Saturday, December 29, 2012

Junk Food For the Vegan Soul | Holy Cow!|Eggless Recipes|Dairy ...

Before you get started with New Year's resolutions about being good, here's a post about being bad. Really, really bad.

Oh, come on! I'm talking about food. This is a G-rated blog, y'know.

When people think about vegans, the first thing they imagine is a bunch of do-gooders who read every ingredient label twice and then once more, interrogate waiters as if they were accessories to murder, and in general subject themselves to absolute deprivation because we don't want to murder animals for food.

Worse, the world worries, we will force our food habits on them (I swear a new acquaintance rolled her eyes last week when I mentioned we choose a vegetarian-friendly restaurant for a lunch outing).

But we vegans like to play dangerous too. And yes, our decadence can often be, ahem, rather healthy, but ?there are lots of foods out there we love that qualify as total junk, even in the non-vegan world. And that, just before those resolutions kick in, is exactly what this fun post is all about: it's my rather?counterintuitive list of five of my most favorite-- and widely available -- junk food splurges that are also inadvertently vegan. Meaning the manufacturers never intended them to be vegan and they are not labeled as such, but they just ended up being so.


This is a short list because it's just mine, but for more inspiration check out PETA's long list of foods?you can buy off supermarket shelves that are also "accidentally" vegan. If you are a non-vegan who glances at this list and wonders if all this stuff isn't obviously vegan, trust me when I say that readymade foods that may seem very obviously animal-free are very often not. Do you know, for instance, that even after being sued for its beef-fat-fried French Fries way back when, McDonald's continues to use in its fries a flavoring derived from beef and from milk products, making this potato product entirely non-vegetarian?

I also want to?clarify that I am not endorsing the products I have listed here, or encouraging people to eat unhealthy. I like eating good-for-me stuff too, most of the time. But I do believe, with all my heart, that the occasional french fry (although not a McDonald's one) does more good than harm to a human soul.

So here goes, not in any particular order:

1. Oreos: I love these delicious little black-and-white nuggets and although I don't eat them as often as I'd love to, I would probably put them on my list of foods I'd want to eat on my death bed. A word of caution, though: I learned this when I posted my Oreo Cake that although these delicious sandwich cookies are vegan in the United States, they could contain whey in other countries in Europe and Asia where they are also manufactured and sold.

2.?Ghirardelli White Mocha Hot Chocolate: I love nothing more than to snuggle into bed with a cup of hot chocolate, and what's better than white hot chocolate? This is by far the most delicious drink I have ever had in my life-- mix it with some soymilk and you are ready to go to heaven.

3. Lay's Potato Chips: I love potatoes. There, I've said it. I don't care if they sit on my hips for the rest of my life, because what would good would life be without the occasional plunge into a crackling bag of crispy, salty, absolutely incredible potato chips?

4. Cinnamon Life cereal: This may qualify as breakfast food, but let's not kid ourselves: with a ton of sugar and almost no protein and fiber, this is not a healthy splurge. But it's SO good.

5. Fritos: Deep-fried corn? Bring it on!

So what are your guilty pleasures that were never meant to be vegan but are? Chime in!

Source: http://www.holycowvegan.net/2012/12/junk-food-for-vegan-soul.html

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Tips on how to Are eligble for a Payday Loan in Canada Getting payday loans in The us can be quite a substantial lifesaver if you're deficient cash. A payday loan is an accumulation funds (generally as much as around Money1,000. Situations that that finest warrant the availing of a payday loan are uncontrolled urgent matters like illnesses and the like. The typical time period for paying off a payday loan is around two or three days prior to the following take-home pay comes into play. By that time, it is best to have already made ample income to break even with the financial institution, and more for lender expenses and other bills. Because of the small-period qualities of payday loans in Europe, you should not be ready to utilize the income to boost your personal cash flow. The cash employed for these loans should only be used to handle expenditures that normally will not be as part of your spending plan. Why this type of mortgage appealing would be that the cause for evaluating your eligibility isn't on credit scores, only on the amount of money for you to gain frequently. quick loans Instant Consent Bad Credit Loans Immediate Answer To Critical Needs There comes some time in people's everyday living if we call for funds to satisfy out some financial emergencies. We're also in such a need for capital that i not able to even lose time waiting for few days to discover the personal loan permitted. We'd like a direct way to all of our requirements. You can do this just with our fast endorsement bad credit loans.
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5 Simple Health Tests You Can Perform at Home - Build Muscle and ...

Home Health Tests

Home Health Girl

Not every cough and sniffle calls for a visit to the doctor?s office, nor does every scrape and burn necessitate an expensive trip to the emergency room. In most cases you can tell if a home remedy will do the trick or if professional medical care is advisable, but you will certainly have occasions where you?re just not sure if the symptoms will pass or if you need professional help.

Many people would probably appreciate having ways to determine their relative state of health between annual physicals or check-ups in order to see if they need additional care or alternately, if their efforts to improve health and fitness are paying off. So here are just a few simple health tests that you can perform on your own at home to check yourself out.

  1. Temperature

    Fevers are indicative of an infection, or rather, they are the result of your body fighting an infection. In most cases there is no cause for concern. Although a fever will make you feel pretty awful, the majority are low-grade and break within a matter of hours or just a couple of days.


    However, there may be extreme scenarios in which you require hospitalization with a fever, such as an unusually high temperature (103 degrees Fahrenheit or greater), an extended fever (lasting longer than a week), or accompanying symptoms like excessive vomiting (leading to dangerous dehydration), chest or abdominal pain, confusion or hallucinations, or any other symptoms that seem serious. Taking your temperature with an inexpensive home thermometer can give you a quick gauge of the severity of a fever.

  2. Pulse

    Studies show that your resting heart rate can offer you an early warning of your risk for heart attack. The average adult heart should beat about 60 times per minute. This rate indicates optimum health and extremely low risk for heart attack. But once your pulse gets over about 75 beats per minute your risk for heart attack rises significantly.

    Luckily, testing your resting heart rate is easy. All you have to do is sit and relax for a few minutes and then take your pulse (at your wrist or throat). If the number is high, it may be time to talk to your doctor.

  3. Blood pressure

    High or low blood pressure can be to blame for a number of symptoms that range from annoying to potentially deadly. Those on the low end of the spectrum may experience fatigue, dizziness, and fainting, while high blood pressure can be to blame for headaches and even strokes. But if you purchase a blood pressure cuff and learn how to read it (you can find them on Amazon for about ten bucks and there are tons of tutorials online that will show you how to use one), you can track your own blood pressure to determine if it might be playing a role in your symptoms.

  4. BMI

    Your body mass index is not exactly easy to calculate, but it?s certainly not rocket science. To start, measure your weight (in pounds) and height (in inches). Now divide you weight by your height squared. So if you are 60 inches tall (five feet) and you weigh a hundred pounds, for example, your equation would be 100/60?60, or 100/3600, resulting in an answer of 0.028. You will then multiply this number by 703 (called the conversion factor), which will result in your body mass index (in this case about 19.7).

    So what does this number mean? In general, you want the number to fall in the 18.5 to 25 range as this is considered to be the healthiest weight for your height. If your calculation comes out below 18.5 or above 25, you could be at an unhealthy weight (although you may want to talk to your doctor for further information).

    (Note from the editor: this post is essentially a guest post. Project Swole does not support BMI in the slightest. BMI is a joke and does not reflect a measure of healthiness in anyone who has more muscle mass than the average person. Instead, you want to use body fat percentage to determine how much fat you are holding on your body with respect to non-fat tissue. This can be calculated using either calipers or an electronic hand-held tool.

  5. Pregnancy

    Granted, this type of home health test only applies to about half of the population, but as test kits at home go, this one is pretty popular. Although you will probably want to go to the doctor eventually if your test is positive, a negative result could save you an unnecessary trip.

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Tags: blood pressure, BMI, health, healthy, home, test

Source: http://www.projectswole.com/healthy-lifestyle/5-simple-health-tests-you-can-perform-at-home/

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First genome sequence of Chinese plum provides important resource for fruit improvement

Dec. 27, 2012 ? A Chinese research team, led by Beijing Forestry University, BGI, Beijing Lin Fu Ke Yuan Flowers Co., Ltd, and other institutes, has completed the first genomic sequence of Prunus mume, known as mei. This work is extremely important for the deeper understanding of Rosaceae evolution and provides an invaluable resource for the improvement of fruit trees.

The latest study was published online December 27 in Nature Communication.

As one of the longest-lived flowering fruit trees, the P. mume was domesticated in China more than 3,000 years ago. It belongs to Rosaceae, the third most economically important plant family in temperate regions, and is characterized by high nutrition, medical value, and tolerance to low temperature in winter. Writers and artists have extolled the beauty of its flowers, and the blossom is considered to be the symbol of Chinese national spirit. The availability of P. mume genome will open a new way for better decoding the mysteries of this fascinating tree.

The plantation technique that makes P. mume so diverse--the artificial grafting--also makes their genomes difficult to assemble. In this study, researchers sequenced the genome of P. mume, a wild species from Tibet in China, using a robust approach integrated with next-generation sequencing (NGS) and whole-genome mapping (WGM) technologies. Then they constructed a high-density genetic map by applying restriction-site-associated DNA (RAD) marker strategy that further improves the quality of the genomic reference. Through all the efforts, researchers yielded the ~237Mb P. mume reference genome.

The poor phylogenetic resolution of the Rosaceae suggests rapid evolution within the family. In this study, the evolutionary analysis of P. mume genome demonstrated that there was no recent whole-genome duplication (WGD) event happened after the differentiation between P. mume and Malus x domestica (apple). However, the triplicated genomic arrangement was found in the P. mume genome by paleo-history analysis in Prunus.

Supported by the genomic data of apple and strawberry (Fragaria vesca), researchers successfully reconstructed nine ancestral chromosomes of Rosaceae family, and analyzed the chromosome fusion, fission and duplication history in three major subfamilies, including genera Prunus, Malus and Fragaria. Through analysis, they hypothesized that at least 11 fissions and 11 fusions occurred in P. mume from the nine common ancestral chromosomes. For apple, at least one WGD and five fusions took place to reach the 17-chromosome structure, compared with 15 fusions for strawberry to affect the 7-chromosome structure.

P. mume is one of the first trees that bloom in early spring, blooming even below 0?. In this study, researchers investigated the genetic characteristics underlying the mechanisms related to acclimate to cold weather and release itself from dormancy. They found that dormancy-associated MADS-box transcription factors (DAM) family and C-repeat-binding transcription factors (CBF) were two important factors related with flowering dormancy.

As the saying goes, "Plum blossom incense from the cold weather," P. mume always has a special fragrance in winter. To understand its mechanism of floral scent, researchers identified a series genes related to the biosynthesis of volatile compounds, such as benzyl alcohol acetyltransferase (BEAT) gene. They supposed the expansion of the BEAT gene family might increase the content of benzyl acetate and therefore induces the special fragrance of P. mume.

The disease resistance related-genes may benefit the future breeding improvement. In this study, researchers found many related genes expanded tremendously in the P. mume genome, such as leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase (LRR-RLK) genes, the nucleotide-binding site-coding resistant gene (NBS-coding R gene), and pathogenesis-related (PR) gene families. It was reported that PR proteins could mediate plant defence against pathogenic constraints and the general adaptation to stressful environments. Most PR gene families in P. mume were expanded notably especially PR10, suggesting their expansion might be related to the response of P. mume to salt, drought and fungal infection in roots and leaves.

Wenbin Chen, Project Manager of BGI, said, "The P. mume genome lays a solid foundation for identification of important economic traits, and provides a valuable resource for P. mume breeding and other Rosaceae species studies. The work here also brings a new approach for further exploring the biosynthesis of floral scent and regulation mechanism of early blooming in endodormancy, and other comparative genomics studies on Rosaceae species."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BGI Shenzhen, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Qixiang Zhang, Wenbin Chen, Lidan Sun, Fangying Zhao, Bangqing Huang, Weiru Yang, Ye Tao, Jia Wang, Zhiqiong Yuan, Guangyi Fan, Zhen Xing, Changlei Han, Huitang Pan, Xiao Zhong, Wenfang Shi, Xinming Liang, Dongliang Du, Fengming Sun, Zongda Xu, Ruijie Hao, Tian Lv, Yingmin Lv, Zequn Zheng, Ming Sun, Le Luo, Ming Cai, Yike Gao, Junyi Wang, Ye Yin, Xun Xu, Tangren Cheng, Jun Wang. The genome of Prunus mume. Nature Communications, 2012; 3: 1318 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2290

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/KXS6HDyZXdQ/121227142951.htm

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Worst CEO of 2012: Best Buy's Brian Dunn | Daily ... - Yahoo! Finance

As 2012 comes to a close, it's that time of year again to list some of the best and worst CEOs over the past 12 months.

Sydney Finkelstein, a professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and author of ?Why Smart Executives Fail? and ?Think Again," shared his annual "Worst CEOs" list with The Daily Ticker.

Two of the CEOs were so bad they are no longer on the job. For the CEOs who remain on the payroll, watch out. All of the CEOs on Finkelstein?s 2011 list have been shown the door.

While stock price is an important part of Finkelstein's criteria, it is not the only determining factor. The lack of corporate governance also plays an important part.

Without further ado, the top two ?Worst CEOs of 2012? are Brian Dunn of Best Buy (BBY) and Audrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK). Honorable mentions also go to Facebook?s (FB) Mark Zuckerberg and Groupon?s (GRPN) Andrew Mason.

1. Brian Dunn, former CEO, Best Buy (resigned April 2012)

?Brian Dunn...there is really not a lot of great things to say,? says Finkelstein in the accompanying interview. ?You have a company that is in a virtual free fall. The stock is down something like 50% this year; cash is down; EPS is down; same-store-sales are down. You name it?s down.?

Dunn resigned this past spring; during his tenure Best Buy stock has fallen 80% in five years.

The electronics retailer's competitors ? like Amazon (AMZN), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Apple (AAPL) ?have been breathing down its neck for years and Dunn did little to fight back, says Finkelstein. Dunn also deserves blame for not improving Best Buy?s customer service, Finkelstein adds. Dunn also "completely wasted" $6.4 billion in company cash on stock repurchases, says Finkelstein. Dunn was also accused of dating a 29-year-old female employee.

2. Aubrey McClendon, CEO, Chesapeake Energy (resigned as chairman, still CEO)

?Aubrey McClendon is a classic entrepreneur who breaks all the rules,? says Finkelstein.

While he was a visionary in his line of work, he also pushed the envelope when it came to mixing business finances with personal finances. For example, McClendon used the corporate jet for his personal use and he cut a corporate sponsorship deal with a sports team he privately owned.

According to Finkelstein, McClendon's inappropriate behavior includes:

  • Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show that several major Wall Street banks lent McClendon money and then received lucrative work as public-offering underwriters or financial advisers to Chesapeake.
  • Personally borrowed $500 million from EIG Global Energy Partners, which had also been a large financer for Chesapeake. In securing personal loans from his company's business associate, McClendon exposed himself to a potential conflict of interest, as it's reasonable to expect him to feel pressure to serve EIG's interests in future corporate transactions, potentially at the expense of the best interests of shareholders.
  • Reuters exposed a $200 million hedge fund trading oil and gas McClendon ran at the same time he was CEO of Chesapeake -- an obvious conflict of interest.

?Nothing is illegal, everything is disclosed (as far as we know) but it sure doesn?t look good,? says Finkelstein.

3. Andrea Jung, Avon, Chairman of Board (resigned as CEO April 2012)

Andrea Jung of Avon (AVP) made this year?s list of worst CEOs due to a long string of poor performance and her inability to remedy operational issues, says Finkelstein.

Avon?s stock price is down 18% in 2012 and was down more than 80% in the last quarter.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are also looking into Avon's potential bribery of foreign officials. The investigation has been ongoing since 2011 and to date Avon has spent $300 million in legal fees.

4. Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga

Mark Pincus of Zynga (ZNGA) made the list because of the huge declines in Zynga's stock price.

Zynga?s stock price is down 75% in 2012. Even though the number of users is increasing, the number of paying customers is shrinking, notes Finkelstein.

On top of that, there has been an ?incredible exodus of top executive talent, always one of the biggest warning signs for impending disaster," says Finkelstein.

Another foreboding sign is the fact that the gaming company is dependent upon Facebook for 90% of its revenues.

5. Rodrigo Rato, President, Bankia (Spain)

Rato became the chief executive officer in 2010 and resigned this year after wrongfully promoting the health of the bank and its shares. The Spanish government had to step in and bail out the financial institution.

Tell us what you think!

Who do you think was the worst CEO of 2012? Tell us in the comments section below.

Got a topic you?d like covered? Have a guest you?d like to see interviewed? We?d love to hear from you! Send us an email at thedailyticker@yahoo.com.

You can also look us up on Twitter and Facebook. Follow Aaron Task on Twitter at @aarontask.

Check out these other videos from The Daily Ticker:

January's Highlights (and Lowlights) in Executive Compensation

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March Highlights (and Lowlights) in Executive Compensation

April's Highlights (and Lowlights) in Executive Compensation

Outrageous CEO Compensation: Wynn, Adelson, Dell and Abercrombie Shockers

June's Highlights (and Lowlights) in Executive Compensation

Zynga, Ralph Lauren: Most Outrageous Acts of Corporate America

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/worst-ceo-2012-best-buy-brian-dunn-124535841.html

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Drake Calls Out Macy's, Walgreens Over YOLO Use

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Fighting Winter Blues With Light Therapy

Every October as the clocks are turned back, Jose Balido notices that his mood changes, almost as if his body were going into hibernation.

His limbs are heavy and he has trouble moving around. Simple household chores like loading the dishwasher seem "insurmountable," he said. But when spring arrives, the lethargy lifts.

"It took me a while to realize what it was," said Balido, owner of a travel social network site, Tripatini. "I was cranky, short-tempered, depressed, feeling hopeless and having difficulty concentrating."

Balido, 51, was diagnosed a decade ago with seasonal affective disorder or SAD. The condition affects 62 million Americans, according to Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University and a leader in the field.

About 5 percent of the population experiences the most severe symptoms of SAD -- depression and hopelessness -- while another 15 percent have the so-called "winter blues" or "winter doldrums."

The vast majority never fall into full depression, according to Terman, but "plod through winters with slowness and gloominess that takes effort to hide from others."

Two decades ago, SAD was identified as a legitimate disorder by the National Institute of Mental Health. Since then, the treatment of choice has been light therapy.

Balido, who lives in Miami, sought help from Terman and now undergoes light therapy. He sits in front of a daylight simulator for a half an hour each morning before 10 a.m.

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"Within two or three days, the difference was mind-blowing," he said.

The standard treatment for SAD is 30 minutes of 10,000-lux, diffused, white fluorescent light, used early in the morning. About half the patients are helped quickly -- and when treatment is tailored to a person's individual wake-sleep cycle, remission can climb to 80 percent, according to Terman.

This year, a utility company in the northern Swedish town of Umea installed ultraviolet lights at 30 bus stops to combat the effects of SAD.

"We wanted to celebrate the fact that all our electricity comes from green sources and we wanted to do this in a way that contributed to the citizens in one way or another," said Umea Energi marketing chief Anna Norrgard in an email to ABCNews.com.

"As it is very dark where we live this time of year, a lot of us are longing for the daylight," she said. "A lot of us are also a bit more tired this time of year and I would also say we sleep a little bit more. ...We wanted to give the citizens of Umea a little energy boost, to be more alert."

The town is located about 400 miles north of Stockholm. In December, the sun rises at about 10 a.m. and sets around 2:30 p.m. Some towns north of the Arctic Circle have no daylight for several weeks in the winter.

Geography has a strong influence on the prevalence of SAD symptoms, according to Terman.

"The common wisdom is that it's worse the farther north you live, because winter days are so much shorter," he said. "Not so simple."

Columbia research shows that in North America, the incidence of SAD rises from the southern to the middle states, but levels off and stays bad from about 38 degrees North latitude (near such cities as San Francisco, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.) up through the northernmost states and Canada, according to Terman.

But the problem becomes "more severe" at the western edges of the northern states and provinces.

"This important finding reveals the underlying trigger for relapses into winter depression, since the sun rises an hour more later at the western edge of a zone," said Terman, whose book, "Chronotherapy," looks at the phenomenon.

Esther Kane, a clinical counselor from Vancouver, Canada, said her practice is filled with patients as the long days descend on British Columbia.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/light-therapy-helps-winter-blues-sad-swedish-bus/story?id=18036009

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Tips on How to Use Student Loan Funds | Finance & Mortgage

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

Source: http://www.americanmortgagefs.com/tips-on-how-to-use-student-loan-funds/

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The Leading And Cheapest SEO Services Utah | One Way Links ...

Social networking and search engine optimization are two essential components that are regarded as efficient strategies in marketing your business or advertising your web site on-line. For many online marketers and web site owners aiming to effectively get visitors to their website, these two ought to never be absent or overlooked. You will find plenty of techniques to promote your web site as well as your business on-line, but these two are confirmed efficient. Why? What is in social networking and search engine optimization that enables online marketers succeed in promoting their web sites and their businesses? How do these two components function to supply advantages to online marketers?

First, cheap seo services utah is extremely popular when it comes to your aim to gain popularity and visibility for your web site. Search engine optimization (cheap seo services utah) will be the procedure of optimizing your web site to ensure that it would be recognized by search engines and would deserve to be around the top spot of search engine results. The most common method to achieve search engine optimization is via key phrases. You make certain that your website is truly relevant with the keyword which is usually what researchers enter on search engines to find info they need. If your web site is extremely optimized and recognized by search engines, chances are surfers will find your web site trustworthy and assured to supply the info they?re looking for. This means lots of visitors for the website.

Almost all people are going into social networking because websites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. permit them to connect with buddies and relatives even from far away. Even celebrities discover social networking useful to connect with their fans. And so, for on-line marketers and web site owners, it will also serve as their best tool towards promoting their web site and their business.

Therefore, social networking and cheap seo services utah should by no means be neglected if you would like your web site and business to acquire visibility and popularity on-line. But, how about when we combine the two? Is it possible to mix them and make it one element that could take your business as well as your web site to new heights? Whenever you mix the two what you get is plainly social media optimization.

In this procedure, you are aiming you use social networking as a indicates for you personally to optimize your web site and acquire visibility and popularity online. In this process, you do not have to make certain your content is relevant towards the keyword they search on search engines. You just have to make certain you produce a really fascinating topic relevant for your business that people will discover interest in discussing. You can take this topic to the website you are registered with and permit as a lot of people to go to your website, talk about the subject and share their different views about it. The secret is to create a blog post which will ignite their interest and click on the link you offer on the social networking website.

The outcome when these two important forces are combined is really a much more potent and powerful tool to promote and attract traffic for your web site. This truly will be the reason why if social networking and search engine optimization alone have benefits, social networking cheap seo services utah also features a series of advantages.

Hitting two birds with one stone. Whenever you use social networking search engine optimization, it?s like hitting two birds with one stone. You are in a position to connect together with your friends and family but you?re also able to promote your website and your business as you realize you are reaching huge audiences.

Effective and quick. Using social networking search engine optimization as strategy is truly a extremely efficient and quick technique to attract traffic to your web site because it is really a mixture of two effective methods. Simply because it?s incredibly effective, you are able to be assured that visitors will rapidly start pouring to your website.

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Christmas Day storms blamed for 3 deaths

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- Twisters hopscotched across the Deep South, and, along with brutal, straight-line winds, knocked down countless trees, blew the roofs off homes and left many Christmas celebrations in the dark. Holiday travelers in the nation's much colder midsection battled treacherous driving conditions from freezing rain and blizzard conditions from the same fast-moving storms.

As predicted, conditions were volatile throughout the day and into the night with tornado warnings still out for some parts of Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The storms were blamed for three deaths, several injuries, and left homes from Louisiana to Alabama damaged.

In Mobile, Ala., a tornado or high winds damaged homes, a high school and church, and knocked down power lines and large tree limbs in an area just west of downtown around nightfall. WALA-TV's tower camera captured the image of a large funnel cloud headed toward downtown.

Rick Cauley, his wife, Ashley, and two children were hosting members of both of their families. When the sirens went off, the family headed down the block to take shelter at the athletic field house at Mobile's Murphy High School.

"As luck would have it, that's where the tornado hit," Cauley said. "The pressure dropped and the ears started popping and it got crazy for a second." They were all fine, though the school was damaged. Hours after the storm hit, officials reported no serious injuries in the southwestern Alabama city.

Meanwhile, blizzard conditions hit the nation's midsection.

Earlier in the day, winds toppled a tree onto a pickup truck in the Houston area, killing the driver, and a 53-year-old north Louisiana man was killed when a tree fell on his house. Icy roads already were blamed for a 21-vehicle pileup in Oklahoma, and the Highway Patrol there says a 28-year-old woman was killed in a crash on a snowy U.S. Highway near Fairview.

The snowstorm that caused numerous accidents pushed out of Oklahoma late Tuesday, carrying with it blizzard warnings for parts of northeast Arkansas, where 10 inches of snow was forecast. Freezing rain clung to trees and utility lines in Arkansas and winds gusts up to 30 mph whipped them around, causing about 71,000 customers to lose electricity for a time.

Blizzard conditions were possible for parts of Illinois, Indiana and western Kentucky with predictions of 4 to 7 inches of snow.

An apparent tornado also caused damage in Grove Hill, about 80 miles north of Mobile.

Mary Cartright said she was working at the Fast Track convenience store in the town on Christmas evening when the wind started howling and the lights flickered, knocking out the store's computerized cash registers.

"Our cash registers are down so our doors are closed," said Cartright in a phone interview.

Trees fell on a few houses in central Louisiana's Rapides Parish, but there were no injuries reported, said sheriff's Lt. Tommy Carnline. Near McNeill, Miss., a likely tornado damaged a dozen homes and sent eight people to the hospital, none with life-threatening injuries, said Pearl River County emergency management agency director Danny Manley.

Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in the state, saying eight counties have reported damages and some injuries.

Fog blanketed highways, including arteries in the Atlanta area, which was expected to be dealing with the same storm system on Wednesday. In New Mexico, drivers across the eastern plains had to fight through snow, ice and low visibility.

At least three tornadoes were reported in Texas, though only one building was damaged, according to the National Weather Service.

More than 500 flights nationwide were canceled by the evening, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. More than half were canceled into and out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport that got a few inches of snow.

Christmas lights also were knocked out with more than 100,000 customers without power for at least a time in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

In Louisiana, quarter-sized hail was reported early Tuesday in the western part of the state and a WDSU viewer sent a photo to the TV station of what appeared to be a waterspout around the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. There were no reports of crashes or damage.

Some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could get up to 10 inches of snow, which would make travel "very hazardous or impossible" in the northern tier of the state from near whiteout conditions, the weather service said.

The holiday may conjure visions of snow and ice, but twisters this time of year are not unheard of. Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more in the South, said Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, via email.

The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.

In Mobile, a large section of the roof on the Trinity Episcopal Church is missing and the front wall of the parish wall is gone, said Scott Rye, a senior warden at the church in the Midtown section of the city.

On Christmas Eve, the church with about 500 members was crowded for services.

"Thank God this didn't happen last night," Rye said.

The church finished a $1 million-plus renovation campaign in June 2011, which required the closure of the historic sanctuary for more than a year.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., and AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/christmas-day-storms-blamed-3-032145273.html

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

NY surfer who survived Sandy drowns in Puerto Rico

(AP) ? A lifeguard widely praised as a hero after Superstorm Sandy for rescuing neighbors endangered by rolling floodwaters and a fire that destroyed several homes in a small community where grief has been a frequent visitor has died in a surfing accident in Puerto Rico.

The death of 23-year-old Dylan Smith on Sunday brought sadness again to residents of the Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways, which lost several police officers and firefighters in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and was the site of a deadly plane crash just months later.

As word spread that Smith, who used his surfboard to ferry so many people to safety during the late October superstorm, had lost his life, a Heroes of Rockaway Facebook page said: "R.I.P. to Dylan Smith, our Rockaway Hero, tragically died this morning surfing in Puerto Rico. He will never be forgotten."

Troy Bradwisch, who lives on the same street as the Smith family, said the presumed drowning death was "crushing" for the neighborhood.

"It was more shocking than anything," he said. "You can go through the storm and all that, and he goes on vacation to get a sense of normalcy and something like that happens."

Marguerite Wetzel, a Montauk resident who knows the Smith family from trips to Puerto Rico, could barely talk about the death.

"I have two sons, and he exemplified everything you would want your sons to be. I'm going to start tearing up," she said, her voice cracking.

Smith had lived with his parents and a 19-year-old brother when he was not at college. Fire Department of New York Chief Michael Light, a longtime friend of Smith's recently retired firefighter father, said someone who was with Smith in waters off Maria's Beach in the Puerto Rican community of Rincon notified him of the death.

"We know he died in the water while he was surfing. It's under investigation as to the cause," Light said. "I believe he was with some friends."

Smith's body was found floating near his surfboard, police said. Authorities said a resident of the Puerto Rican town, whose beaches attract surfers from across the world, spotted Smith in the water and took him to shore. They said a doctor tried to resuscitate him.

Light said Smith rescued as many as a dozen people during the superstorm by paddling from porch to porch with his surfboard, moving the helpless, including children and the elderly, from imperiled perches amid swirling floodwaters and a sky filled with flames from a gas line explosion as more than a dozen homes around him burned to the ground.

"It was totally brave and selfless," Light said.

People magazine, which named Smith one of its Heroes of the Year, credited Smith and neighbor Michael McDonnell with rescuing six people trapped by the flood and fire by connecting electric cords and twine into a makeshift rope that could be gripped as they walked the surfboard with people on it to safety at the storm's height.

The flood and fire occurred in a Queens neighborhood with an unusually high population of police officers and firefighters, which might explain why a higher proportion of residents lost their lives on Sept. 11 than just about anywhere else. Two months later, American Airlines Flight 587 smashed into a home, killing 265 people and setting off fires that destroyed the homes of those living around Smith and his family.

The Smith family home was spared again during Superstorm Sandy when fires destroyed neighbors' homes and the Harbor Light Restaurant, where Smith sometimes worked as a bartender.

Smith, who helped neighbors clean up and rebuild after the storm, had gone recently to Puerto Rico, where his family had a home in the popular beach town. Light said he could understand if Smith wanted some relief from the destruction in Belle Harbor.

"It's tough to look at," he said. "He figured rather than look out the window at the destruction here, post Sandy, all the rebuilding, he was going to take a little break and do a little surfing in Puerto Rico and get away for a while."

___

Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-24-Puerto%20Rico-Tourist%20Death/id-265b8927e93e4fcba478ab1bbb8b9ab5

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Big Boi Reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas Is the Best

I love the How the Grinch Stole Christmas. My mother used to read it to us every year at Christmas. But you know who's cooler than my mom? The rapper Big Boi. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/BHB6Ez4AVhA/big-boi-reading-how-the-grinch-stole-christmas-is-the-best

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Affectiva's Emotion Recognition Tech: When Machines Know What You're Feeling

Smile: Your computer is watching.

Affectiva, a nearly 2-year-old startup that grew out of MIT?s Media Lab, is teaching machines to understand what you feel.

Affectiva has developed a way for computers to recognize human emotions based on facial cues or physiological responses, and then use that emotion-recognition technology to help brands improve their advertising and marketing messages.

For example, Affectiva might train a webcam on users while they watch ads, tracking their smirks, smiles, frowns and furrows to measure their levels of surprise, amusement or confusion throughout a commercial and compare them to other viewers across different demographics. Affectiva also makes a wearable biosensor that can monitor the user's emotional state via her skin.

For HuffPost Tech's "Life as..." series, Affectiva?s co-founder and chief technology officer Rana El Kaliouby offered a glimpse at what happens when machines know we're amused and the future of computers with a sense for feelings.

Affectiva?s technology allows brands to not only listen in on what we say about what we?re feeling, but to actually see for themselves what we're feeling. Which industries are interested in applying Affectiva?s emotion-recognition technology to their work?

The closest use case is measuring responses to media -- whether you?re watching an advertisement, movie trailer, movie, TV show or online video. If an ad is supposed to be funny, but we look at 100 participants and none laugh, then we know it?s not really effective. The idea is to enable media creators to optimize their content.

Political polling is another big area for us -- measuring people?s responses to a political debate. There are applications in games, in all things social, and in health, too. We can read your heart rate from a webcam without you wearing anything -- we can just use the reflection of your face, which shows blood flow. Imagine having a camera on all the time monitoring your heart rate so that it can tell you if something?s wrong, if you need to get more fit, or if you?re furrowing your brow all the time and you need to relax.

What have you learned about people that you wouldn?t have known without Affectiva?s emotion-recognition technology?

In some cultures, like Middle Eastern, Egyptian or Asian cultures, people are often hesitant to give any negative feedback. There was an ad in India for body lotion, and there was one particular scene where a husband is being playful with his wife, whose tummy is showing, and he touches her tummy. We recorded women watching the video, then asked them whether they liked the ad.

Some didn?t bring up the scene at all, and others said the ad was really offensive -? ?How could you do that?? and so forth. But when we looked at the data, for 100 percent of the women, there was always an ?enjoyment? smile when they watched that scene. They clearly enjoyed it.

I can imagine politicians using Affectiva to tailor their ads to ensure potential voters feel a certain way when they see them -- overjoyed, for example -- and another way when they see their opponent -- say, terrified. How do you envision Affectiva being used in campaigns?

We measured about 100 people?s responses to the third Obama/Romney debate. In the third debate, Obama did especially well, and we found that both Democrats and Republicans responded very positively to Obama. He cracked a number of jokes and people universally found those funny. Imagine if this feedback had been given in real time to the politicians and they?d used it to optimize their messaging. I do see that happening.

affectiva emotion recognition technology

Affectiva's "Emote Your Vote" feature uses the company's Affdex technology to gauge individuals' emotional reactions to Super Bowl ads. In the picture here, the points at which the author smiled during the ad (shown bright turquoise) are contrasted with other viewers' smile activity (graphed below in green, yellow, red and magenta).

You mentioned there might be social applications of the technology. Hypothetically, could Facebook figure out what it should show me to make me feel a certain way -- i.e. that certain people?s profiles make me happy, so I should see their profiles when I?m feeling sad?

It could show you not just happy profiles, but also offer affect-based recommendations for things to do or people to talk to or things to watch. Or games can even adapt to your emotional experience, or your emotional state. There?s definitely a lot of stuff that can be done once you figure out that person?s moods.

If we?re all watching a YouTube video, it would be really cool if you could get a sense for how that YouTube video affected people?s emotional states. Say it makes you happy and you laugh your head off. We?d also know a million other people who saw that video and at that same scene also laughed. It?s very intriguing to be able to take something very human, like an expression of emotion, and share that globally.

Could companies that use Affectiva technology also manipulate our emotions to make us feel a certain way, so we?re more inclined to consume their product? For example, if Facebook knows I spend more time on the site when I?m anxious, might it try to make me anxious by showing me more content that unsettles me?

With every technology there will be misuses of it. At Affectiva, I believe we have a role to educate people about what can and can?t be done with the technology. I don?t think its super easy to manipulate people?s emotions in that way.

Although places like casinos already do try to manipulate our emotions, right? It seems like Affectiva might allow people more granular control, in real-time, to put people into the right frame of mind to shop or spend.

People do that anyhow. If you walk into Best Buy or Target, they spend a lot of effort trying to make this a place where you?d want to spend more time. All this stuff hasn?t yet been optimized for a digital experience. And I think there is an opportunity to do that and do it in a way that respects people?s emotional states.

You noted Affectiva is ?big on opt-in? and believes people should ?always be in control of what they share or do not share.? Still, reading our emotions marks a new level of intimacy with brands online. How does this change our expectation of privacy?

I think at some point somebody is going to do something that?s not opt-in, but so far everyone we?ve worked with, we?ve insisted they do it so that it?s opt-in. And sometimes we?ve pushed back. When we first started Affectiva, some of our early customers said, ?We don?t want to tell people they?re being recorded because either they?ll opt out or it?ll affect their experiences.? We?re always adamant that they tell people up front and people have to sign a consent from.

Does using Affectiva change how people express their emotions?

Early on in our research, we thought having the camera on would make people more aware of it and so they?d be less emotive or artificially more emotive. But we found that very quickly people forgot they had the cameras on. We?ve had people in their bedrooms -- they clearly forget the camera?s on.

Where might we encounter Affectiva?s technology in the future?

Anywhere from laptops to mobile phones. There?s a large percentage of mobile phones that now have a camera that?s with you a lot of the time, and there?s a lot of interest around those cameras as a data collection mechanism. And cars: we?ve done a number of projects with various car manufacturers looking at drowsy driving, distracted driving, and how to measure when people are getting angry, frustrated or bothered. There?s a lot of interest from the car people.

You can also tie emotional response with location. Think of Foursquare, but you don?t know just know where a person is, but how she?s feeling.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/24/affectiva-emotion-recognition-technology_n_2360136.html

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Monday, December 24, 2012

Audits of businesses for illegal immigrants rising

SEATTLE (AP) ? U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached its highest number yet of companies audited for illegal immigrants on their payrolls this past fiscal year.

Audits of employer I-9 forms increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000 in 2012. From fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines grew to nearly $13 million from $1 million. The number of company managers arrested has increased to 238, according to data provided by ICE.

The investigations of companies have been one of the pillars of President Barack Obama's immigration policy.

When Obama recently spoke about addressing immigration reform in his second term, he said any measure should contain penalties for companies that purposely hire illegal immigrants. It's not a new stand, but one he will likely highlight as his administration launches efforts to revamp the nation's immigration system.

"Our goal is compliance and deterrence," said Brad Bench, special agent in charge at ICE's Seattle office. "The majority of the companies we do audits on end up with no fines at all, but again it's part of the deterrence method. If companies know we're out there, looking across the board, they're more likely to bring themselves into compliance."

While the administration has used those numbers to bolster their record on immigration enforcement, advocates say the audits have pushed workers further underground by causing mass layoffs and disrupted business practices.

When the ICE audit letter arrived at Belco Forest Products, management wasn't entirely surprised. Two nearby businesses in Shelton, a small timber town on a bay off Washington state's Puget Sound, had already been investigated.

But the 2010 inquiry became a months-long process that cost the timber company experienced workers and money. It was fined $17,700 for technicalities on their record keeping.

"What I don't like is the roll of the dice," said Belco's chief financial officer Tom Behrens. "Why do some companies get audited and some don't? Either everyone gets audited or nobody does. Level the playing field."

Belco was one of 339 companies fined in fiscal year 2011 and one of thousands audited that year.

Employers are required to have their workers fill out an I-9 form that declares them authorized to work in the country. Currently, an employer needs only to verify that identifying documents look real.

The audits, part of a $138 million worksite enforcement effort, rely on ICE officers scouring over payroll records to find names that don't match Social Security numbers and other identification databases.

The audits "don't make any sense before a legalization program," said Daniel Costa, an immigration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "You're leaving the whole thing up to an employer's eyesight and subjective judgment, that's the failure of the law. There's no verification at all. Then you have is the government making a subjective judgment about subjective judgment."

An AP review of audits that resulted in fines in fiscal year 2011 shows that the federal government is fining industries across the country reliant on manual labor and that historically have hired immigrants. The data provides a glimpse into the results of a process affecting thousands of companies and thousands of workers nationwide.

Over the years, ICE has switched back-and-forth between making names of the companies fined public or not. Lately, ICE has emphasized its criminal investigations of managers, such as a Dunkin' Donuts manager in Maine sentenced to home arrest for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or a manager of an Illinois hiring firm who got 18 months in prison.

Many employers also wonder how ICE picks the companies it probes.

"Geography is not a factor. The size of the company is not a factor. And the industry it's in is not a factor. We can audit any company anywhere of any size," Bench said. He added ICE auditors follow leads from the public, other employers, employees and do perform some random audits.

But ICE auditors hit ethnic stores, restaurants, bakeries, manufacturing companies, construction, food packaging, janitorial services, catering, dairies and farms. The aviation branch of corporate giant GE, franchises of sandwich shop Subway and a subsidiary of food product company Heinz were among some of the companies with national name recognition. GE was fined $2,000.

In fiscal year 2011, the most recent year reviewed by AP, the median fine was $11,000. The state with the most workplaces fined was Texas with 63, followed by New Jersey with 37.

The lowest fine was $90 to a Massachusetts fishing company. The highest fine was $394,944 to an employment agency in Minneapolis, according to the data released to AP through a public records request.

A Subway spokesman said the company advises franchise owners to follow the law. A Heinz spokesman declined comment.

Bench didn't have specifics on what percentage of fines come from companies having illegal immigrants on their payroll, as opposed to technical paperwork fines in recent years.

Julie Wood, a former deputy director at ICE who now runs a consulting firm, said she'd like to see the burden of proving the legality of a company's workforce go from the employer to the government. She'd like to see a type of program, such as E-Verify, be implemented with the I-9 employment form. E-Verify is a voluntary and free program for private employers that checks a workers eligibility.

"At the end of the day, the fine is the least of it," she said. "Usually the company will spend more on legal fees. But it is a huge headache for the company to lose workers."

Wood said she'd like to see the agency go after more criminal charges and focus on companies that treat worker inhumanely.

___

Manuel Valdes can be reached at http://twitter.com/ByManuelValdes

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-12-23-Immigration-Audits/id-aacca416c1da492eb03aaf3fe101da8c

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Catalina Island Conservancy loses 3 more board members

The conservancy that manages nine-tenths of Catalina Island began caving in on itself last week as a scientist and three members of the board of directors, one of them a major donor, walked away over differences with the organization's top executive.

Their departures bring to 10 the number of scientists and officials who have quit in recent months citing what they say is Executive Director Ann Muscat's controversial leadership style and differences over the direction she is taking the 40-year-old Catalina Island Conservancy.

"The organization is imploding," Roy Rose, a Catalina resident and businessman who resigned from the board last week, said Friday while standing on the veranda of his home overlooking Avalon's cozy harbor.

Rose, 77, said he had written the nonprofit out of his will, depriving it of more than $10 million. "I felt betrayed and misled," Rose said.

Muscat remains on the job by virtue of what sources said was an 8-7 vote by the board in a closed session Dec. 14. Some board members wanted to fire her immediately, but a majority preferred to keep her until a replacement is found, the sources said.

On Dec. 17, however, the conservancy announced that Muscat had retained the full support of the board. The statement contributed to some of the recent resignations.

Muscat, a marine biologist hired a decade ago, is pushing development of new tourist attractions to bring badly needed revenue to the conservancy and the island's tourism-oriented businesses. The conservancy manages most of the island's wild lands, operating on $12 million a year from donations and earned revenue.

Some of those who left the conservancy disagreed with the emphasis on tourism over conservation.

A more recent concern of some board members was the discovery that Muscat's employment contract had been renegotiated earlier this year without their approval. Muscat earns $286,000 a year, according to state tax reports. Conservancy officials Friday said the contract had been renegotiated by an executive committee, which consists of three board members.

Board Chairman John Cotton said the contract negotiations were conducted "under the guidance of a longtime outside counsel."

Cotton said the dissent reflected strong dissatisfaction with Muscat and the board. "We respect and are very thankful for all our donors," he said. "Hopefully, through a dialogue, we can come to an understanding."

Muscat could not be reached by telephone, and Norris Bishton, head of legal affairs for the conservancy, said she was not available to comment.

Other troubling issues involve Muscat's use of an assistant's conservancy credit card, which Muscat is authorized to review, instead of one issued to her, which the chief operating officer is authorized to review. Mel Dinkel, the conservancy's most recent treasurer and chief operating officer, resigned in May.

Separately, conservancy attorneys investigated a claim that the nonprofit violated its rules by paying about $5,000 in travel expenses for Muscat's husband to join her on a conservancy-sponsored "donor development trip" in 2009 to an island off Baja California, Mexico.

Sources say Muscat later reimbursed the organization after other officers pointed out that there was no policy for covering a spouse's travel costs in full.

For some, the issue goes beyond Muscat. Despite plans to replace her, they say, the board's behavior has taken a toll on the organization's credibility.

Many of the conservancy's 75 employees are now weighing their options.

"I believe deeply in the organization and its mission ? but things don't look good," said a conservancy manager, who asked to remain anonymous. "Many of these issues can be resolved. But do I want to spend the next five years helping dig the organization out of the hole it's in?"

Regina Birdsell, a marketing and communications executive with the Center for Nonprofit Management, said board of directors of nonprofits need to operate transparently "because that is a sign of confidence that it is well-run and focused on achieving its mission." Renegotiating an executive officer's contract without the board's approval, she added, "is sloppy governance."

Rose would not argue with that.

"For years, I was so passionate about the conservancy that I donated $20,000 to $30,000 a year," he said. "In my original will, they were to receive my home and a commercial building I own in Avalon that has 24,000 square feet of space and is fully leased."

"Not anymore. I wrote the conservancy out of my will, and I did it with a sense of urgency," he said. "I do not believe the conservancy could handle such gifts responsibly."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/7S9ZV9m-WVo/la-me-catalina-dissent-20121224,0,5367163.story

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Egypt's Brotherhood claims draft charter passes

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood claims that the disputed Islamist-backed constitution has passed with a 64 percent 'yes' vote after a two-round referendum.

The unofficial results announced by the Islamist group Sunday come a day before the election commission is expected to announce the final official tally for voting organized over two weeks.

According to the Brotherhood tally based on results from individual polling stations as well as voting abroad, around 64 percent of 16.6 million approved the constitution. Brotherhood totals have been accurate for earlier elections.

The local media has reported comparable results. The comparatively low turnout of 32 percent of eligible voters, as well as allegations by the opposition of voting violations, threatens to undermine the constitution's legitimacy and keep Egypt polarized.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-brotherhood-claims-draft-charter-passes-090621045.html

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NOPD seeking missing 11-year-old Algiers girl | NOLA.com

The NOPD is seeking a missing 11-year-old girl from Algiers. Emyri Smith was last seen about 5 p.m. Friday at her mother's house in the 2000 block of Lebouf Street, police said.

Smith's mother said she assumed her daughter had gone with her younger sister to a store and later to a neighborhood friend's house. When the mother's younger daughter returned home Saturday about 6 p.m., the mother learned Emyri Smith had never been with the neighborhood friend and was missing.

Police urge anyone seeing or knowing the whereabouts of Emyri Smith to contact the New Orleans Police Department at 504.821.2222.

Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/12/nopd_seeking_missing_11-year-o.html

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RE/MAX Named No. 1 Real Estate Franchise by Entrepreneur

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Saturday, December 22, 2012

Nokia and RIM settle 'all legal action', shake hands on new patent ...

Nokia and RIM enter into new patent license agreement

RIM payments to Nokia settle all legal actions between the companies

Espoo, Finland - Nokia has entered into a new patent license agreement with Research In Motion. The agreement will result in settlement of all existing patent litigation between the companies and withdrawal of pending actions in the US, UK and Canada related to a recent arbitration tribunal decision.

The financial structure of the agreement includes a one-time payment and on-going payments, all from RIM to Nokia. The specific terms of the agreement are confidential.

"We are very pleased to have resolved our patent licensing issues with RIM and reached this new agreement, while maintaining Nokia's ability to protect our unique product differentiation," said Paul Melin, chief intellectual property officer at Nokia. "This agreement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 45 billion in research and development and built the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolio, with around 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia's strong patent position.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/nokia-and-rim-patent-agreement/

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Black Lotus to Donate Revenue from Westboro Baptist Church to ...

Black Lotus Communications will donate revenue it made from hosting the website of the Westboro Baptist Church to charity.Black Lotus Communications will donate revenue it made from hosting the website of the Westboro Baptist Church to charity.

DDoS protection solutions provider Black Lotus Communications announced on Friday it will donate revenue it made from hosting the website of the Westboro Baptist Church to charity.

The announcement comes after hactivist group Anonymous called on the web hosts and security providers that are servicing the independent fundamentalist Christian church?s website to stop doing business with the church.

The ban was in response to the church?s planned protest against the funerals of the victims in last Friday?s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut for which it blames on same-sex marriage legislation.

Black Lotus has recently been providing security solutions for Westboro?s website, following a series of online attacks. Earlier this week,?the Church?s website was defaced and shut down for nearly a day, while the Twitter accounts of the Church?s spokeswoman and leader were hacked and taken control of by Anonymous.

The situation brings attention to the debate of whether or not a web host or IT service provider should continue providing services to a client once learning that the client is hosting content the is deemed inappropriate or offensive. Black Lotus seems to take the stance that it has a responsibility to respect its clients? freedom of expression.

?As a security service, we value freedom of expression ? and have mandate to guarantee passage of data across the internet, which ultimately means that companies like Black Lotus should not interrupt services based solely on public opinion,? Jeffrey Lyon, certified information systems security professional with the Black Lotus team told Wikinews. ?By terminating their service, we would not actually take their sites offline. Instead, they would be without DDoS protection for a short period of time until they found another service that would harbor them. This logic did not add up for us.?

The online attacks came after the church announced plans earlier this week to protest the funerals of the victims in last Friday?s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, blaming the shooting on Connecticut?s same-sex marriage legislation.

?We have received overwhelming support for donations to be given to various groups supporting the Newtown community, veterans groups like the Wounded Warrior Project, and LGBT groups like The Trevor Project,? said Lyon, adding that The United Way may be the first charity to receive its donation.

Lyon said Black Lotus decided to donate revenue made from WBC to charity after ?Anonymous? supporters began a full blown Twitter campaign boycotting any company who provides services to WBC,? as well as ?reached out to Anonymous spokespersons and asked their opinions on how the matter should be handled.?

So far, the amount Black Lotus has received ?from WBC is very small? and will ?actually make donations well in excess? of the fees WBC pays, said Lyon, adding that it has already informed WBC of its intentions.

And while the charitable donations only include revenue received from the WBC, Black Lotus hopes to expand the project to include other customers, said Lyon.

Black Lotus DDoS protection service, Human Behavior Analysis, was recently operating on the OnApp cloud hosting software, and earlier this year, Black Lotus began providing Australian web hosting and domain name provider VentraIP Group with enterprise-grade DDoS protection.

Talk back: Do you believe that web hosting and Internet service companies should respect their client?s right to freedom of expression when hosting the content of a ?hate group?? Do you think the web hosting provider of Westboro Baptist Church will follow Black Lotus? lead and donate its revenue to charities? Let us know in the comments.

Justin Lee

About Justin Lee

Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.

Source: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/black-lotus-to-donate-revenue-from-westboro-baptist-church-to-charity

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