred to its products as boneless lean beef trimmings, a more generic term. Cargill, which decontaminates its meat with citric acid in place of ammonia gas, calls its mash of trimmings finely textured beef.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=c7bcebaf68e8da5d5f67a1e6b3a5516b

daytona 500 national pancake day ohio school shooting sean young arrested matt kenseth bridge to nowhere primary results

This Could Be James Bond's Next iPhone 5 Case [REVIEW]

Element Sector 5 iPhone 5 Case

The case adds just 17 grams to the already-superlight iPhone 5, and you can't feel any extra weight at all. The first edition is only available in this graphite color.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Skype for Windows 8 Is Full of Win [REVIEW]]

Element cases are some of the most highly engineered and unusual iPhone cases in the world, and now the company's rolled out its latest creation, the Sector 5 FE (First Edition), a lightweight aluminum case created for the iPhone 5.

[More from Mashable: Samsung 27-Inch Monitor Delivers World-Class Color [REVIEW]]

When you first pick up the Sector 5, you immediately realize it's not going to add much weight at all to the already uncanny pulchritude of the featherweight iPhone 5. Crafted in attractive charcoal-colored anodized aluminum, the company also adds in a couple of stick-on backplates, including a plush velour gray fabric and, my favorite, carbon fiber.

First, the bad news: this overengineered bauble will set you back $159.95. But wait. Perhaps it's worth it. Let's take a closer look. I have to tell you up front that it's going to take a lot to get me to use any case for my iPhone. I've traditionally eschewed such enclosures, because of my strongly held belief that any case, albeit protective, encumbers one of my favorite features of the iPhone 5: its world-class and finely detailed design.

Your Sector 5 Case, Mr. Bond

But then, the Element Sector 5 brings along its own style, looking like some sort of high-tech enclosure that James Bond would carry next to his Walther PPK pistol. And, if you want to continue to exude your Apple fanboyism, you can leave off the backplates and still show off that Apple logo, for which you are probably paying an extra few hundred bucks, anyway.

There's one sign of progress from the Element Case Corporation, and that is instead of the necessity of fiddling with a quartet of miniscule screws that can only be tightened and loosened with a special tool, the number of those screws has been reduced to one with the Sector 5 case. Thank goodness! Even though you're still required to use that tiny wrench that attaches to your key ring, you'll only need to loosen one of the screws to make the case unfold like a fine Rolex watchband.

Alas, more tedium awaits, because now Element has apparently become wary of its customers scratching the new iPhone 5, and urges you to apply three sticky-backed pieces of protective plastic it calls "rash guards" before donning this new case. After jumping through those hoops, I didn't care for the rumpled look of that protective plastic, so I removed the case and took away the plastic, risking scratches and going bareback with this case all by itself.

It's Lovely

The good news is, the iPhone was no worse for the wear after being ensconced in this aluminum band without benefit of protective plastic -- no scratches appeared at all, even though there was no protective plastic in sight. But that's OK by me -- I'm not one who leaves slipcovers on couches or wrappings on lampshades, so I might as well take the slight risk of going without this aesthetically unpleasing wrapping.

After dressing up my iPhone inside this $160 aluminum fortress, I took a good look at the result and was pleased. Sure, it's not the look that Apple design guru Jony Ive had in mind, but it's still beautiful in its own way. I didn't try dropping my iPhone to test the case's efficacy as a protector of the precious phone, but given that I've already dropped this phone three times since I got it, I'm sure I'll be able to report back its success or failure soon enough.

Sector 5: The Verdict

Whether you think this case is worth $159.95 is a matter of priorities and personal taste, but I think it's downright lovely. I also like the way there's only one screw to fiddle with rather than the multiple screws of previous Element cases I've tested.

This Element Case Sector 5 is now shipping, and here's a secret tip: I've heard rumors there will soon be a matching dock to go with it. I give the case a thumbs up, bestowing upon it the honor of being the only one I'm willing to place my iPhone 5 into ... so far.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/could-james-bonds-next-iphone-5-case-review-201343795.html

rod blagojevich uconn ncaa march madness mario williams vcu unlv sam young

Cesium levels in fish off Fukushima not dropping

TOKYO (AP) ? Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven't declined in the year following Japan's nuclear disaster, a signal that the seafloor or leakage from the damaged reactors must be continuing to contaminate the waters ? possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says.

Though the vast majority of fish tested off Japan's northeast coast remain below recently tightened limits of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in food consumption, Japanese government data shows that 40 percent of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod, flounder and halibut are above the limit, Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, wrote in an article published Thursday in the journal Science.

In analyzing extensive data collected by Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, he found that the levels of contamination in almost all kinds of fish are not declining a year after the March 11, 2011 disaster. An earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's vital cooling system, causing three reactor cores to melt and spew radiation onto the surrounding countryside and ocean.

"The (radioactivity) numbers aren't going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off," Buesseler told The Associated Press in an interview. "There has to be somewhere they're picking up the cesium."

"Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves," he said.

The safety of fish and other foods from around Fukushima remains a concern among ordinary Japanese, among the world's highest per capita consumers of seafood.

Most fish and seafood from along the Fukushima coast are barred from the domestic market and export. In June, authorities lifted bans on octopus and sea snails caught off Fukushima after testing showed very low levels of radiation.

But the most contaminated fish found yet off Fukushima were caught in August, some 17 months after the disaster. The two greenlings, which are bottom-feeders, had cesium levels of more than 25,000 becquerels per kilogram, 250 times the level the government considers safe.

A government fisheries official, Chikara Takase, acknowledged that the figure for the greenlings was "extremely high," but he added high numbers were detected only in limited kinds of fish sampled in the restricted waters closest to the plant. He acknowledged that "we have yet to arrive at a situation that allows an overall lifting of the ban."

To bolster public confidence in food safety, the government in April tightened restrictions for cesium-134 and cesium-137 on seafood from 500 to 100 becquerels per kilogram. But the step led to confusion among consumers as people noticed more products were barred.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said some radioactive water used to cool the Fukushima reactors leaked into the ocean several times, most recently in April.

"Given the 30-year half-life of cesium-137, this means that even if these sources (of contamination) were to be shut off completely, the sediments would remain contaminated for decades to come," Buesseler wrote in Science.

Experts suspect that radioactive water from the plant is seeping into the ground water at the same time, and is continuing to make its way into the ocean.

Hideo Yamazaki, a marine biologist at Kinki University, agrees with Buesseler's theory that the cesium is leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant and that it will contaminate seafood for more than a decade.

He said he believes the plant will continue to leak until cracks and other damage to the three reactors that melted down are repaired. It's unclear when that work will be completed, or even how, because radiation levels in the reactors are too high for humans or even robots.

"The current levels of contamination in the fish and seafood from the Fukushima coast will continue for a while, perhaps more than 10 years, judging from the progress in the cleanup process," Yamazaki said in an email.

Buesseler, who led an international research cruise off northeastern Japan in 2011 to study the spread of radionuclides from the Fukushima plant, says predicting patterns of contamination requires more than monitoring data on fish. Careful study of the ocean waters and sediments is also needed to determine how quickly the system will recover.

__

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cesium-levels-fish-off-fukushima-not-dropping-010942415.html

sasquatch david choe national wear red day gunner kiel gunner kiel groundhog soulja boy

NDA Accepted, Priority Review Granted for Ponatinib for CML and ...

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals announced that the FDA has accepted for filing the New Drug Application (NDA) of ponatinib for patients with resistant or intolerant chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) or Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL); the FDA also has granted ARIAD's request for Priority Review.

The FDA has established an action date of March 27, 2013 under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA).

Ponatinib is an investigational BCR-ABL inhibitor that also selectively inhibits certain other tyrosine kinases in preclinical studies, including FLT3, RET, KIT, and the members of the FGFR and PDGFR families of kinases. The primary target for ponatinib is BCR-ABL, an abnormal tyrosine kinase that is expressed in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL). Ponatinib targets not only native BCR-ABL but also its isoforms that carry mutations that confer resistance to treatment with existing tyrosine kinase inhibitors, including the T315I mutation for which no effective therapy currently exists.

For more information call (877) 621-2302 or visit www.ariad.com.

Source: http://www.empr.com/nda-accepted-priority-review-granted-for-ponatinib-for-cml-and-ph-all/article/265090/

zooey deschanel yvette prieto hypertrophic cardiomyopathy kaye stevens michael jordan engaged kid cudi breedlove

In letter to governor, senator pushes for grand jury investigation into ...

State Sen. Steve Oelrich is continuing his mission to initiate a grand jury investigation into Florida State College at Jacksonville.

Oelrich, R-Gainesville, sent a letter Wednesday to Gov. Rick Scott asking that Scott support his push for State Attorney Angela Corey to launch the probe. Oelrich called for the inquiry in September, when he said FSCJ President Steve Wallace?s compensation ? which totals almost $514,000 with salary, benefits and housing allowance ? rivals that of a private company CEO.

The senator, who is in his last term after an unsuccessful run for Congress, also reminded Scott that he has the power to make new appointments to FSCJ?s Board of Trustees.

From Oelrich?s letter:

?It is clear that you cannot rely on the current District Board of Trustees to make the right decisions for the College and you should consider making the appropriate changes. I also call on you to support my request for State Attorney Angela Corey to launch a grand jury investigation and bring closure to this flagrant abuse of taxpayer dollars that continues to take place under your watch.?

?

FSCJ Revised 2

Flag as offensive

Source: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/adam-kealoha-causey/2012-10-24/letter-governor-senator-pushes-grand-jury

best ipad apps chris paul gift card exchange tj holmes waste management two fat ladies dennys

Texas A&M Football: Could the Aggies Win the 2012 Big 12 with Johnny Manziel?

At 2-2 in league play it?s pretty clear that Texas A&M won?t win the SEC in its first year, but have you ever wondered how the new-look Aggies with super-frosh QB Johnny Manziel would have fared in the Big 12 this season?

Yes, what if the defectors would have been the stay-putters and Sumlin, Manziel and the No. 9 ranked scoring offense in college football would have been inserted squarely in what is currently a wide-open Big 12 race?

Could Texas A&M have captured its first conference title since 1998 and if they had (and gone to the BCS in the bargain) while Texas continued to flounder, what could have this scenario done to stabilize the Aggies long-term place in the Big 12?

Furthermore, what would the knock-on effect have been if A&M wasn?t a major domino in conference realignment and would there have ultimately been less shuffling or perhaps another huge shift that didn?t involve the Aggies?

The first key to all of this lofty talk is could Texas A&M really win the Big 12 in 2012?

To analyze this possibility we?ll assume that if the Aggies had of stayed then so too would have Missouri and that both West Virginia (from the Big East) and TCU (from the Mountain West, or the Big East) would have stayed put, at least for one more year.

As of now the new-look Aggies have the No. 9 ranked scoring offense in the country and they are No. 19 in rushing yards per game and No. 17 in passing.

On the other side of the ball, A&M is ranked No. 38 in scoring defense, No. 46 vs. the run and No. 90 against the pass?all numbers that are pulled directly off their stat sheets through Week 8 of the 2012 season.

In the reality of what is Texas A&M as a member of the SEC West, the Aggies will face (or have faced) eight SEC foes (we?ll throw out all the non-conference opponents because they?ll have been common in both scenarios) who combine to rank, on average, No. 37 nationally in scoring defense and No. 59 in scoring offense.

This number includes the extremes of Alabama?s No. 1 ranked scoring defense vs. Arkansas? No. 90 ranking in point-stoppage and the Tide?s No. 14 rated scoring offense vs. Auburn?s dismal No. 121 attack.

If you replace the Aggies? 2012 SEC opponent?s with the nine teams that were in the Big 12 last season (a number which includes Missouri) they currently (again, as of today) combine to rank No. 58 in scoring defense and No. 37 in scoring offense.

Extremes in the Big 12 include Oklahoma?s No. 12 ranked scoring defense vs. Baylor?s dubious No. 124 ranked unit and then Baylor?s No. 3 ranked scoring offense vs. a Kansas O that ranks No. 117 in points.

Basically what this all means is that if A&M?s big game offense was still playing in the Big 12 they?d be facing defenses that rank No. 58 in scoring vs. those of their 2012 SEC foes that rank No. 37.

That?s a big difference that would likely equal even more yards and points for a program that has unleashed freshman Johnny Manziel and ushered in the new Kevin Sumlin era in College Station.

Flipping around to the other side of the ball, because it ain?t all about point scoring, we see that Texas A&M?s No. 38 ranked scoring defense in 2012 will face the No. 59 ranked offensive attacks of the SEC (at least the eight members the Aggie play this season).

?Alternatively, if they would have stayed ?home? the Aggies would have dealt with the No. 37 ranked point scorers from the points-happy Big 12.

This number should be quantified by further stating that the Ags weakness on defense, their No. 90 ranking vs. the pass, only squares off with the No. 80 ranked passing attack in the SEC vs. the guys who combine for a No. 52 ranking in the Big 12.

Though based on these numbers you could almost call it a draw when you balance the SEC?s defensive strength (that has and probably will continue to hinder Manziel and Co. in league play) with the Big 12?s offensive brute force (that would wreak havoc on A&M?s pass defense) the Aggies still look better suited to win the Big 12 in 2012.

Why?

Well, first you?ve got to wonder how different the? numbers would look if Texas A&M had earned its 2012 stats vs. the likes of Baylor?s epically bad defense along with Texas? and Kansas? very questionable units.

Really, how many more yards would they have gained (and therefore who could they have outscored) vs. these guys as opposed to Florida, LSU and Alabama?s defenses?

It?s a different scenario entirely.

Next, let?s say A&M actually won the SEC-West?then they?d have to really shock the world and win the SEC title game?aka the gateway to the BCS title.

In the Big 12 all they would have had to do was emerge at the end of the season with one-less conference loss than the rest of the pack.

Though you could effectively argue that Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M would have had to work really hard to win the Big 12 in 2012, what would both young QB and young team in a new coaching regime done in 2013, 2014 and 2015 as they grew together into maturity in their old league home?

The flip side of this long term coin is what will the Aggies and Johnny Football do when teams like Alabama and LSU just fill holes with more talented players and teams like Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Auburn continue to improve?

And then what happens when South Carolina, Georgia or Tennessee hit the slate from the East?

Texas A&M football seems to be moving in the right direction (finally) but it makes you wonder what would have happened if the Aggies hadn?t of pulled up stakes relatively suddenly and moved eastward.

Could they have actually been sitting on a gold mine of titles and accolades that hadn?t yet hatched?

Indeed, did Texas A&M ride off into the sunset in the name of injustice while in an ironic twist they left town just before their ship was about to reach the dock?

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1381986-texas-am-football-could-the-aggies-win-the-2012-big-12-with-johnny-manziel

packers Dancing With The Stars All Stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt space shuttle cam newton Torrey Smith Brother fiona apple

Medtronic edited doctor reviews for bone-graft product: U.S. report

'},"otherParams":{"t_e":1,".intl":"US"},"events":{"fetch":{lv:2,"sp":"2146372232","ps":"LREC,MON","npv":true,"bg":"#FFFFFF","em":escape('{"site-attribute":"_id=\'843af2a8-2570-37d9-bea7-d509997e9a73\' rs=\'lmsid:a0770000002GZ5iAAG\' ctype=\'News\' ctopid=\'1550000;1055500;1638500;2063500\' can_suppress_ugc=\'1\' content=\'no_expandable;ajax_cert_expandable;\' ADSSA"}'),"em_orig":escape('{"site-attribute":"_id=\'843af2a8-2570-37d9-bea7-d509997e9a73\' rs=\'lmsid:a0770000002GZ5iAAG\' ctype=\'News\' ctopid=\'1550000;1055500;1638500;2063500\' can_suppress_ugc=\'1\' content=\'no_expandable;ajax_cert_expandable;\' ADSSA"}')}}};var _createNodes=function(){var nIds=_conf.nodeIds;for(var i in nIds){var nId=nIds[i];var dId=_conf.destinationMap[nIds[i].replace("yom-","")];n=Y.one("#"+nId);if(n)var center=n.one("center");var node=Y.one("#"+dId);var nodeHTML;if(center && !node){nodeHTML=_conf.nodes[nId];center.insert(nodeHTML);};};};var _prepareNodes=function(){var nIds=_conf.nodeIds;for(var i in nIds){var nId=nIds[i];var dId=_conf.destinationMap[nIds[i].replace("yom-ad-","")];n=Y.one("#"+nId);if(n)var center=n.one("center");var node=Y.one("#"+dId);if(center && node){center.set("innerHTML","");center.insert(node);node.setStyle("display","block");};};};var _darla;var _config=function(){if(YAHOO.ads.darla){_darla = YAHOO.ads.darla;_createNodes();};};var _fetch=function(spaceid,adssa,ps){ if (typeof(ps)!='undefined') _conf.events.fetch.ps = ps;if(typeof spaceid != "undefined") _conf.events.fetch.sp=spaceid;adssa = (typeof adssa != "undefined" && adssa != null) ? escape(adssa.replace(/\"/g, "'")) : "";_conf.events.fetch.em=_conf.events.fetch.em_orig.replace("ADSSA", adssa);if(_darla){_prepareNodes();_darla.setConfig(_conf);_darla.event("fetch");};};Y.on("domready", function(){_config();});;var that={"fetch":_fetch,"getNodes":_conf.nodes,"getConf":_conf};return that;}();/* Backwards compatibility - Assigning the latest instance to the main fetch function */YUI.PhotoAdsDarla.fetch=YUI.PhotoAdsDarla.photoslightboxdarla.fetch; }); Y.later(10, this, function() {YAHOO.namespace('Media.Social').Lightbox = {}; }); Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.Media.Article.init(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {new Y.Media.AuthorBadge(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {new Y.Media.Branding(); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {Y.on("load", function () { YUI.namespace("Media.SocialButtons"); var instances = YUI.Media.SocialButtons.instances || [], globalConf = YAHOO.Media.SocialButtons.conf || {}, vplContainers = []; Y.all(".ymsb").each(function (node) { var id = node.get("id"), conf = YAHOO.Media.SocialButtons.configs[id], instance; if (conf) { instance = new Y.SocialButtons({ srcNode: node, config: Y.merge(globalConf, conf.config || {}), contentMetadata: conf.content || {}, tracking: conf.tracking || {} }); vplContainers.push( { selector: "#" + id, callback: function(node) { instance.render(); instance = conf = id = null; } }); if (conf.config && conf.config.dynamic) { instances.push(instance); } } }); Y.Global.Media.ViewportLoader.addContainers(vplContainers); YUI.Media.SocialButtons.instances = instances; }); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {if (!Y.Media) { return; } Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_targets = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_targets || {}; Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_configs = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_configs || {}; Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_dataset = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_dataset || {}; Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_whitelist = Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_whitelist || {}; Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_dataset['30c72061b44f5b3171744f080fd37896'] = []; Y.Media.boba_lightbox_module_configs['30c72061b44f5b3171744f080fd37896'] = {"spaceid":"2146372232","ult_pt":"story-lightbox","darla_id":"","images_total":0,"xhr_url":"\/_xhr\/related-article\/lightbox\/?id=843af2a8-2570-37d9-bea7-d509997e9a73","xhr_count":20,"autoplay_if_first_item_is_video":true}; }); Y.later(10, this, function() {new Y.Media.RelatedArticle({count:"2",start:"1", mod_total:"10", total:"0", content_id:"843af2a8-2570-37d9-bea7-d509997e9a73", spaceid:"2146372232", related_count:"-1" }); }); Y.later(10, this, function() {(function(d){ d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(d.createElement('script')).src='http://d.yimg.com/oq/js/csc_news-en-US-core.js'; })(document); }); Y.later(10, this, function() { if(!("Media" in YAHOO)){YAHOO.Media = {};} if(!("ugcrate" in YAHOO.Media)){YAHOO.Media.ugcrate = {};} if(!("Media" in Y)){Y.namespace("Media");} YAHOO.Media.ugcrate.ratings_d647b4bb15066ac58dc6d63b96bac57e = new Y.Media.UgcRate({"context_id":"4b73f06a-bc4d-4ef4-826d-338a8c9551c6","sCrumb":"","containerId":"yom-sentimentrate-d647b4bb15066ac58dc6d63b96bac57e","rateDimensions":"d1","appLang":"en-US","sUltSId":"2146372232","sUltProperty":"news-en-US","sUltCampaign":"","sUltPlatform":"ugcwidgets","sUltIntl":"US","sUltLang":"en-US","selfPageUrl":"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/senate-report-says-medtronic-edited-spine-surgery-product-075334693--finance.html?_esi=0","artContentId":"843af2a8-2570-37d9-bea7-d509997e9a73","sUltQstnTxt":"Are Social Security and Medicare crucial to your retirement security?","artContentTitle":"Medtronic edited doctor reviews for bone-graft product: U.S. report","artContentDesc":"(Reuters) - Medical device maker Medtronic Inc edited health journal articles and paid doctors millions of dollars for company-sponsored studies of its Infuse bone-grafting product used in spinal surgery, according to a U.S. Senate report published on Thursday. There were questionable ties between Medtronic and physician consultants who tested and reviewed the company\\'s product, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee said in the report, which concludes a 16-month investigation covering 5,000 documents relating to 13 studies of Infuse. ...","sUltBucketId":"test1","sUltSection":"sentirating","sUltBeaconUrl":"","sUltRecordPageviews":"1","sUltBeaconEnable":"1","serviceUrl":"\/_xhr","publisherContextId":"","propertyId":"2fcd79b5-b3a3-333e-b98e-722536a6698f","configurationId":"435db9ee-c55e-3766-b20d-c8ad3ff889d1","graphId":"","labelLeft":"Not at all","labelRight":"Crucial","labelMiddle":"","itemimg":"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/a\/i\/ww\/met\/yahoo_logo_us_061509.png","selfURI":"","aggregateRatingCount":"256893","aggregateReviewCount":"0","leftBlocksNum":"58651","rightBlocksNum":"198170","leftBlocksPerCent":"23","rightBlocksPerCent":"77","ugcrate_apihost":"api01-us.ugcl.yahoo.com:4080","publisher_id":"news-en-US","yca_cert":"yahoo.ugccloud.app.trusted_proxies","timeout_write":"5000","through_proxy":"false","optionStats":"{\"s1\":22448,\"s2\":7253,\"s3\":6974,\"s4\":10189,\"s5\":11787,\"s6\":198170,\"s7\":0,\"s8\":0,\"s9\":0,\"s10\":0}","l10N":"{\"FIRST_TO_READ\":\"You are first to read this. Share your feelings and start a conversation.\",\"SHARE_YOUR_FEELINGS\":\"You too can share your feelings and start a conversation!\",\"HOW_YOUR_FRIENDS_THINK\":\"Share your opinion with your friends.\",\"PRE_SHARE_MSG\":\"Your Facebook friends on Yahoo! can see how you responded to this question. To share your response on Facebook, click on the Facebook share option.\",\"START_THE_CONVERSATION\":\"Share\",\"THANKS_FOR_SHARING\":\"Thanks!\",\"POLL_HEADER\":\"SOCIAL SENTIMENT\",\"SERVER_ERROR\":\"Oops there seems to be some error, please try again later\",\"LOADING\":\"Loading...\",\"SHARE_AFTER_COMMENT\":\"Your response has been shared on Facebook.\",\"UNDO\":\"Undo\",\"UNIT_PEOPLE\":\"People\",\"NUM_PEOPLE_DISAGREE\":\"disagree with your opinion.\",\"READ_MORE_TEXT\":\"Read what they have to say.\",\"SLIDER_THUMB_WORDING_BEFORE_VOTING\":\"WHAT DO YOU THINK?\",\"SLIDER_THUMB_WORDING_VERB_BEFORE_VOTING\":\"DRAG\",\"SLIDER_THUMB_WORDING_THANKS_VOTING\":\"Thanks for voting\",\"NUM_PEOPLE_ANSWERED\":\" 256,893 people have responded to this question\",\"ONE_PERSON_ANSWERED\":\" 1 person has responded to this question. Your response will be seen by your Facebook friends on Yahoo!\",\"TWO_PEOPLE_ANSWERED\":\" 2 people have responded to this question. Your response will be seen by your Facebook friends on Yahoo!\",\"NUM_PEOPLE_ANSWERED_AND_SHARED\":\" 256,893 people have responded to this question. Your response will be seen by your Facebook friends on Yahoo!\",\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s1\":22448,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s2\":7253,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s3\":6974,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s4\":10189,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s5\":11787,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s6\":198170,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s7\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s8\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s9\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s10\":0}","fbconfig":"{\"message\":\"undefined\",\"name\":\"undefined\",\"link\":\"\",\"source\":\"\",\"picture\":\"http:\\\/\\\/l.yimg.com\\\/os\\\/152\\\/2012\\\/07\\\/12\\\/slidermedi-jpg_181904.jpg\",\"description\":\"There are quite a few things to consider when thinking about retirement.\",\"captionLeft\":\"undefined\",\"captionRight\":\"undefined\",\"app_id\":\"196660913708276\",\"redirect_uri\":\"\\\/_xhr\\\/ugcratefbredirect\\\/\"}","template_id":"LONG_SLIDER_SOUTH","obj_id":"ratings_d647b4bb15066ac58dc6d63b96bac57e","opt_count":"6","opt_color1":"","opt_color2":"","template_html":"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-report-says-medtronic-edited-spine-surgery-product-075334693--finance.html

night at the museum pope shenouda bolton muamba crystal cathedral sxsw st. patrick s day brandon lloyd

In Animal Kingdom, Voting Of A Different Sort Reigns

Donald Miralle/Getty Images

A school of manini fish passes over a coral reef at Hanauma Bay in 2005, in Honolulu. Researchers say schooling behavior like the kind seen in fish helps groups of animals make better decisions than any one member of the group could.

As part of NPR's coverage of this year's presidential election, All Things Considered asked three science reporters to weigh in on the race. The result is a three-part series on the science of leadership. In Part 1, Alix Spiegel looked at the personalities of American presidents.

Voters could learn some things about choosing a leader from a fish. Or a chimp. Or an elephant.

That's because the animal kingdom, despite its name, tends to operate more like a democracy, says Iain Couzin, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University.

"One common property we see in animal groups from schooling fish to flocking birds to primate groups is that they effectively vote to decide where to go and what to do," Couzin says.

When one fish heads toward a potential source of food, the other fish vote with their fins on whether to follow, he says. And this highly democratic process helps animals make decisions as a group that are better than those of any single member.

Successful animal leaders know they can't get too far ahead of their constituents, Couzin says.

"They seem to simply reconcile their own goal-oriented behavior with this tendency to align with others," he says. "Because if you don't tend to be influenced by others, you then leave the group behind, and you may get eaten by predators, or you lose the benefits of group living."

Enlarge Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

A large flock of starlings flies over a park at sunset in Algiers, Algeria, in 2006. Millions of birds migrate every year, arriving from Europe and crossing into Africa.

Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

A large flock of starlings flies over a park at sunset in Algiers, Algeria, in 2006. Millions of birds migrate every year, arriving from Europe and crossing into Africa.

Findings like this are relevant to humans because we carry a lot of evolutionary baggage with us into the voting booth, Couzin says. And when it comes to leadership, he says, we are most like animals that live in groups and depend on cooperation to survive. And these groups tend to pick cooperative leaders.

So what about the idea that it's just the biggest or strongest animal in a group that calls the shots?

It's rarely that simple, says Mark van Vugt, an evolutionary psychologist from the VU University in Amsterdam. Take chimps, for example, he says.

"In chimpanzees, it's not necessarily the physically strongest individual who seizes the control over the group," van Vugt says. "It's usually the more cunning individual, someone who forms his coalitions well."

Animal leadership also demonstrates how groups choose different leaders for different situations, he says. Among elephants, for example, the de facto leader is usually the oldest female. But that can change, van Vugt says.

"When the group is attacked, it might be one of the dominant male members who takes control," he says. "But when it comes to knowledge problems and particularly where to find water, they then turn to the oldest female."

Some animal leaders have traits that voters might wish all human leaders had ? like unfailing honesty, van Vugt says.

Honeybees are a good example, he says. Their scouts lead by finding a food source and then communicating the location to other bees through something called a waggle dance.

"The interesting thing about it is in the signaling of the scout bees, there is no deception whatsoever," van Vugt says. "They want to do what is best for the hive. And I think that is a little bit dissimilar to humans."

Or chimps, whose leaders are often accomplished liars.

One way animals and people are clearly alike is that both are capable of choosing a bad leader, says Couzin.

"It's not necessarily the most talented or intelligent individual that ends up in a leadership position," Couzin says. Unqualified animals sometimes rise to power, he says, but most of the time they don't last long.

And animals don't wait for the next election to find a replacement, Couzin says.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/24/163561729/in-animal-kingdom-voting-of-a-different-sort-reigns?ft=1&f=1007

nfl scores Devon Walker Tom Cruise ryan reynolds Star Trek: The Original Series Carlton Morgan Freeman Dead

Big jump in young adults moving out of state

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Their lives on hold for years, young adults are now making big moves in the fledgling economic recovery, leaving college towns or parents' homes and heading out of state at the highest rate since the height of the housing boom.

New census data released Thursday offer a detailed look at U.S. migration as mobility begins to revive after sliding to a record low last year.

The latest numbers show that young adults 25-29 are the primary out-of-state movers; they had the biggest gain in 13 years as they struck out on their own to test the job market in urban, high-tech meccas such as Washington, D.C.; Denver; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Austin, Texas.

In contrast, groups that showed some of the most movement in the housing boom of the last decade (2000-2010) ? working professionals, families and would-be retirees ? are still mostly locked in place, their out-of-state migration levels stuck at near lows due to underwater mortgages and shrunken retirement portfolios.

The demographic shifts, which analysts say could continue for many more years, are once again rejiggering the housing map.

Out are the super-sized McMansions in far-flung suburbs and in the sprawling Southwest, which helped drive rapid metro area growth in the early to middle part of the last decade in places such as Phoenix; Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla.; and Atlanta. In are new, 300 square-foot "micro" apartments under consideration for wider development in dense cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle, which are seeking to attract young single adults who value affordable spaces in prime locations to call their own.

"Footloose young singles are forming the leading edge of the coming migration wave," said William H. Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer who reviewed the numbers. He attributed the recent jump in mobility to pent-up demand among young adults who now are ready to "move on a dime" to land a job opportunity.

"We will see their migration rates swell even higher if the jobs become more plentiful," Frey said. "Families, older professionals and retirees will be latecomers; they have more financial baggage and will need to make more careful decisions about when and where to move."

Richard Florida, an American urban theorist and professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, called the mobility gain an important sign the U.S. economy is getting back on track.

"Young people are moving out of their parents' basements and sampling places and sampling careers again," he said. "After living at home for a while, young people have kind of maxed it out. They are heading to bigger, vibrant cities, predominantly, because they're looking for economic opportunity and building their social networks."

About 1.7 percent of the U.S. population moved across state lines to a new home in the 12-month period ending March 2012, up slightly from 1.6 percent in the previous year.

The share of young adults ages 25-29 who moved to a new state was higher, about 3.8 percent. That's up from 3.4 percent in the previous year and the highest level since the height of the housing boom in 2005, when mobility was 5 percent. The 0.4 percentage point increase in 2012 is also the biggest jump for young adults since 1999, when the rapid rise of Internet startups and the need for young workers during the dot-com bubble drove migration.

Moving rates for college graduates of all ages remained mostly flat at 2 percent.

Among Americans 55 and older, out-of-state moves dipped from the previous year to a low of 0.7 percent. At the height of the housing boom, interstate migration for this group reached well over 1 percent, due mostly to baby boomers opting to retire early to residential hot spots in the South and West.

According to the latest data, some of the biggest winners in recent years have been states such as California, Massachusetts and New York. The states were able to reduce much of the annual losses they suffered in domestic migration during the housing boom, when residents left in mass numbers for wider, more affordable spaces in the Sun Belt and Mountain West. The bigger states also continue to gain relatively more people from higher immigration and births.

Broken down by age and metro area, the Washington, D.C., area ranked at the top of destinations for young adults in the 2009-2011 period, rocketing up from 45th in 2006-2008. The area has been boosted by its promise of more plentiful government-related jobs, as well as a continuing influx of students attending area universities and its up-and-coming neighborhoods.

Texas metro areas including Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, which already were on the rise before the recession hit in late 2007, have remained a strong draw for young adults due to in large part to their thriving energy and high-tech industries. They ranked second, fifth, sixth and ninth, respectively, in terms of youth migration.

Denver and Portland, Ore., rounded out the top five at No. 3 and No. 4.

Separate census data released earlier this year showed that most of America's largest cities were growing at a faster rate than their surrounding suburbs for the first time in a century, driven mostly by young adults. That also has prompted city planners to devise ways to attract young adults, who generally desire no-strings-attached apartment living and close proximity to potential jobs.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in July invited architects to design an apartment building of "micro-units" no more than 300 square feet. The city envisions a future in which the young and the cash-poor will flock to these dwellings, having grown weary of "doubling up" with friends or family in the economic downturn.

In San Francisco, developers are seeking permission to rent out apartments as small as 220 square feet, a little more than twice the size of some prison cells.

Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, said it's hard to predict how much migration ultimately will pick up given the uncertainty in the economy. He said the people making the biggest moves in the coming years likely will be those who feel they must: young adults in search of jobs, couples with small children seeking better schools, new retirees desiring high-amenity recreational living.

"I suspect the recession has sobered the American population about migration," Johnson said.

The census findings are based on the Current Population Survey as of March 2012, as well as comparisons of the 2006-2008 and the 2009-2011 American Community Survey to provide a snapshot of every U.S. community with at least 20,000 residents. Figures from the 2011 American Community Survey also are used to establish broader trends.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/big-jump-young-adults-moving-state-040252152.html

m.i.a. adrianne curry hoekstra best superbowl commercials 2012 best super bowl ads chrysler super bowl commercial madonna half time show

'Hunger Games' Too Heavy? 'Starving Games' May Be Your Movie

Comedic spinoff, which follows a miss Kantmiss Evershot, will also poke fun at 'Harry Potter,' 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'The Avengers.'
By Jocelyn Vena

Jennifer Lawrence in "The Hunger Games"
Photo: Lionsgate

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1696124/hunger-games-spinoff-starving-games.jhtml

iowa caucus results sickle cell trait sugar bowl mild kidney failure presidential candidates celebrity wife swap gla

PFT: SD's Phillips has seen 'lot of cheating'

AP

Few have worked as closely with Cam Newton as Warren Moon, and the Hall of Fame quarterback is still defending last year?s pupil, even while acknowledging his need to improve.

Moon thinks placing too much of the blame for the Panthers? 1-5 start (and the firing of general manager Marty Hurney) at the second-year quarterback?s feet is wrong, and any suggestion he?s a bust is ridiculous.

?I think a lot of this is because so many people want to say ?I told you so? about him, but couldn?t because he was so good last year,? Moon told Yahoo?s Mike Silver in a wide-ranging interview. ?I think people are overreacting. How can he be a bust? He just had one of the great years a rookie has ever had, and now he can?t play? Come on.?

Moon acknowledged he?d like to see Newton adopt a more even-keeled approach, something he?s done more of in recent weeks. But as he did prior to the draft?last year, Moon thinks there?s an undertone of racism to some of the criticism.

?I don?t understand it,? Moon said. ?I heard somebody compare him to Vince Young. It?s the same old crap ? it?s always a comparison of one black to another black. I get tired of it. I get tired of defending it.

?If you want to compare him to someone because of his demeanor, compare him to Jay Cutler. There are a lot of guys who whine and moan. Cam?s not biting anybody?s head off or pushing his linemen. He?s just disgruntled, and not handling losing well, because, think about it, he basically didn?t lose in college.

?I don?t think Cam?s as bad as Cutler, because Cutler looks like he doesn?t give a damn sometimes, or he?s yelling and cussing at someone. Cam, he just looks down when they?re losing.?

Moon also doesn?t think the Panthers coaches are putting Newton in good positions to succeed by ignoring the run game with the talent they have, and leaning too heavily on the read-option principles he ran in college.

?I don?t know why they got away from what they were doing last year,? Moon said. ?They were running more of a pro-style offense, and now they?re going more to the read-option, the stuff he did in college. I think some of it is coaching. I think some of it is they don?t have enough good players yet. And there?s no question he?s not playing as well as last year.

?That offense doesn?t allow you to be an NFL-type quarterback. It?s a lot of tricks, sticking the ball into a running back?s stomach, trying to freeze the defense. Even though he can do that and had success with it in college, I don?t think it serves him well in the long run. You can?t keep going back and forth. I think he?s a little bit confused with the footwork, and I think that?s one of the problems with his accuracy ? his feet are crossed up. Why this change? I think it?s backfiring. I think they?re out-thinking themselves.?

Sounds familiar.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/22/shaun-phillips-says-he-has-seen-a-lot-of-cheating-in-nfl/related/

team america snow day snow day neti pot iron chef bath and body works coupons jeff probst

GBOOK Netbook PC 1.5Ghz 4GB with Android 4.0 - Just $169 - $169.00

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TopBargains/~3/z8QqV_G-T7Y/gbook-netbook-pc-15ghz-4gb-android-40-just-169

2013 dodge dart shameless kwame brown martin luther king day blue ivy devil inside dash diet

Firefox begins testing Social API with Facebook Messenger, here's how you can take part

You live a fast-paced life, and you don't have time to stop your high-speed internet surfing just to check up on Suzie's latest Facebook update. Mozilla understands your plight, digital denizen, and its "Social API" is here to help -- Firefox browser users can beta test Facebook's Messenger functionality right this minute, should they be able to pause for long enough to get it set up. Thankfully, that setup isn't too strenuous, requiring little more than the latest beta version of the Firefox browser and an opt-in to the Social API program. Mozilla's promising more social service integration as the beta rolls on ("soon"), but for now you can more readily stay in touch with Suzie at least, right?

Filed under: Internet, Software

Firefox begins testing Social API with Facebook Messenger, here's how you can take part originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Mozilla  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/RZm_hQ4sgCE/

oh the places you ll go blunt amendment justin bieber birthday read across america vikings stadium breitbart dead db cooper

Timeline: Political turmoil and violence in Lebanon since 2005

(Reuters) - Here is a look back at events in Lebanon after the country buried slain intelligence officer Wissam al-Hassan amid violent clashes between protesters who want Prime Minister Najib Mikati to quit and security forces.

Hassan led the investigation into the 2005 bombing which killed former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri:

February 2005 - Rafik al-Hariri, the former premier, is killed, with around 21 others, by a truck bomb in Beirut, piling pressure on Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon. The last Syrian soldiers leave Lebanon on April 26.

October 2005 - In a report to the U.N. Security Council, the preliminary findings of the international investigation into Hariri's killing implicate high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese officials. Syria denies any role.

July 2006 - Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah - which is backed by Iran and Syria - captures two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, setting off a 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel. A U.N. Security Council resolution ends the conflict.

August 2008 - On his first visit to Syria as the president of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman agrees with President Bashar al-Assad that their countries will establish diplomatic ties for the first time since independence.

June 2009 - An anti-Syrian coalition, led by Saad Hariri, a son of the murdered former premier, defeats Hezbollah and its Christian ally Michel Aoun in parliamentary elections. Hariri forms a new unity government in November.

January 2011 - Ministers from Hezbollah and its political allies resign, bringing down Hariri's government. Telecoms tycoon Najib Mikati forms a new government in June dominated by Hezbollah's political allies.

July 2012 - The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, established to try suspects in Rafik Hariri's killing names the four men wanted for the murder as Mustafa Amine Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah figure, as well as Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra. Hezbollah denies any role in the killing and says it will refuse to allow the suspects to be arrested.

April 2012 - Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon warns Saudis to stay away from Lebanon's border areas, after two Saudi citizens were kidnapped and tortured for eight days, before being freed in a joint Saudi-Lebanese operation.

August 2012 - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states advise their citizens to leave Lebanon after a mass kidnapping in retaliation for events in Syria raises fears that violence may be spilling across the region.

September 2012 - On a visit to Lebanon, Pope Benedict appeals for a halt to the flow of arms into Syria.

October 2012 - Senior Lebanese intelligence official Wissam al-Hassan, who led the investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, is killed with seven others by a car bomb in Beirut.

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit,

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/timeline-political-turmoil-violence-lebanon-since-2005-144941254.html

jets air jordans pecan pie recipe prince philip sugar cookie recipe sugar cookie recipe how the grinch stole christmas

Nigeria's Long Road To Broadband Development | Leadership ...

As Nigeria moves to create a broadband development policy that will lead to affordable and pervasive internet penetration, CHIMA AKWAJA takes a look at the several challenges and opportunities that broadband will create for the entire economy.

In the last 11 years, much progress was made in Nigeria in the area of voice telephony leading to over 105 million active lines, emergence of four active Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) networks, several Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) operators and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators. Despite Nigeria?s success achieved with voice telephony, the country performed below expectation in the area of broadband.

Recently President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated a Presidential Committee on Broadband Development to come up with a proactive broadband development roadmap that would see Nigeria emerge a digital economy in the next few years by developing critical infrastructures, local content capabilities and capitalise on the country?s abundant intellectual resources in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) field.

The presidential committee has Ernest Ndukwe, former executive vice chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Jim Ovia, chairman of Visafone as joint co-chairmen.

Nigeria?s Poor Broadband Rating
Nigeria came behind several African nations on the broadband penetration in a survey conducted by Broadband Commission for Digital Development. Nigeria was last month ranked a distant 100 out of 172 countries on the global mobile broadband penetration list with only 2.8 per cent of its 100 households having access to active mobile broadband subscriptions.

In a special survey publication entitled ?The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion For All? written by Broadband Commission for Digital Development, Nigeria performed poorly behind Ghana who was placed at 40 with 23 per cent, Egypt at 44 with 21 per cent, South Africa at 47 with 19.8 per cent, Zimbabwe at 59 with 14.9 per cent and several other African countries.

On fixed mobile broadband penetration, Nigeria was ranked numbered 136 with 0.1 per cent of fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants with access out of 172 countries surveyed in 2011. The report said high-speed affordable broadband connectivity to the Internet is essential to modern society, offering widely recognised economic and social benefits.

The Broadband Commission report has Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Luxemburg, USA, United Kingdom and Qatar on the top 10 list of countries whose citizens have the most access to active mobile broadband penetration.

Singapore and South Korea, the most connected countries in the world, their households have 110.9 per cent and 105.1 per cent broadband Internet access respectively.

In another study on broadband penetration across the globe, entitled, ?Measuring State of the Internet Society? survey released by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) few days ago, Nigeria?s ICT Development Index (IDI) was placed at 122 out of 155 countries.

In the Measuring, the Information Society 2012 report identified countries which have made the most progress to ICT development, most of them located in the developing world with strong performers including Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia. It ranks the Republic of Korea as the world?s most advanced ICT economy, followed by Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.

Why We Should Get It Right
For Nigeria that boasts as the giant of Africa, coming behind the 100 mark in the ICT development index shows that a lot needs to be done by the Presidential Committee on Broadband Development, Ministry of Communications Technology, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), broadband service providers and agencies of government involved in broadband development and provision such as Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (Nigcomsat) and Galaxy Backbone Plc.

For years, Nigerian ICT media had set agenda for the government to come up with a clear cut roadmap for broadband development. Instead, emphasis was laid on the dividends made from voice telephony revolution while citizens were made to believe that broadband policy was underway. It was not until Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, formed the presidential broadband committee, that something was seen to be done to practically realise the country?s broadband ambition.

In 2010, Association of Telecommunications companies of Nigeria (ATCON) came up with a Framework for Broadband For Nigeria (BB4NG), a document which demanded that broadband internet access be made a fundamental human right and at the same time address the broadband imbalance in Nigeria. That document was later transformed into Broadband Expansion Programme (BEP), which was a precursor to NCC?s adoption of Equal Access Model to facilitate the development of broadband.

The open access model is already being implemented in countries like Singapore and Australia.

Executive vice chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said ?The Open Access Model is expected to help Nigerian?s plug into the global knowledge grid and stay competitive with other countries.?

The key elements driving the objective focus on open access deployment of fibre infrastructure is to achieve high level of penetration across all geo-political zones, contribute to GDP growth and development of knowledge economy, provide competitive and affordable pricing, ensure intelligent incentives to support industry players while equipping Nigeria with? leading infrastructure in Africa.

Why Broadband Is Critical
Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates. Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40 per cent globally and 78 per cent in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide.

Brahima Sanou, director of ITU?s Telecommunication Development Bureau, said, ?The surge in numbers of mobile-broadband subscriptions in developing countries has brought the Internet to a multitude of new users. But despite the downward trend, prices remain relatively high in many low-income countries. For mobile broadband to replicate the mobile-cellular miracle and bring more people from developing countries online, 3G network coverage has to be extended and prices have to go down even further.?

Currently, data traffic in West Africa is lower than voice. However, operators have reported that the demand for data services is doubling every six months. Operators expect that data will account for 60 per cent of total traffic on 2G and 2.5G networks, and approximately 90 per cent on 3G networks by the end of 2012. In addition with cables landing in most of the countries in the region, the global connectivity is in much better shape than ever before and will be the driver for data growth in the region.???

Mayank Sharma, Vice President, Africa Region, Comviva said, ?Over the last year operators in West Africa have witnessed huge demand for mobile data, especially in countries like Cote d?Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon. For this they need solutions that can complement their infrastructure and help them launch innovative data services to boost revenues and also ensure efficient network management to minimise the revenue leakages and cost overheads?.?

The critical importance of broadband policy for Nigeria is that it will ensure cost reduction and transparency in governance, create ubiquitous and cost effective national ICT infrastructure, ensure a multi-faceted strategy that enables equitable access to the infrastructure and allow citizen engagement and convenient delivery of government information and services.

A very practical policy will see to strong support for the development of education, health, agriculture and financial services on the ICT infrastructure, local content and skills development to create jobs and sustain the industry as well as ensure ICT entrepreneurship, innovation and the development of a strong and vibrant ICT industry as well as drive technology adoption across the national economy in general.

Broadband Essentials
Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu, former president of ATCON said ?There are three things you need to invest. The first one is infrastructure which needs to be there. The second is content that you can sell if the infrastructure is there and the third is the advantage of ruralness, what can I get from rural areas. I?m going to make people to come and talk to anybody who want to hear and who has any of the four things: the brain, will, enthusiasm and resources.?

To do the above, Nigeria needs to facilitate build-out of a robust, ubiquitous and cost effective broadband network aimed at increasing broadband penetration within the country. This will facilitate the accelerated roll out of a broadband infrastructure that includes a connected national backbone, regional rings, metro rings and fibre to the cabinet that should increase broadband penetration from six per cent to about 20 per cent by 2015.?

?Imagine the benefits of broadband education- in the area of e - learning, health-telemedicine, patient data collection and health records access, to the business community-wider customer and supplier base for SME?s, Agriculture - create access to information on good cultivation practices for farmers as well as access to market prices, removal of intermediaries etc, said Johnson.

Currently, 45 million Nigerians or approximately 28 per cent of our population have access to the internet. We are working to ensure that Nigeria?s broadband infrastructure is delivered through a heterogeneous network of fiber optic cable, mobile broadband and satellite bandwidth. ?We are deploying these heterogeneous networks to enable us deliver on our internal and external targets and increase broadband penetration in the country,? Johnson said.

Source: http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/38062/2012/10/21/nigerias_long_road_broadband_development.html

carnie wilson missing reese witherspoon pregnant billy joel bent new york jets etch a sketch romney

Bacteria that work together to cause infection

I?m on holiday at the moment, so this post is adapted from the archives. It was originally posted at my old blog over on Field of Science.

There are lots of things I enjoy about studying bacteria. I love their biochemistry and the secret inner workings of their metabolic pathways. I love that everything they do they manage within the confines of a single cell, and I love that you can go into a bacterial cell fairly easily and just mess around with the genes until they make what you want.

But what I?m really enjoying exploring at the moment is more ecological bacteriology; how bacteria interact with their environment, how they respond to changes to stresses and, most importantly, to other bacteria. I?ve covered how natural throat bacteria can help destroy dangerous pathogens such as MRSA Staph aureus so in this post I?m going to look at almost the opposite; how some bacteria can give each other a helping hand in order to infect humans.

Campylobacter jejuni is a bacteria that I feel a special affinity for because I?ve worked with it, back in my first ever summer project. Unfortunately it?s not a very nice bacteria and can lead to bad stomach illnesses with some rare but quite threatening complications. It?s found in chicken meat and cheese as it is perfectly capible of surviving happily in animals without causing them any diseases.

One of the problems with working with Campylobacter jejuni (henceforth shortened to C. jejuni) is that it?s very fussy about the amount of oxygen it?s in. C. jejuni is microaerophilic, which means it needs oxygen, but only small amounts,. If you give it too much all the cells will die. This problem was solved in my old lab by using tightly sealed containers and special packs of ? stuff ? which were put inside the containers to create the right conditions. This raises an important question; if the bacteria have to be coddled and protected just to culture on a plate in the lab then how on earth do they survive and grow on the surface of chicken meat?

A recent study (reference below) found that the C. jejuni were being aided by surrounding bacteria. The picture below shows both C. jejuni and a bacteria called Pseudomonas putida in close interaction, with long fibre-like structures connecting them. No one seems to be really sure what the fibre-like structures are, they may be being used for chemical communication, or they may just be keeping the bacteria in close physical contact.

The C. jejuni is the more slender and slightly spiral shaped bacterium in the centre, the others are Putida. Image from the reference.

Both bacteria were identified as being in close contact, as well as being seen together under the microscope. Further experiments were done to show that the P. putida was required for C. jejuni survival ? a range of different C. jejuni strains were grown in both the presence and absence of the supporting P. putida to see how long they could survive in completely aerobic conditions. The results are almost hilarious, without the help of the P. putida bacteria the Campylobacter just die, really quickly:

Image taken from the reference below

Figure A (top) shows the C. jejuni with P. putida grown as well, Figure B (beneath) shows the C. jejuni grown alone. The graphs show the count of living cells over time, and it?s clear that without the help of P. putida the C. jejuni dies much quicker. Interestingly it was found that the interaction between particular strains of both C. jejuni and P. putida was fairly specific as well. As you can see in the graph above, only three of the C. jejuni strains have survived past 50 hours with the help of this particular P. putida, although they surive longer than with no help at all.

As P. putida are aerobic, the most likely explanation for how they are helping is that they create a microenvironment of decreased oxygen within their immediate surroundings. This is the kind of environment that it is thought C. jejuni will naturally migrate to. It?s interesting to consider that this might be less of a mutual helping relationship and more of a seriously exploitative one, with the C. jejuni swarming as quickly as possible towards the environment created by the P. putida and then wrapping them all up in a sticky mesh to stop them moving away.

This special relationship is not applicable for all C. jejuni, in other environments such as in humans and in chicken poo the C. jejuni exist fine on their own, but in the highly aerobic environment of the meat surface they rely on other bacteria to survive. The implications for treatment of bacteria are intreguing (especially for antibiotic resistant strains of C. jejuni) but this is another reminder that despite laboratory conditions bacteria do not just exist in isolation. They inhabit a whole tiny world, with challenges of its own, surrounded by other bacteria that change their environment both for better and for worse.

?

Reference: Hilbert F, Scherwitzel M, Paulsen P, & Szostak MP (2010). Survival of Campylobacter jejuni under conditions of atmospheric oxygen tension with the support of Pseudomonas spp. Applied and environmental microbiology, 76 (17), 5911-7 PMID: 20639377

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=691e9d8da9a6a8e122053c74dd37397f

patricia heaton arsenic and old lace leslie varez ward solar storms uganda the parent trap