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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Glass Protector Protects Glass iPhone Screen
The scratches on my iPad 2 screen drive me crazy, but floppy matte screen protectors drive me even crazier. They cut out light from the screen, lower contrast and move when you touch them thanks to their edge-only sticky strips. Spigen’s GLAS.t fixes this. It’s a screen protector made from tempered glass and, at just [...]
Monday, January 30, 2012
[OOC] 1 more demon
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Please post all "Players Wanted" threads in the Roleplayers Wanted forum!
This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Welcome to the Hell Games?. Anything posted here will also show up there.Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.guys we need one more demon sonime and sonima are 1 group they always work together
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No podcasts tonight, see you Wednesday!
Sadly there will be no Apps and Accessories Live or ZEN and TECH tonight as Rene is delayed en route back from Macworld 2012 and Seth is, according to Rene,
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
'The Sting' actress Dimitra Arliss dies in LA (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? Dimitra Arliss, who played a hired killer alongside Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the caper comedy "The Sting," has died in Los Angeles. She was 79.
Jaime Larkin, a spokesperson for the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital, says Arliss died Jan. 26 at the Woodland Hills facility of complications from a stroke.
The Ohio native began her acting career at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. On Broadway, Arliss starred opposite Stacy Keach in "Indians" and with Kevin Kline and John Malkovich in "Arms and the Man."
After appearing as a "hit lady" in the 1973 hit "The Sting," she was seen in "Xanadu," starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, and in Clint Eastwood's "Firefox."
Her numerous television credits include "Dallas," "Quincy M.E.," and "Rich Man, Poor Man."
Arliss is survived by a sister.
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Golden Triangle: Who killed 13 sailors?
ON THE MEKONG RIVER?? A thin line divides tourism, trade and terror in the Golden Triangle, where the lawless borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.
In Myanmar, where the jungly banks of the Mekong River vanish into the mist, lies an anarchic realm of drug smugglers, militiamen and pirates on speedboats. "I'm scared to go any further," says Kan, a 46-year-old boatman, cutting his engine as he drifts just inside Myanmar waters from Thailand. "It's too dangerous."
It was here, according to the Thai military, that 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were murdered in early October. It was the deadliest assault on Chinese nationals overseas in modern times. But a Reuters investigation casts serious doubts on the official account of the attack.
The Thai military says the victims were killed upriver before their ships floated downstream into Thailand. But evidence gleaned from Thai officials and unpublished police and military reports suggests that some, if not all, of the sailors were still alive when their boats crossed into Thailand, and that they were executed and tossed overboard inside Thai territory.
Their assailants remain unknown. Initially, the prime suspect was a heavily armed Mekong pirate who terrorizes shipping in Myanmar. But then the investigation turned to nine members of an elite anti-narcotics taskforce of the Thai military.
New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue.
Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. Its Chinese owner regards it as a "second homeland"; others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost.
China's Mekong ambitions
The geopolitical murder mystery is unfolding at a time when Myanmar is in the international spotlight. The country's decision last year to end a half-century of isolation by freeing political prisoners and reaching out to the West has the potential of to reshape this promising but impoverished nation and the entire region.
But the killings also underscore the backdrop of lawlessness, rebellion and international power politics bedeviling Myanmar.
The geopolitical murder mystery is set against the backdrop of Southeast Asia's famed Mekong River, which flows from the Himalayas through China, where it is called the Lancang, and into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Around 60 million people depend on the river and its tributaries for food, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives. Beijing has invested heavily in the Mekong as part of a strategy to expand its economic and diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia, dynamiting some sections to allow bigger ships to pass, streamlining import and export procedures, and improving shipping support facilities.
The Mekong is an increasingly lucrative trade route. Cargo volumes between Thailand's Chiang Saen and ports in China's Yunnan province have tripled since 2004, with about 300,000 tones of mainly agricultural goods now transported along the Mekong every year, Mekong River Commission statistics show.
All Chinese shipping on the Mekong was suspended after the October massacre, which sparked popular outrage in China, with photos of the sailors' bodies circulating widely on the Internet. Shipping resumed five weeks later, with the departure of 10 cargo boats from the Mekong port of Guanlei -- protected by heavily armed Chinese border guards on speedboats.
The patrols, ostensibly conducted with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, are a major expansion in Beijing's role in regional security, extending its law enforcement beyond its borders, down a highly strategic waterway and into Southeast Asia. They come as the U.S. re-engages with Asia, where Thailand is one of its oldest military allies.
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"This tough new China policy toward any obstacles to their Mekong commerce could in future be met with charges of gunboat diplomacy," said Paul Chambers, an American academic who co-authored "Cashing In Across The Golden Triangle" with Myanmar economist Thein Swe. "In the future, some Mekong states may increasingly turn to the U.S. to offset China's influence."
Meth madness
But as Chinese influence grows, it is encroaching on a region dominated for decades by a much more profitable trade: narcotics. The mountainous Golden Triangle is probably named after the gold once used to barter for opium. Today, Myanmar is the world's second-biggest opium producer after Afghanistan. Methamphetamine production here is soaring as well.
Even a show of strength by China hasn't tamed this wilderness. Three Myanmar soldiers were reportedly killed in December when their joint patrol with Laos clashed with armed bandits about 20 km (12 miles) upriver from the Thai border town of Sop Ruak, near the Mekong pirate Naw Kham's haunt of Sam Puu Island.
It was here that the two Chinese vessels were supposedly attacked.
On the morning of October 5, the two cargo ships, Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, drifted down the Mekong into Thailand. The Hua Ping was carrying fuel oil; the Yu Xing 8 had apples and garlic. Sometime after they crossed the border, the ships were boarded by an elite Thai military unit called the Pha Muang Taskforce, named after an ancient Thai warrior king. On the Yu Xing 8's blood-splattered bridge, slumped over an AK-47 assault rifle, was a dead man later identified as its captain, Yang Deyi, the taskforce said. The Hua Ping was deserted.
Aboard the two ships were 920,000 methamphetamine pills with an estimated Thai street value of $6 million.
The corpses of the 12 other crew members were soon plucked from the Mekong's swirling waters. Their horrific injuries were recorded in a Thai police report. Most victims had been gagged and blindfolded with duct tape and cloth, with their hands bound or handcuffed behind their backs. Some had massive head wounds suggesting execution-style killings; others had evidently been sprayed with bullets.
Li Yan, 28, one of two female cooks among the victims, also had a broken neck.
Thai involvement?
As a furious Beijing dispatched senior officials to Thailand to demand answers, a suspect for the massacre emerged: Naw Kham, the fugitive "freshwater pirate" of the Mekong, a member of Myanmar's ethnic Shan minority whose hill tribe militia is accused of drug trafficking, robbery, kidnapping and murder.
Naw Kham is not the only suspect. On October 28, nine members of the Pha Muang Taskforce appeared before police in the northern city of Chiang Rai to answer allegations of murder and tampering with evidence. During a visit to Bangkok in late October, China's vice minister of public security, Zhang Xinfeng, described this as "important progress" and concluded: "The case has been basically cracked."
In reality, the case is far from solved.
Thai police have interviewed more than 100 witnesses and are still investigating. Despite reports to the contrary in Chinese and Thai media, the nine soldiers -- who include a major and a lieutenant -- have not been charged with any crime and remain on active military duty.
The Pha Muang Taskforce says its members boarded the Chinese ships after they had moored near the Thai port of Chiang Saen. But a prominent Thai parliamentary committee, which is also investigating the massacre, not only undermined this assertion but alleged official complicity.
"Circumstantial evidence suggests that Thai officials were involved in the sailors' deaths," the House Foreign Affairs Standing Committee said on January 12 in an apparent reference to the military task force. "However, their motive, and whether it is connected to the drugs found on the ships, remains inconclusive," it said in preliminary findings seen by Reuters.
Early the next morning after that report, unknown assailants on the Myanmar riverbank lobbed two M-79 grenades at four Chinese cargo ships and a Myanmar patrol boat. Both missed. Ten days after that, yet another Chinese ship was fired upon from the Laos bank. Again, nobody was hurt - and nobody identified for the attack.
'Opium king'
Naw Kham has become a near-legendary figure. So many shipping attacks are attributed to this 46-year-old ethnic Shan that it seems as if the Mekong ambitions of the Asian superpower are being foiled by a medieval-style drug lord with a few dozen hill tribe gunmen.
Naw Kham started out as a lowly administrative officer in the now-defunct Mong Tai Army (MTA), said Khuensai Jaiyen, a Shan journalist who also once served in the same Shan rebel group. The MTA's leader was Khun Sa, the so-called "opium king" of the Golden Triangle, who had a $2 million reward on his head from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration until his death in Yangon in 2007.
But while Khun Sa was a flamboyant figure who courted media attention, Naw Kham is so publicity shy only two photos purporting to be him exist. Both are blurred, and show a faintly smiling man with protruding ears, thick eyebrows and a mop of black hair.
One of the photos is attached to an Interpol red notice seeking the arrest of a fugitive Myanmar national of the same name. The notice lists the man's birthplace as Mongyai, a remote area of Myanmar's war-ravaged Shan State.
A second big difference between Khun Sa and Naw Kham: the drugs that allegedly enriched them.
Opium and heroin are no longer the Golden Triangle's only products. Since the late 1990s, secret factories in Shan State have churned out vast quantities of methamphetamine. This highly addictive drug is known across Asia in pill form by the Thai name yaba ("crazy medicine") and in its purer crystalline form as ice or shabu.
It is now the top drug in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime reported in 2011. Naw Kham's rise coincided with this explosion of meth use, which transformed the ill-policed Mekong between Myanmar and Laos -- Naw Kham's patch -- into one of Southeast Asia's busiest drug conduits.
Every year hundreds of millions of Myanmar-made methamphetamine pills are spirited across the river into Laos or down into Thailand. The trade is worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- enough to corrupt poorly paid law enforcement officials across the region.
Narcotics are not the Mekong's only contraband.
Other lucrative goods include: endangered wildlife such as tigers and pangolins; weapons, stolen vehicles and illegal timber; and, in the run-up to this month's Tet celebrations, thousands of dogs in filthy cages bound for restaurants in Vietnam.
There is human contraband too. Illegal migrants from Myanmar and Laos are bound for Thailand's booming construction or sex industries, while a constant stream of North Koreans journey across southern China and through Laos to surrender to the Thai authorities, who obligingly deport them to South Korea.
'Made-up character'
Naw Kham gets a cut of "anything that makes money and passes through his territory," said Kheunsai Jaiyen, who runs the Shan Herald Agency for News, a leading source of news from largely inaccessible Shan State, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He believed the most recent attack on a Chinese ship happened because the crew, thinking the new patrols would protect them, didn't pay the usual protection money to Naw Kham.
Naw Kham proved impossible to reach for comment: Thai boats dared not sail to Sam Puu Island. Kheunsai Jaiyen said he was in hiding.
The freshwater pirate has capitalized on growing resentment towards China's presence along the Mekong. Cheap, high-volume Chinese goods are squeezing Thai and Myanmar farmers and small traders, and threatening to turn Laos into what Paul Chambers called "a mere way-station".
So when the crew of the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8 were fished from the Mekong, Naw Kham seemed the obvious culprit. Yet both Kheunsai Jaiyen and Thai MP Sunai Chulpongsatorn, who chairs the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, remained unconvinced. Sunai believed that a Naw Kham legend had been created by attributing attacks by other Mekong bandits to him.
"There are many Naw Khams, not just one," he said. "It's like in a drama. He's a made-up character. He exists, but it seems he has been given a lot of extra importance."
Lost in China's outrage over the massacre was the possibility that the Chinese sailors were themselves involved in the drug trade. One theory holds that Naw Kham suspected that the Chinese vessels contained large shipments of narcotics, and dispatched men to seize the illicit cargo and brutally murder the crew to deter others from running drugs through his territory.
Where was ship attacked?
The Pha Muang Taskforce, based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, insists that Naw Kham, and not its nine soldiers, is responsible for murdering the Chinese sailors. The taskforce declined to be interviewed for this story, citing the ongoing investigation.
But Reuters has obtained the taskforce's report of the incident to the foreign affairs committee in November. It stated that on October 5 the Pha Muang force boarded the two cargo ships in Chiang Saen after learning they had been attacked near Sam Puu Island. They reported finding the dead captain on the Yu Xing 8's bridge and, in its hold, a cardboard box with 400,000 methamphetamine pills. Another 520,000 pills were hidden in three sacks aboard the Hua Ping.
Both ships were peppered with bullet-holes. There were 14 bullets or bullet casings on the Hua Ping's decks, said Thai police, and two blood trails apparently indicating where bodies had been dragged and tossed overboard.
For Pha Muang, it was just another incident in its self-declared 11-year-old mission "to help secure the well-being of civilians residing along the three-nation border." But the taskforce's account has crucial gaps, said MP Sunai, the parliamentary committee chairman investigating the murders.
Pha Muang said the ships had already docked near Chiang Saen when its soldiers boarded them. But if one ship had only a dead captain aboard, and the other no crew at all, how did they drift down the fast-flowing Mekong without running aground, then safely moor near Chiang Saen?
"It's a 200-tonne ship," said Sunai. "With nobody steering, it would have lost control long before it reached the riverbank."
The same point is made by a senior Thai official in Chiang Rai province who is close to the investigation and spoke on condition his name and exact profession were not identified. The boats could not have docked without both a captain and engineer on board, and they would probably need to read Chinese to understand the controls, he insisted.
He was also convinced that some, if not all, of the Chinese sailors were alive when their ships reached Thailand. According to witnesses, he said, four smaller boats had escorted the two ships through Thai waters to the sound of gunfire.
When the ships moored, about seven men jumped from them onto the smaller boats, the Thai official said, which then sped upriver again. The Thai official couldn't say who these men were, but believed that the military, who had sealed off the area, watched them go.
Gambling empire
On the Laotian bank of the Mekong, clearly visible from where the ill-fated Chinese ships stopped, an enormous crown rises above the tree line. It belongs to a casino, part of a burgeoning gambling empire hacked from the Laotian jungle by a Chinese company called Kings Romans in English and, in Chinese, Jin Mu Mian ("golden kapok"), after the kapok trees that carpet the area with flame-red flowers.
Kings Romans controls a 102-sq-km (39-sq-mile) special economic zone (SEZ) which occupies seven km (four miles) of prime Mekong riverbank overlooking Myanmar and Thailand. The company's chairman is also the SEZ's president: Zhao Wei, a casino tycoon who hails from a poor peasant family in China's northeastern Heilongjang province.
Zhao was unable to talk to Reuters because he was preparing to welcome Laotian president Choummaly Sayasone to a Chinese New Year festival, said Li Linjun, Kings Romans tourism manager. Li offered a tour of a Special Economic Zone into which he said the company had so far sunk $800 million.
Fountains and golden statues flank the main road from the pier to the casino. Across the road is a banner in Chinese exhorting people to "join hands to beat drugs."
Two gargantuan lion statues guard the entrance to the casino. Inside, beyond the security gates, a marble staircase lit by a giant chandelier sweeps up to a golden statue of a nameless, bare-chested Roman emperor. The ceilings are decorated with reproductions of Renaissance frescoes.
Under construction nearby is a karaoke and massage complex, fashioned after a Chinese temple. The resort also offers a shooting range, complete with AK47 and M16 assault rifles, and a petting zoo.
An average of about 1,000 people visit the casino every day, said Li. (Gambling is illegal in both Laos and China.) But Zhao Wei didn't intend to create a "little Macau", mimicking China's casino-stuffed enclave on the Pearl River estuary. Li notes that Kings Romans controls an area "bigger than Macau" - three times bigger, in fact - and plans to build an industrial park and ecotourism facilities.
New airport
Next month, said Li, construction begins on what will be the second-largest airport in Laos after Wattay International Airport in the capital Vientiane.
Perhaps aware of anti-Chinese resentment, Li hailed Kings Romans as a model of responsible investment. About 40 percent of the complex's 3,000 workers were Chinese, he said, but the rest came from Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. He then showed off a compound with scores of modest concrete houses which he said were given free to local Laotians who had once lived in wooden shacks. "These might be the happiest people in Laos," he said.
Li called Laos "our second homeland." The SEZ certainly felt a lot like China. Most croupiers are Chinese. Most gamblers pay in Chinese yuan or Thai baht. The mobile phone signal is provided by a Chinese company. Street signs are in Chinese and English.
The passports of visitors are processed by Chinese and Laotian immigration officers. The area is protected by the Lao People's Army, said Li, but when Reuters visited, the only car patrolling the streets belonged to the Chinese police.
When asked about the 13 Chinese sailors, Li's eyes brim with tears. "I feel so sorry for my compatriots," he said. Yet he believed their deaths would have no impact on business because "people know that we are not connected to this case."
Yet Kings Romans has brushed against both the drug trade and Naw Kham. Last April, a casino boat was seized by the freshwater pirate's men near Sam Puu Island and 19 crewmen held for a 22-million-baht ($733,000) ransom, which Zhao Wei paid, the Shan Herald Agency for News reported.
Then, in September, an operation by Laotian and Chinese officials found 20 sacks of yaba pills worth $1.6 million in the casino grounds, according to Thai media reports.
Li denied all knowledge of the yaba bust or that the kidnapping had even taken place, stressing that Zhao Wei came to the Golden Triangle to build an economic alternative to the narcotics trade. He said he had never heard of Naw Kham. "Maybe it's gossip. That's why they call this place the mysterious Golden Triangle."
Distant outpost of China
Equally mysterious was the special economic zone's future ambitions. The area it occupied was so large and strategically located that it might one day be used as a Chinese military base, the Thai official in Chiang Rai said.
That might be far-fetched. But the Golden Triangle SEZ and similar schemes elsewhere in Laos and Myanmar "signify that China is prepared to remain entrenched in the Greater Mekong Subregion," said Chambers. "They provide an exit for southwestern China to entrepots in Myanmar and Thailand, and then to markets abroad. Such schemes in fact need security to protect them."
If the Golden Triangle SEZ is a distant outpost of China, a "second homeland," then it is poignant that 13 Chinese men and women -- blindfolded, gagged, terrified -- could have sailed past it in the final moments of their lives.
The Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8 are still moored at Chiang Saen, across the river from the casino, their rusting flanks cordoned off with police crime-scene tape. Nearby, workers are loading dried goods and soft drinks onto another Chinese ship, the Hong Li, bound for the Myanmar port of Sop Lui.
"Of course we're worried about security, but we're encouraged by the presence of Chinese patrols," said a crew member, who only identified himself by the family name Deng. Asked about his 13 dead compatriots, he echoed what is now a common misperception in China: nine Thai soldiers have admitted their guilt and will be held responsible for the killings.
"We want the truth. That's the most important thing," said Deng, before the Hong Li sailed up the Mekong and into the void.
Reporting By Andrew R.C. Marshall, editing by Jason Szep, Bill Tarrant and Mike Williams
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46164812/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
American economy not healthy yet, but it's healing (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The American economy may not be truly healthy yet, but it's healing.
The 2.8 percent annual growth rate reported Friday for the fourth quarter was the fastest since spring 2010 and was the third straight quarter that growth has accelerated.
Experts cautioned, however, that the pace was unlikely to last and that it's not enough to sharply drive down the unemployment rate.
Unemployment stands at 8.5 percent ? its lowest level in nearly three years after a sixth straight month of solid hiring. And Friday's Commerce Department report suggests more hiring gains ahead.
For the final three months of 2011, Americans spent more on vehicles, and companies restocked their supplies at a robust pace.
Still, overall growth last quarter ? and for all of last year ? was slowed by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades. And many people are reluctant to spend more or buy homes, and many employers remain hesitant to hire, even though job growth has strengthened.
The outlook for 2012 is slightly better. The Federal Reserve has estimated economic growth of roughly 2.5 percent for the year, despite abundant risk factors: federal spending cuts, weak pay increases, cautious consumers and the risk of a European recession.
Economists noted that most of the growth in the October-December quarter was due to companies restocking their supplies at the fastest rate in nearly two years. That pace is expected to slow.
"The pickup in growth doesn't look half as good when you realize that most of it was due to inventory accumulation," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.
Ashworth expects annualized growth to slip below 2 percent in the current January-March quarter. Other economists have similar estimates.
Stocks opened lower after the government reported the growth figures. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 74 points. Broader indexes were mixed.
In a normal economy, roughly 3 percent growth is a healthy figure. It's enough to keep unemployment down ? but not so much growth as to ignite inflation.
But coming out of a recession, much stronger growth is needed. By some estimates, the economy would have to expand at least 5 percent for a full year to drive down the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point.
In many ways, the economy did end 2011 on a strong note. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December.
People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence has risen. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough incremental gains to lead some economists to detect the start of a turnaround.
In the final three months of 2011, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That was up modestly from the July-September quarter. Consumer spending is critical because it fuels about 70 percent of the economy.
Much of the growth was powered by a 15 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods.
Incomes, which have been weak because of still-high unemployment, grew ever so slightly, at a tepid 0.8 percent annual rate, following two straight quarterly declines. Unless pay picks up, consumers who have dipped into savings in recent months may pull back.
"Consumers don't have much income growth, and to even achieve a 2 percent growth rate in spending in the fourth quarter, they had to run down their saving rate," said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.
And government spending at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year ? the sharpest drop since 1971. Defense cuts at the start and end of the year were a key factor. With Congress aiming to shrink budget deficits, the likelihood of further federal spending cuts could weigh on the economy.
Economic growth is measured by the change in the gross domestic product, or GDP. The GDP reflects the value of all goods and services ? from machinery to manicures to hotel bookings to jet fighters ? produced in the United States.
Friday's estimate of GDP growth was the first of three for the October-December quarter. The figure will be revised twice, in February and then in March.
Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics, is among the more optimistic analysts. He said he thought business investment in capital goods would be stronger and consumer spending higher this year.
Many fear that a likely recession in Europe could cool demand for U.S. manufactured goods. Growth would slow. Without many more jobs and better pay, consumer spending could weaken.
The Fed signaled this week that a full economic recovery could take at least three more years.
Although things may not be good, they're getting better.
Gault predicts the economy will create an average of 150,000 jobs a month in 2012 based on his expectation that the year will be slightly stronger than 2011. Last year, the economy created an average 133,000 jobs a month.
"We are starting to see improvements in the housing market, and consumers are working down their debt levels," Gault said. "That is all good and will help us this year."
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'One For The Money' 'Not Just A Chick Flick,' Stars Say
'There's explosions and there's shooting! You're gonna like it too,' Katherine Heigl tells MTV News, selling her new movie to men.
By Christina Garibaldi
Katherine Heigl and Daniel Sunjata in "One For the Money"
Photo: Lionsgate
NEW YORK — Since parting ways with "Grey's Anatomy," Katherine Heigl has established herself as a queen of romantic comedies, starring in several "chick flicks" such as "27 Dresses," "Life as We Know It" and "New Year's Eve."
In her latest movie, "One for the Money," based on the best-selling Janet Evanovich novel, Heigl takes on the role of Stephanie Plum, a tough Jersey girl who becomes a recovery agent sent to track down a murder suspect — who just so happens to be her ex-boyfriend.
If it sounds like the perfect recipe for a ladies' night out, not so fast. At the movie's New York premiere, Heigl promised that "One for the Money" will keep women and men on the edge of their seats.
"I wouldn't qualify it as a romantic comedy. It's got [romance] and it's got comedy, but it's mostly about this sort of murder-mystery undertone that keeps it moving and keeps the pace going," Heigl told MTV News. "I always feel like I'm selling it to men, like, 'There's explosions and there's shooting! You're gonna like it too, I promise!' "
Lending her comedic chops to the flick, "The View" co-host Sherri Shepherd agreed with Heigl's assessment: "It's a lot of action and it's a lot of fun. It's something that I think my husband, who is 6-6, 280 pounds, would love. So no, it's not just a chick flick; it's a fun film."
Now, if the ladies of the film haven't convinced non-female moviegoers, they may want to take some advice from their male co-stars.
"There's action sequences," Daniel Sunjata said. "There's definitely a healthy enough dose of testosterone and really good storytelling that I think the guys will have a great time at this movie too."
Heigl's love interest in the film, Jason O'Mara, added, "I think if the guys come and see it, there's gonna be lots in it for them. This is not a frilly romantic comedy. With all due respect to Katie's past work, this is not '27 Dresses.' There's something kind of edgy, something kinda blue-collar about this that gives it a bit of a realism, and I think it's cool. Whether you're male or female, I think you're gonna have a good time."
Check out everything we've got on "One for the Money."
For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677999/one-for-the-money-katherine-heigl-chick-flick.jhtml
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Fitch cuts Italy, Spain, other euro zone ratings (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Fitch downgraded the sovereign credit ratings of Belgium, Cyprus, Italy, Slovenia and Spain on Friday, indicating there was a 1-in-2 chance of further cuts in the next two years.
In a statement, the ratings agency said the affected countries were vulnerable in the near-term to monetary and financial shocks.
"Consequently, these sovereigns do not, in Fitch's view, accrue the full benefits of the euro's reserve currency status," it said.
Fitch cut Italy's rating to A-minus from A-plus; Spain to A from AA-minus; Belgium to AA from AA-plus; Slovenia to A from AA-minus and Cyprus to BBB-minus from BBB, leaving the small island nation just one notch above junk status.
Ireland's rating of BBB-plus was affirmed.
All of the ratings were given negative outlooks.
Fitch said it had weighed up a worsening economic outlook in much of the euro zone against the European Central Bank's December move to flood the banking sector with cheap three-year money and austerity efforts by governments to curb their debts.
"Overall, today's rating actions balance the marked deterioration in the economic outlook with both the substantive policy initiatives at the national level to address macro-financial and fiscal imbalances, and the initial success of the ECB's three-year Long-Term Refinancing Operation in easing near-term sovereign and bank funding pressures," Fitch said.
Two weeks ago, Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, and pushing struggling Portugal into junk territory.
With nearly half a trillion euros of ECB liquidity coursing through the financial system, some of which has apparently gone into euro zone government bonds, and with hopes of a deal to write down a slab of Greece's mountainous debt, even that sweeping ratings action had little market impact.
The euro briefly pared gains against the dollar after Fitch cut the five euro zone sovereigns but soon jumped to a session high of $1.3208, according to Reuters data, its highest since December 13.
Italy is widely seen as the tipping point for the euro zone. If it slid towards default, the whole currency project would be threatened.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, a technocrat who has won plaudits for his economic reform drive, said he reacted to Fitch's downgrade of Italy with "detached serenity."
"They signal things that are not particularly new, for example, that Italy has a very high debt as a percentage of GDP and they signal that the way the euro zone is governed as a whole is not perfect and we knew that too," he said during a live interview on Italian television.
"They also say things that give a positive view of what is being done in Italy because there is much appreciation for policies of this government and this parliament," he said.
Fitch said of Italy: "A more severe rating action was forestalled by the strong commitment of the Italian government to reducing the budget deficit and to implementing structural reform as well as the significant easing of near-term financing risks as a result of the ECB's 3-year Longer-term Refinancing Operation."
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, Daniel Bases, Philip Pullela and Pam Niimi, writing by Mike Peacock, Editing by James Dalgleish)
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For the birds: Winged predators seek certain trees when foraging for caterpillars
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? Location matters for birds on the hunt for caterpillars, according to researchers at UC Irvine and Wesleyan University. Findings suggest that chickadees and others zero in on the type of tree as much as the characteristics of their wriggly prey.
Unfortunately for caterpillars, munching on tree leaves that are healthy and tasty can dramatically boost their own risk of becoming food. Study results, published online this week in The American Naturalist, show that dining on the trees that are most nutritious for caterpillars -- such as the black cherry -- can increase by 90 percent their chances of being devoured by a discerning bird.
"The jump in risk is surprising," said co-author Kailen Mooney, assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UCI. "It shows that for caterpillars, moving from one tree to the next can mean the difference between getting eaten and surviving."
The findings indicate a "neat potential pest control system," because the healthiest tree species harbor the greatest number of caterpillars, thereby offering the easiest pickings for winged predators, said lead author Michael Singer of Wesleyan. "Our study addresses basic theoretical questions in ecology, but we also want forest managers and conservation biologists to take away practical knowledge."
Mooney, who specializes in the ecology of predatory birds, said tree identification is probably learned by birds, not genetic. He added that Southern California bird species probably do the same with coastal sage scrub, determining which types of bushes afford a better chance of tasty insect treats.
With help from a small army of students, the scientists conducted a two-year experiment in Connecticut forests involving hundreds of tree branches either covered with bird-proof netting or left bare.
Mooney noted that the results illustrate a stark choice between gaining strength through a good diet but being more vulnerable to predators and remaining weaker and hungrier but more safe.
"If a caterpillar could feed on nutritious, high-quality tree species and be left alone, this would be the best of all worlds," he said. "Instead, it's faced with a trade-off. Overall, it appears that it's better to feed on poor-quality tree species and have fewer caterpillars around you than to be on a nutritious plant with many others."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Irvine.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Michael S. Singer, Timothy E. Farkas, Christian M. Skorik, Kailen A. Mooney. Tritrophic Interactions at a Community Level: Effects of Host Plant Species Quality on Bird Predation of Caterpillars. The American Naturalist, 2012; [link]
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/tmsFeO2tpEI/120126143653.htm
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Working too much is correlated with two-fold increase in likelihood of depression
ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? The odds of a major depressive episode are more than double for those working 11 or more hours a day compared to those working seven to eight hours a day, according to a report is published in the Jan. 25 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
The authors, led by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and University College London, followed about 2000 middle aged British civil servants and found a robust association between overtime work and depression. This correlation was not affected when the analysis was adjusted for various possible confounders, including socio-demographics, lifestyle, and work-related factors.
There have been a number of previous studies on the subject, with varying results, but the researchers emphasize that it is hard to compare results across these studies because the cut-off for "overtime" work has not been standardized.
"Although occasionally working overtime may have benefits for the individual and society, it is important to recognize that working excessive hours is also associated with an increased risk of major depression," says Dr Virtanen.
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Journal Reference:
- Marianna Virtanen, Stephen A. Stansfeld, Rebecca Fuhrer, Jane E. Ferrie, Mika Kivim?ki. Overtime Work as a Predictor of Major Depressive Episode: A 5-Year Follow-Up of the Whitehall II Study. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (1): e30719 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030719
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/nLLA5qRkZiA/120125172317.htm
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Wasp found in upstate New York shows up in Southern California
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Public release date: 24-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
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iqbal@ucr.edu
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University of California - Riverside
UC Riverside entomologist discovered Gonatocerus ater in Irvine; wasp arrived in the United States from Europe
RIVERSIDE, Calif. In August 2010, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside discovered a tiny fairyfly wasp in upstate New York that had never been seen in the United States until then. Nearly exactly a year later, he discovered the wasp in Irvine, Calif., strongly suggesting that the wasp is well established in the country.
Called Gonatocerus ater, the wasp is about 1 millimeter long and arrived in North America from Europe. It lays its eggs inside the eggs of leafhoppers.
Leafhopper females lay their eggs inside plant tissue. Gonatocerus ater females find these eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leafhopper eggs.
"This wasp was accidentally introduced in North America," said Serguei Triapitsyn, the principal museum scientist in the Department of Entomology and the director of the Entomology Research Museum, who made the discovery. "It most likely got here in parasitized eggs of the leafhoppers in twigs of Lombardy poplar seedlings coming from Europe, perhaps long ago."
Triapitsyn explained that the wasp had been reported in Italy where the leafhopper Rhytidodus decimaquartus was determined to be its host.
"In California, we do not know if the wasp's host is this leafhopper, but I found it on the same Lombardy poplar trees that had the wasp, so an association is very likely," he said.
Triapitsyn found the wasp on August 7, 2011, when he was doing field work along a trail. He caught the insects in a net that he had swept over Lombardy poplar leaves. He preserved the sample of insects in ethanol and brought it to his lab at UC Riverside for analysis and identification, which can take long. He got a positive identification of the potential leafhopper host only two weeks ago.
"I identified the wasp as Gonatocerus ater by comparing it to wasps from upstate New York and also Europe," he said. "It would not surprise me if this wasp is found wherever Lombardy poplars are located because its likely leafhopper host prefers these trees for feeding."
According to Triapitsyn, the wasp poses no known risk besides killing leafhopper eggs.
"It actually helps naturally control leafhopper numbers," he said. "In its absence, leafhopper populations could have skyrocketed. This illustrates how plant pests are sometimes accompanied by their natural enemies across very long distances without our knowledge."
In August 2010, Triapitsyn discovered another species of Gonatocerus on a large willow tree in the middle of a lawn on the campus of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.
"This wasp, which has yet to be described, is native to the United States," he said. "The fact that I found it in a relatively well visited and studied area shows just how little we know about these minute insects."
###
The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.
A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 24-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala
iqbal@ucr.edu
951-827-6050
University of California - Riverside
UC Riverside entomologist discovered Gonatocerus ater in Irvine; wasp arrived in the United States from Europe
RIVERSIDE, Calif. In August 2010, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside discovered a tiny fairyfly wasp in upstate New York that had never been seen in the United States until then. Nearly exactly a year later, he discovered the wasp in Irvine, Calif., strongly suggesting that the wasp is well established in the country.
Called Gonatocerus ater, the wasp is about 1 millimeter long and arrived in North America from Europe. It lays its eggs inside the eggs of leafhoppers.
Leafhopper females lay their eggs inside plant tissue. Gonatocerus ater females find these eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leafhopper eggs.
"This wasp was accidentally introduced in North America," said Serguei Triapitsyn, the principal museum scientist in the Department of Entomology and the director of the Entomology Research Museum, who made the discovery. "It most likely got here in parasitized eggs of the leafhoppers in twigs of Lombardy poplar seedlings coming from Europe, perhaps long ago."
Triapitsyn explained that the wasp had been reported in Italy where the leafhopper Rhytidodus decimaquartus was determined to be its host.
"In California, we do not know if the wasp's host is this leafhopper, but I found it on the same Lombardy poplar trees that had the wasp, so an association is very likely," he said.
Triapitsyn found the wasp on August 7, 2011, when he was doing field work along a trail. He caught the insects in a net that he had swept over Lombardy poplar leaves. He preserved the sample of insects in ethanol and brought it to his lab at UC Riverside for analysis and identification, which can take long. He got a positive identification of the potential leafhopper host only two weeks ago.
"I identified the wasp as Gonatocerus ater by comparing it to wasps from upstate New York and also Europe," he said. "It would not surprise me if this wasp is found wherever Lombardy poplars are located because its likely leafhopper host prefers these trees for feeding."
According to Triapitsyn, the wasp poses no known risk besides killing leafhopper eggs.
"It actually helps naturally control leafhopper numbers," he said. "In its absence, leafhopper populations could have skyrocketed. This illustrates how plant pests are sometimes accompanied by their natural enemies across very long distances without our knowledge."
In August 2010, Triapitsyn discovered another species of Gonatocerus on a large willow tree in the middle of a lawn on the campus of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.
"This wasp, which has yet to be described, is native to the United States," he said. "The fact that I found it in a relatively well visited and studied area shows just how little we know about these minute insects."
###
The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.
A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uoc--wfi012412.php
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
All 2011 unemployment insurance benefits taxable (AP)
The jobless rate is dipping, but millions of people are still out of work. And that could have implications when they file their income tax returns.
Collecting unemployment insurance benefits? All that you received in 2011 is taxed as income. Unless you requested that federal taxes be withheld, you could be in for a big surprise when you calculate taxes owed.
"People tend to believe unemployment benefits are still not taxable," said Bob Meighan, a vice president at TurboTax. That was the case in 2009, for the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits. But that provision was not renewed by Congress.
If it's any consolation, you may find yourself in a lower tax bracket because of reduced income, even counting the unemployment benefits. And you might also be eligible for tax breaks that you didn't qualify for before.
"If you have major household changes, say you lost your job in 2011, we encourage people to take a close look at things like the earned income credit," Internal Revenue Service spokesman Terry Lemons said.
He said people should go ahead and file their taxes even if they don't have the money to pay any taxes that are due. "There are more options there than many people realize," he said, including installment agreements.
The aftermath of the Great Recession, which gripped the nation from 2007 to 2009, is still being felt across America. Employers still worried about the state of the economy are hesitant to bring on new workers. And many of the more than 13 million unemployed people have stopped looking for jobs.
For those who spent part or all of 2011 searching for work, there are tax breaks.
"All of those job search expenses are deductible ? the stationery, the long-distance phone calls, the hotels, anything you can relate to the job search," said Jeff Schnepper, author of "How to Pay Zero Taxes" (McGraw-Hill, 2011).
To qualify for this deduction, you have to be looking for a job in the same field or profession as your previous one. Expenses incurred trying to get your first job are not deductible. "Until you start working, you don't have a profession," Schnepper said.
You also have to itemize. And the cost of preparing your resume, working with job search services, mileage and other job search expenses has to exceed 2 percent of your adjusted gross income if you are to benefit, according to Greg Rosica, tax partner with Ernst & Young.
Make sure you save your receipts. "You have to be able to substantiate," he said.
Those out of work may find the jobs have dried up in their cities or towns. "Many people are picking up and moving to where the jobs are," Meighan said.
If you land a job across town or across the country, you might be eligible to take a deduction for moving expenses. "It's an above-the-line deduction, dollar for dollar a reduction in your income," Schnepper said. In this case, unlike job-search expenses, you don't have to itemize to take advantage of the deduction.
To qualify, there's a distance test that has to be met: Your new job has to be at least 50 miles farther from your old house than your former job was.
Also unlike the job-search deduction, you can deduct moving expenses even if this is your first job, provided your workplace is at least 50 miles from your former home. Same if you're returning to work after being unemployed, the IRS says.
And there's a requirement that you work at least 39 weeks in the new location over the first 12 months in the new area. You can take the deduction even if you started your job late in the year and won't meet the time test in 2011. But if you fail to meet it in 2012, you'll either have to file an amended return or report the deduction as income when you do your 2012 taxes.
What's deductible?
The IRS says expenses that are "reasonable for the circumstances of your move." That includes the cost of moving yourself and members of your household, as well as your household goods and personal effects. Shipping a car or the family pet is covered.
If you drove to your new home during the first half of 2011, the mileage rate is 19 cents per mile. The rate for July through December is 23.5 cents a mile. Or, the IRS gives you the option of deducting the actual cost of gas and oil for the car. But if the car broke down on the move, you cannot deduct the cost of the repair.
The cost of lodging on the way to your new home is deductible, but not the meals you eat on the road.
These days, "moving can be hard to do," especially if you can't sell your house in the depressed housing market, said Mark Steber, chief tax officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services. If you decide to commute to the new job instead of relocating, those commuting expenses are not deductible.
To claim the moving expense deduction, file Form 3903 with your tax. IRS publication 521 provides more information.
If you went back to school to train for a new job, you may qualify for the American Opportunity Credit, which is partially refundable, or another education tax break.
Looking ahead to 2012, if you're still on unemployment you can use Form W-4V to voluntarily request that a flat 10 percent tax be withheld.
"Withholding on these payments is voluntary," the IRS said. "However, choosing this option may help avoid a surprise year-end tax bill or a possible penalty for having paid too little tax during the year."
___
Carole Feldman can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CaroleFeldman
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95% Knuckle
Like many great documentaries, Knuckle was born out of something else. It originally began as a wedding video. Ian Palmer found something so interesting about his guests, he ventured further and discovered the world of Irish travelling bare knuckle boxing. Most specifically he follows the feud between two clans of the same family, The McDonaghs and the Joyces. So after that wedding video, Palmer ended up documenting this feud and these fights for 12 years. This extraordinary amount of time puts the whole thing into perspective about the needlessness and absurdity of violence. Many say the feud goes back 50 years, and yet nobody gives a straight answer as to its origins. People hold grudges and plan rematches 9 years down the line. It becomes obvious that fighting has become an addiction and a way of life for these poor men. They have nothing else to do. When we see the acclaim they receive from their families, it's easy to see why they have been so taken in by aggression. In the first fight James McDonagh says it will be his last, but it's far from it. He seems genuine about his wanting to quit, but he always ends up in another fight. Even the director talks about how he continued filming just for the thrill, and had lost sight of his documentary. Every fight is brutal in that realistic sense, and Palmer clearly paints a vivid picture of this strange world. Aggressive men, but loving husbands and fathers. Fights that are fought for lack of reason, but are controlled and fair with a sense of honour. Knuckle is the kind of film that lures you in with basic blood lust, but gives you a whole lot more.
December 28, 2011Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/knuckle_2011/
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