Magnitude-6.8 quake shakes northern Chile, swaying buildings

SANTIAGO, Chile - A magnitude-6.8 earthquake shook offices, toppled supermarket shelves and broke windows Wednesday in north-central Chile, where people fled some buildings in panic.

A 50-year-old woman in the city of Copiapo died of a heart attack, said Atacama Regional Gov. Rafael Prohens, who attributed her death to fear during the quake. Authorities said that damage was limited and discounted the possibility of a tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey originally reported the quake at 6.7, but later revised it upward. It struck at 4:15 p.m. and was centred 44 kilometres north of Vallenar, Chile.

The quake shook the capital of Santiago, causing office buildings to sway, but was felt most powerfully in the north where state television showed images of scattered groceries at supermarket floors and broken windows at several homes in Vallenar, Copiapo and other nearby cities.

Witnesses described people running from buildings into the streets in panic.

Vallenar Mayor Cristian Tapia said telephone lines were jammed and some electricity lines were temporarily down but services were slowly returning.

"The first half hour was really tough. We're still having problems with telecommunications," Tapia told state television. "Two walls collapsed. We're evaluating ruptures at homes to find out if they're still safe to live in."

But Chile's Emergency Office, ONEMI, said no injuries were immediately reported and damage to infrastructure appears minimal. The oceanographic service discounted the possibility of a tsunami.

"There's no doubt the population in some places fled, following a culture of evacuation," Miguel Ortiz, national chief of the early alert centre at ONEMI. Two lower intensity aftershocks were also reported.

A devastating 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010, killed 551 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. The disaster cost Chile $30 billion, or 18 per cent of its annual gross domestic product.

Chile is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Just off Chile's long coast, the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the continent, pushing the Andes to ever-higher altitudes. The 2010 quake was so strong it changed time, shortening the Earth's day slightly by changing the planet's rotation.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in Chile, a magnitude-9.5 in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/magnitude-6-8-quake-shakes-northern-chile-swaying-065146513.html

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Dieting Habits that Work ? The Nutrition Experts

Sixty-seven percent of Americans almost always finish the restaurant portions they are served. Men are 4 times more likely to eat everything and restaurant portions are huge, denser in calories, and higher in fat and sodium.

Just knowing restaurant meals can be a problem is the first step toward solving it.

You don?t have to stop eating out. Meeting someone and sharing a meal is one of our basic social activities. It?s fun and can help relieve stress. You want to enjoy the benefits but minimize the negatives.

Just plan. Eat lighter meals around the bigger business lunch or dinner with friends. Try to get more activity to balance the extra calories ? walk to and from the restaurant. You can even balance a larger restaurant meal today with tomorrow?s meals and exercise. The concept is balance and moderation over time. One meal or one day does not make or break a diet. It is day after day of unwise food choices and little exercise that adds up.

Avoid temptations.

Stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets. We eat more when confronted with more variety and more choices. Keep the vegetable tray and give back the chips and dip. Don?t use butter on your bread; this tip will save you 100 calories or more.

?Something to drink?? ? ?Water, thank you.?

Liquid calories can add up quickly, especially alcoholic drinks and endless-refill sodas. Choose calorie free drinks ? water, mineral water, club soda, diet soda, unsweetened or diet iced tea. Or, choose lower calorie drinks ? wine, wine spritzers, and fruit juice + carbonated mineral water.

Order an appetizer as a meal.

Even if you order 2 appetizers, one to start and one as the main course, you still save calories. Ask if the lunch portion can be ordered at dinner. Share a main course with a friend. Or, ask the waiter to plate half of your regular-sized entr?e and request the other half as a take-home.

Play with your food.

Scrape away extra sauce or topping leaving just enough to provide taste. Trim away extra fat from meat. Remove the skin from poultry. Remove most of the butter or sour cream from your baked potato. Each of these simple suggestions can save you 25 to 75 calories that you?ll never miss.

On the side, please.

Request butter, gravy, salad dressing, sauce, sour cream, syrup, guacamole, and grated cheese on the side so you can decide how much to eat. Don?t dunk your food into the topping. Dunk your fork into the sauce first then spear a bite of food. You?ll still get the taste of the topping with far fewer calories.

Eat slowly and take smaller bites.

Europeans savor meals, American rush through them. Enjoy the company, talk more and you?ll eat less. Take smaller bites and don?t put more food into your mouth until you have swallowed. This may sound very simple but many of us take very large bites and eat far too fast. Teach yourself to enjoy eating.

Eat till you feel fine, not full.

You don?t have to clean your plate. Stop eating when you feel comfortably satisfied, not stuffed. Place your knife and fork across the middle of the plate to signal the wait staff you are done and ask for the rest to take home. Restaurants today are accustomed to take-always and many have designed attractive carry baskets and logos for their ?doggie bags.?

Split dessert.

Everyone loves dessert. Don?t feel you have to skip this part of the meal. Suggest sharing with another person or better yet share with the whole table. Sherbets, sorbets, and fresh seasonal fruits are desserts you can enjoy and keep the whole portion to yourself.

?

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Tagged as: weight control

Source: http://www.thenutritionexperts.com/2013/01/diet-habits-that-work/

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Changing Mindsets on Adoption

In a recent article by Ashley Lauren at care2.com she asks, ?Why Aren?t People Adopting?? She goes through some reasons that deserve further elaboration.

The first has to do with cost. Lauren writes that the cost of adoption ?is incredibly prohibitive.? Adoption.com states, ?Adopting from the U.S. foster care system is generally the least expensive type of adoption, usually involving little or no cost, and states often provide subsidies to adoptive parents?Agency and private adoptions can range from $5,000 to $40,000 or more depending on a variety of factors including services provided, travel expenses, birthmother expenses, requirements in the state, and other factors. International adoptions can range from $7,000 to $30,000. This can be especially prohibitive considering many insurance carriers cover fertility treatments as well as doctors appointments leading up to and including the birth of the child.?

Hope for Orphans also has indicated that the cost can range ?nothing upwards of $30,000.? Now, that is a lot of money. However, what many people don?t realize is how much assistance is available for parents who adopt. There are federal adoption tax credits and grants for sizeable amounts to assist families wanting to adopt. There are also fee reductions for special needs children, and financial assistance is often offered through churches. The way Hope for Orphans sees it, adoption can be made ?affordable for almost anyone willing to pursue the options available.?

What if this was the mindset!

Other issues have to do with wait time and legalities. Lauren writes that ?with tighter restrictions, hopeful parents often have to wait years before they can bring their child home.? While it has been common to believe that it takes a long time to complete the adoption process, recent polls indicate otherwise; according to adoption expert and founder of Lifetime Adoption Center Mardie Caldwell, the process generally takes about a year.

But the biggest reason why more people don?t adopt has to do with wanting newborns. Lauren writes, ?Many partners who want children want newborn babies so they can experience those cute baby years, but oftentimes the heartbreak associated with trying to adopt a newborn is too much to bear as birth mothers can, and do, change their minds about adoptions when they see their babies.?

Caldwell might very well disagree ? that in reality, there are tens of thousands of families each year that adopt healthy, newborn babies through adoption. Many of them are through open adoption, where the biological mother, often called the birth mother, may have chosen the family herself. And today?s adoption laws protect against birth parents being able to take the child back. Hope for Orphans suggests that adoptive parents work with attorneys who have expertise in this area and can make sure all legal papers are signed. This will ?nearly eliminate this possibility.?

Beyond the myths and true reasons, there is a deeper reason why more people who want children do not adopt.? It boils down to the pronatalist assumption that ?biology is best.? Pronatalist dogma has stressed that having your own child is the way to have a child. Somehow you are not a ?real? woman, a true mother, if you don?t have your own biological child.

What if we dumped this thinking, and instead valued adoption as the first choice, not as the last resort? Women who are having a hard time conceiving not feel something is ?wrong? and that the only solution is an expensive procedure like in vitro fertilization, and they could more readily decide to put that money toward adopting a child.? Children in need of loving homes would clearly greatly benefit. Foster homes could decrease, and the adoption process would become even more effective-because we more highly value it. Want-to-be-parents would get to have the experience of parenting.? The world would not bring another person onto an already crowded planet.? With? each adopted child, the world would be saved from the carbon wake that comes with every new biological child.

So many benefits would come from changing mindsets away from having to feel the need to have a biological child in order to fulfill one?s desire to be a parent!

Source: http://lauracarroll.com/changing-mindsets-on-adoption/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=changing-mindsets-on-adoption

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Gabrielle Giffords appears at Senate hearing on gun violence (Washington Post)

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Facebook Updates iOS App With Voice Messages, Video Recording And Sharing

Facebook yesterday updated its iOS app to version 5.4, giving users a few new features in what could be one of the world's most complex and layered mobile apps. The update brings with it the ability to share voice messages, much like iOS's Voice Memos, letting users record a cute little message and send it through the app to friends. The update also lets users record and share video from right within the app.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wMyFZDI5i3M/

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Sorting out stroking sensations: Biologists find individual neurons in skin that react to massage

Jan. 30, 2013 ? The skin is a human being's largest sensory organ, helping to distinguish between a pleasant contact, like a caress, and a negative sensation, like a pinch or a burn. Previous studies have shown that these sensations are carried to the brain by different types of sensory neurons that have nerve endings in the skin. Only a few of those neuron types have been identified, however, and most of those detect painful stimuli. Now biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have identified in mice a specific class of skin sensory neurons that reacts to an apparently pleasurable stimulus.

More specifically, the team, led by David J. Anderson, Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at Caltech, was able to pinpoint individual neurons that were activated by massage-like stroking of the skin. The team's results are outlined in the January 31 issue of the journal Nature.

"We've known a lot about the neurons that detect things that make us hurt or feel pain, but we've known much less about the identity of the neurons that make us feel good when they are stimulated," says Anderson, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Generally it's a lot easier to study things that are painful because animals have evolved to become much more sensitive to things that hurt or are fearful than to things that feel good. Showing a positive influence of something on an animal model is not that easy."

In fact, the researchers had to develop new methods and technologies to get their results. First, Sophia Vrontou, a postdoctoral fellow in Anderson's lab and the lead author of the study, developed a line of genetically modified mice that had tags, or molecular markers, on the neurons that the team wanted to study. Then she placed a molecule in this specific population of neurons that fluoresced, or lit up, when the neurons were activated.

"The next step was to figure out a way of recording those flashes of light in those neurons in an intact mouse while stroking and poking its body," says Anderson. "We took advantage of the fact that these sensory neurons are bipolar in the sense that they send one branch into the skin that detects stimuli, and another branch into the spinal cord to relay the message detected in the skin to the brain."

The team obtained the needed data by placing the mouse under a special microscope with very high magnification and recording the level of fluorescent light in the fibers of neurons in the spinal cord as the animal was stroked, poked, tickled, and pinched. Through a painstaking process of applying stimuli to one tiny area of the animal's body at a time, they were able to confirm that certain neurons lit up only when stroked. A different class of neurons, by contrast, was activated by poking or pinching the skin, but not by stroking.

"Massage-like stroking is a stimulus that, if were we to experience it, would feel good to us, but as scientists we can't just assume that because something feels good to us, it has to also feel good to an animal," says Anderson. "So we then had to design an experiment to show that artificially activating just these neurons -- without actually stroking the mouse -- felt good to the mouse."

The researchers did this by creating a box that contained left, right, and center rooms connected by little doors. The left and right rooms were different enough that a mouse could distinguish them through smell, sight, and touch. In the left room, the mouse received an injection of a drug that selectively activated the neurons shown to detect massage-like stroking. In the room on the right, the mouse received a control injection of saline. After a few sessions in each outer room, the animal was placed in the center, with the doors open to see which room it preferred. It clearly favored the room where the massage-sensitive neurons were activated. According to Anderson, this was the first time anyone has used this type of conditioned place-preference experiment to show that activating a specific population of neurons in the skin can actually make an animal experience a pleasurable or rewarding state -- in effect, to "feel good."

The team's findings are significant for several reasons, he says. First, the methods that they developed give scientists who have discovered a new kind of neuron a way to find out what activates that neuron in the skin.

"Since there are probably dozens of different kinds of neurons that innervate the skin, we hope this will advance the field by making it possible to figure out all of the different kinds of neurons that detect various types of stimuli," explains Anderson. The second reason the results are important, he says, "is that now that we know these neurons detect massage-like stimuli, the results raise new sets of questions about which molecules in those neurons help the animal detect stroking but not poking."

The other benefit of their new methods, Anderson says, is that they will allow researchers to, in principle, trace the circuitry from those neurons up into the brain to ask why and how activating these neurons makes the animal feel good, whereas activating other neurons that are literally right next to them in the skin makes the animal feel bad.

"We are now most interested in how these neurons communicate to the brain through circuits," says Anderson. "In other words, what part of the circuit in the brain is responsible for the good feeling that is apparently produced by activating these neurons? It may seem frivolous to be identifying massage neurons in a mouse, but it could be that some good might come out of this down the road."

Allan M. Wong, a senior research fellow in biology at Caltech, and Kristofer K. Rau and Richard Koerber from the University of Pittsburgh were also coauthors on the Nature paper, "Genetic identification of C fibers that detect massage-like stroking of hairy skin in vivo." Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the Human Frontiers Science Program, and the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. The original article was written by Katie Neith.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. Sophia Vrontou, Allan M. Wong, Kristofer K. Rau, H. Richard Koerber, David J. Anderson. Genetic identification of C fibres that detect massage-like stroking of hairy skin in vivo. Nature, 2013; 493 (7434): 669 DOI: 10.1038/nature11810

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/top_news/~3/Er7HdLaT78c/130130152908.htm

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Italy's comeback kid Berlusconi defends Mussolini

Vincenzo Pinto / AFP - Getty Images

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, seen giving a speech during a campaign rally in Rome Friday, appears to have shrugged off recent scandals.

By Claudio Lavanga, Producer, NBC News

ROME -- He is the comeback kid of Italian politics, but Silvio Berlusconi's attempt to revive his career is under the spotlight after he defended fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony for victims of the Nazi Holocaust.?

The former prime minister said Mussolini's decision to echo Nazi Germany's anti-Jewish laws had been his "worst fault" as a leader "who in so many other ways did well."

He said: "It is difficult now to put yourself in the shoes of people who were making decisions at that time. Obviously the government of that time, out of fear that German power might lead to victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it."

The remarks, given?to reporters in Milan on Sunday, prompted outrage from many quarters in Italy and overseas.

?He has lost the plot," said David Patsi, president of the Italian school Dante Alighieri in Jerusalem and whose father was killed in a concentration camp. "He is an idiot. But I am not surprised. Sometime he even reminds me of Mussolini."

He added: "But I don?t think he is the problem. The problem is that a large number of Italians agree with him.??

That helps explain why Berlusconi could still make his comeback, despite a track record would have forced almost any other politician to retire from public life.

In November 2011, he was forced to resign as prime minister after it became clear that his denial of the economic crisis was bringing Italy to the brink of disaster.

In October last year, he was sentenced to four years in prison for an epic offshore tax fraud, put off pending appeals to higher courts.

And, if that weren't enough, he is still on trial for allegedly paying an underage exotic dancer for sex.

His popularity hit an all-time low and the 76-year-old with a net worth of almost $6 billion --?according to Forbes magazine -- might have been expected to retire to one of his many mansions.

But he was simply waiting for the chance to strike back in the flamboyant style that won him three terms as prime minister.

Following the resignation of Mario Monti -- the technocratic prime minister who replaced him in 2011 promising to reinvigorate Italy's languishing economy -- Berlusconi has done what he does best: He carpet-bombed the Italian media with guest appearances, clocking up an impressive 63 hours of airtime in only 21 days.

In essence, it's as if during the recent U.S. presidential election, former president George W. Bush was given more airtime than Barack Obama and Mitt Romney combined.

Crisis 'wasn't my fault'
Seems inconceivable, but then Italy has always been an exception in the Western world, and flamboyant and media-friendly Berlusconi, even as an outsider, draws a bigger audience than his closest competitors combined.

Officially, Berlusconi is not actually running as a candidate prime minister -- because this was the price it took to persuade the Northern League party to join?Berlusconi's People of Freedom party in a coalition.

But a good result in the elections could mean that all bets are off.

Karima el Marough, better known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer," was called to testify over allegations that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid to have sex with her when she was still a minor. NBC's Claudio Lavanga reports.

?Italy?s economic crisis wasn?t my fault. It was the consequence of the wider international crisis,? a defiant Berlusconi recently told a TV host, before he refused to apologize for previously denying the extent of the crisis.

It would seem to be an uphill task for Berlusconi to win the premiership for a fourth time -- in polls his coalition is trailing the center-left Democratic Party by at least 12 points.

But, after his TV onslaught, Berlusconi's bloc saw its poll rating rise by 3 percentage points.

Berlusconi 'very clever'

Italians are tired of painfully high unemployment rates, rising taxes, tax-evasion clampdowns and plummeting spending power.

But it remains to be seen whether they really believe Berlusconi when he claims that the economic crisis wasn't his fault and that his tax-cutting strategy is the solution.

?Berlusconi has been very clever. He stepped aside when the new government introduced very unpopular austerity measures and has come back in the limelight only now, saying that the cure was worse than the illness,? Maurizio Caprara, a journalist for the daily Corriere della Sera, said.

?Now he is trying to rally again his troops. Many became disillusioned following his many scandals, but many, as the polls show, may decide to give him one more try,? he added.

Monti recently called Berlusconi the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," who ?leads the mice to drown in the river, having fooled Italians three times already.?

And yet, at least according to his recently rising popularity, many Italians seem to find his tune irresistible.??

Related:

Italy's 'bunga bunga' man Berlusconi, 76, unveils girlfriend, 27

Witness: Italian ex-PM Berlusconi hosted strippers dressed as nuns

Woman dressed as burlesque Obama for Berlusconi, court told

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/29/16697505-italys-comeback-kid-berlusconi-defends-wartime-fascist-mussolini?lite

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Humble nickel from 1913 likely to fetch millions

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) ? A humble 5-cent coin with a storied past is headed to auction and bidding expected to top $2 million a century after it was mysteriously minted.

The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five known to exist, but it's the coin's back story that adds to its cachet: It was surreptitiously and illegally cast, discovered in a car wreck that killed its owner, declared a fake, forgotten in a closet for decades and then found to be the real deal.

It all adds up to an expected sale of $2.5 million or more when it goes on the auction block this spring in suburban Chicago.

"Basically a coin with a story and a rarity will trump everything else," said Douglas Mudd, curator of the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo., which has held the coin for most of the past 10 years. He expects it could fetch more than Heritage Auction's estimate, perhaps $4 million and even up to $5 million.

"A lot of this is ego," he said of collectors who could bid for it. "I have one of these and nobody else does."

The sellers who will split the money equally are four Virginia siblings who never let the coin slip from their hands, even when it was deemed a fake.

The nickel made its debut in a most unusual way. It was struck at the Philadelphia mint in late 1912, the final year of its issue, but with the year 1913 cast on its face ? the same year the beloved Buffalo Head nickel was introduced.

Mudd said a mint worker named Samuel W. Brown is suspected of producing the coin and altering the die to add the bogus date.

The coins' existence weren't known until Brown offered them for sale at the American Numismatic Association Convention in Chicago in 1920, beyond the statute of limitations. The five remained together under various owners until the set was broken up in 1942.

A North Carolina collector, George O. Walton, purchased one of the coins in the mid-1940s for a reported $3,750. The coin was with him when he was killed in a car crash on March 9, 1962, and it was found among hundreds of coins scattered at the crash site.

One of Walton's heirs, his sister Melva Givens of Salem, Va., was given the 1913 Liberty nickel after experts declared the coin a fake because of suspicions the date had been altered. The flaw probably happened because of Brown's imprecise work casting the planchet ? the copper and nickel blank disc used to create the coin.

"For whatever reason, she ended up with the coin," her daughter, Cheryl Myers, said.

Melva Givens put the coin in an envelope and stuck it in a closet, where it stayed for the next 30 years until her death in 1992.

The coin caught the curiosity of Cheryl Myers' brother, Ryan, the executor of his mother's estate. "He'd take it out and look at it for long periods of time," she said.

Ryan Myers said a family attorney had heard of the famous 1913 Liberty nickels and asked if he could see the Walton. "He looked at it and he told me he'd give me $5,000 for it right there," he said, declining an offer he could not accept without his siblings' approval.

Finally, they brought the coin to the 2003 American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money in Baltimore, where the four surviving 1913 Liberty nickels were being exhibited. A team of rare coin experts concluded it was the long-missing fifth coin. Each shared a small imperfection under the date.

"The sad part is my mother had it for 30 years and she didn't know it," Cheryl Myers said. "Knowing our mother, she probably would have invested it for us. She always put her children first."

Since its authentication, the Walton nickel has been on loan to the Colorado Springs museum and has been publicly exhibited nationwide.

The coin will be up for grabs April 25 at a rare coin and currency auction.

Todd Imhof, executive vice president of Heritage, said the nickel is likely to attract lofty bids that only a handful of coins have achieved at auction. A 1933 double eagle, a $20 gold coin, holds the U.S. record: $8 million.

Imhof expects the Walton nickel to generate some buzz.

"This is a trophy item that sort of transcends the hobby," he said. "It's an interesting part of American history and there are collectors who look for something like this."

Ryan Myers said he's not keen on selling the nickel.

"First of all, it had been in the family for so long," he said. "It's not like something you found in a flea market or something you just found."

Cheryl Myers said they're often asked why they held on to the coin for a decade after they learned it was authentic instead of immediately cashing it in.

"It was righting a 40-year-old wrong," she wrote in an email. By allowing the American Numismatic Museum to display it for the past decade, it was honoring Walton's wishes.

"It has been quite a ride," she said.

___

Steve Szkotak can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sszkotakap .

___

Online:

American Numismatic Association: http://www.money.org/

Heritage Auctions: http://www.HA.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/humble-nickel-1913-likely-fetch-millions-084723325.html

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Conservative Angst

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), here during the Republican National Convention in August, attended this past weekend's National Review conference.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A well-stocked open bar cures all angst. The reception room at the National Review Institute?s post-election summit has four of ?em, loaded high with rum, whiskey, vodka, and triple sec, and O?Doul?s for those who want to fake it. When there?s an evening lull in the Omni Shoreham?s main ballroom, there?s a party waiting in the mini-ballroom across the beige hallway. Early on Friday evening hundreds of conservatives pack the room, stepping in and out of line depending on whether they?re thirsty or whether they?d rather talk to one of the available icons?Mark Steyn! Jonah Goldberg! Rich Lowry!

I get stuck between Steyn, a ring of his fans, and a bar, where I meet an Orlando dermatologist named Darrin. He?d volunteered for Mitt Romney?s campaign, ?making calls from my office? when he wasn?t working or raising his kids, and he wasn?t surprised when Romney lost, because he doesn?t put any graft past Barack Obama. ?I?m worried about a dictatorship,? he says?really, we have been talking for maybe three minutes before he lays this on me. ?I mean, it happened in history. History repeats. Why couldn?t it? How about all the Muslim Brotherhood czars? He?s got like eight different guys in the administration who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood.?

When I start to sound skeptical, Darrin pulls out his iPhone and forwards me an infographic. It?s titled ?Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrates Obama Administration,? and it shows six Muslims who work in the administration and ?enjoy strong influence.? Another way of putting it: Six mid- and low-level staffers in the administration have, in the past, appeared on panels staged by frightening-sounding organizations. But the evidence worries Darrin. ?If I have to go to a freakin? island to save my kids,? he says. ?I?ll do it. I?ll leave the country.?

Any hack can roll into a political conference, find the most outr? attendees, and pretend that the room was packed with nothing but. National Review is a standard target of this sort of journalism. At least three times, liberals have embedded on the magazine?s biennial post-election cruises, and come out with feature-length contributions to the Those Crazy Conservatives genre. In most respects, Darrin was like the other NRI summit ticket-holders I talked to?a middle-aged guy with a successful business, worried about his lost country, worry deepened by a steady diet of conservative media.

But toward the end of the conference on Sunday, I sit in on a panel titled ?What is a conservative foreign policy?? And in it, National Review?s Andrew McCarthy asks why Huma Abedin had been allowed, for so long, to work alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, holding a security clearance.

?We have people throughout our government who have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood,? says McCarthy. ?Not, like, tenuous connections. Strong connections. We have a situation where, in our intelligence community, they have made a policy of purging information in the training materials of our law enforcement agents, our intelligence agents, and our military people, if the information casts Islam in a bad light?which, back in the 1990s, when I was a prosecutor, we used to call evidence.?

That gets applause, something that was scarce and hard-earned at the weekend conference. National Review has only held two other post-election summits?they save ?em for real debacles. In 1993, William F. Buckley gathered 1,000 conservatives in the nearby Mayflower Hotel, to vent and strategize about the threat of Bill Clinton. In 2007, after Democrats took back Congress, NRI met at the J.W. Marriott up the street to hear from potential 2008 saviors.

?Mark [Steyn] gave an incredible speech at that conference,? recalls Jonah Goldberg, joining Steyn onstage Saturday night for a ?Night Owl? banter session?cash bar this time. ?He closed his speech with one of the funniest lines that?s ever been said on the public stage. Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States, Mitt Romney!?

Laughter and groans. Conservative donors and thinkers respect Mitt Romney more than they did the defeated George H.W. Bush or the ousted, forgotten Speaker Dennis Hastert. In 1993, then-NR editor in chief John O?Sullivan told conservatives that they were in the midpoint of the ?Bush-Clinton? era?that Bush had betrayed the Reagan revolution, and could not be considered part of it. In 2013, Romney is seen as a fundamentally decent man who simply did not know how to ?message? conservatives? beliefs or explain what Obama was doing wrong. ?He spoke conservatism,? says Charles Krauthammer in a Friday night Q&A, ?as a second language.? Speak it as a first language, and you can win.

Every elected Republican at the conference attempts to prove that. On Friday, NR?s Jay Nordlinger asks freshman Rep. Tom Cotton to swat away some of the liberals? myths. Why did Republicans lose Hispanics? ?We?re quasi-racist, or maybe racist without the quasi,? says Nordlinger. ?It?s supposed to be killing us.? Cotton doesn?t know how to fix it. ?I think Romney only got 27 percent [of Hispanic votes], but John McCain four years ago got 31 percent when he?d been the sponsor of an immigration bill,? he says. ?It?s presumptuous and condescending to think that Hispanics, as a class, are only focused on immigration.? Will conservatives have to accept the ?momentum? for gay marriage? ?It?s only this last year that people in any state have decided to accept gay marriage,? says Cotton. ?In California, four years ago, [they] voted for traditional marriage.?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=2d9349c6f90a75e4df0e2506f7b44460

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Obama on immigration overhaul: 'Now is the time'

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Declaring "now is the time" to fix the nation's broken immigration system, President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined broad proposals for putting millions of illegal immigrants on a clear path to citizenship while cracking down on businesses that employ people illegally and tightening security at the borders. He hailed a bipartisan Senate group on a similar track but left unresolved key details that could derail the complex and emotional effort.

Potential Senate roadblocks center on how to structure the avenue to citizenship and on whether legislation would cover same-sex couples ? and that's all before a Senate measure could be debated, approved and sent to the Republican-controlled House where opposition is sure to be stronger.

Obama, who carried Nevada in the November election with heavy Hispanic support, praised the Senate push, saying Congress is showing "a genuine desire to get this done soon." But mindful of previous immigrations efforts that have failed, he warned that the debate would be difficult and vowed to send his own legislation to Capitol Hill if lawmakers don't act quickly.

"The question now is simple," Obama said during a campaign-style event in Las Vegas, one week after being sworn in for a second term in the White House. "Do we have the resolve as a people, as a country, as a government to finally put this issue behind us? I believe that we do."

Shortly after Obama finished speaking, cracks emerged between the White House and the group of eight senators, which put out their proposals one day ahead of the president. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, one of four Republicans in the group, criticized Obama for not making a citizenship pathway contingent on tighter border security, a central tenant of the lawmakers' proposals.

"This provision is key to ensuring that border security is achieved, and is also necessary to ensure that a reform package can actually move through Congress," Flake said in a statement.

House Speaker John Boehner also responded coolly, with spokesman Brendan Buck saying the Ohio Republican hoped the president would be "careful not to drag the debate to the left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the House and Senate."

Despite possible obstacles to come, the broad agreement between the White House and bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate represents a drastic shift in Washington's willingness to tackle immigration, an issue that has languished for years. Much of that shift is politically motivated, due to the growing influence of Hispanics in presidential and other elections and their overwhelming support for Obama in November.

The separate White House and Senate proposals focus on the same principles: providing a way for most of the estimated 11 million people already in the U.S. illegally to become citizens, strengthening border security, cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and streamlining the legal immigration system.

A consensus around the question of citizenship could help lawmakers clear one major hurdle that has blocked previous immigration efforts. Many Republicans have opposed allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, saying that would be an unfair reward for people who have broken the law.

Details on how to achieve a pathway to citizenship still could prove to be a major sticking point between the White House and the Senate group.

Obama and the Senate lawmakers all want to require people here illegally to register with the government, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay fees and penalties as well as back taxes, and wait until existing immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line for green cards. Neither proposal backs up those requirements with specifics.

After achieving legal status, U.S. law says people can become citizens after five years.

The Senate proposal says that entire process couldn't start until the borders were fully secure and tracking of people in the U.S. on visas had improved. Those vague requirements would almost certainly make the timeline for achieving citizenship longer than what the White House is proposing.

The president urged lawmakers to avoid making the citizenship pathway so difficult that it would appear out of reach for many illegal immigrants.

"We all agree that these men and women have to earn their way to citizenship," he said. "But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must make clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship."

"It won't be a quick process, but it will be a fair process," Obama added.

Another key difference between the White House and Senate proposals is the administration's plan to allow same-sex partners to seek visas under the same rules that govern other family immigration. The Senate principles do not recognize same-sex partners, though Democratic lawmakers have told gay rights groups that they could seek to include that in a final bill.

John McCain of Arizona, who is part of the Senate immigration group, called the issue a "red flag" in an interview Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."

Washington last took up immigration changes in a serious way in 2007, when then-President George W. Bush pressed for an overhaul. The initial efforts had bipartisan support but eventually collapsed in the Senate because of a lack of GOP support.

Cognizant of that failed effort, the White House has readied its own immigration legislation. But officials said Obama will send it to the Hill only if the Senate process stalls.

Most of the recommendations Obama made Tuesday were not new. They were included in the immigration blueprint he released in 2011, but he exerted little political capital to get it passed by Congress, to the disappointment of many Hispanics.

Some of the recommendations in the Senate plan are also pulled from past immigration efforts. The senators involved in formulating the latest proposals, in addition to McCain and Flake, are Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

Also Tuesday, in another sign of Congress' increased attention to immigration issues, a group of four senators introduced legislation aimed at allowing more high-tech workers into the country, a longtime priority of technology businesses. The bill by Republicans Rubio and Orrin Hatch and Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Chris Coons would increase the number of visas available for high-tech workers, make it easier for them to change jobs once here and for their spouses to work, and aim to make it easier for foreigners at U.S. universities to remain here upon graduation.

___

Julie Pace reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-immigration-overhaul-now-time-201019150.html

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Bring Me 2 Life

A Vampire Prince who wanted to destroy the one thing that stood in his way of everlasting life, the girl he killed to stay alive is back and she wants his head.

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Foxxheart

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Can I please reserve FC: Olivia Wilde?

"You played a good hand M'am." - Lawrence Dominic

"I played a very bad hand very well. There is a distinction." - Adelle DeWitt

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@LittleMissGeorgia, You got it!

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Can I steal FC: Jennifer Lawrence?

"She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn't scream when he took the first bite."

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China carries out anti-missile test

BEIJING (Reuters) - China tested emerging military technology aimed at destroying missiles in mid-air after an initial test in 2010, state media said on Sunday, in a move that will unnerve its neighbors.

A brief report by the official Xinhua news agency said the military carried out a "land-based mid-course missile interception test within its territory".

"The test has reached the pre-set goal," the report quoted an unnamed Defence Ministry official as saying. "The test is defensive in nature and targets no other country."

It did not specify whether any missile or object had been destroyed in the test.

"Although no other detailed information about the test was released from the military authorities, weapon system experts said such a test could build shield for China's air defenses by intercepting incoming warheads such as ballistic missiles in space," the report added.

People's Liberation Army officials and documents in recent years have said developing anti-missile technology is one focus of defense spending, which has grown by double-digits over many years.

The latest flexing of China's maturing military hardware comes as Beijing is involved in increasingly bitter territorial disputes in the East China Sea with Japan and in the South China Sea with several Southeast Asian nations.

Beijing says its military spending is for defensive purposes and the modernization of outdated forces.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-carries-anti-missile-test-173932609.html

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Pentagon to boost cybersecurity force

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon plans to assign significantly more personnel in coming years to counter increasing threats against U.S. government computer networks and conduct offensive operations against foreign foes, a U.S. defense official said on Sunday.

The plan, which would increase both military and civilian staffing at U.S. Cyber Command, comes as the Pentagon moves toward elevating the new command and putting it on the same level as the major combatant commands.

The official said no formal decisions had been made on the expanding staffing levels or changing Cyber Command into a "unified" command like U.S. Strategic Command, which currently oversees cyber command and the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

Any changes to the combatant command structure would be made based on strategic and operational needs, and take into account the need for efficient use of taxpayer dollars, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The Pentagon was working closely with U.S. Cyber Command and the major military commands to develop "the optimum force structure for successfully operating in cyberspace," the official said.

The Washington Post, quoting senior defense officials, reported late Sunday that the Pentagon had decided to expand Cyber Command's current staffing level of 900 to 4,900 in coming years.

The official confirmed that Cyber Command planned to expand its force significantly, but said the specific numbers cited by the Post were "pre-decisional."

The newspaper said senior Pentagon officials had agreed to increase the force late last year amid a string of attacks, including one that wiped out more than 30,000 computers at a Saudi Arabian state oil company. it said

The plan calls for creating three types of force under the Cyber Command, said the defense official.

"National mission forces," would protect computer systems that undergird electrical grids and other kinds of infrastructure. "Combat mission forces," would help commanders abroad execute attacks or other offensive operations, while "cyber protection forces," would focus on protecting the Defense Department's own systems.

Details were still being worked out, the official said.

(Reporting by Sarah Lynch and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-boost-cybersecurity-force-fivefold-report-034248436.html

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Malian musicians back power of harmony over guns

LONDON (Reuters) - As musicians from Mali took to a London stage on Saturday night, news was announced that back home French troops had captured the airport of the Islamist-controlled city of Gao.

A cheer went up - and not surprisingly.

Since Islamist militants seized control of Mali's north following a military coup in March 2012, the country has been convulsed by conflict.

Its musical community, whose singers and players have won worldwide acclaim, has been targeted by the hardline Islamists bent on imposing sharia, or Islamic law. Concerts have been banned in northern cities, clubs closed, instruments smashed and burned, musicians harassed and forced to flee.

This weekend's "Sahara Soul" concert at London's Barbican, featuring Bassekou Kouyate, Sidi Toure and the desert blues band Tamkirest, showcased the country's musical riches and called for peace. But it also indicated that there were differing visions of what any peace might entail.

"There is just one message - peace," Sidi Toure told Reuters backstage before the concert. "If you filled this room with gold and diamonds, it would not be more important than peace."

Toure hails from Gao on the banks of the River Niger in the Sahel region and performs Songhai folk songs with a trance-like beat. Music, he said, was ingrained in Malian life.

"When you feel bad, only music can cure you. We have many different kinds - for your first child, for weddings, for parties."

But it has been forbidden in Gao since an official of the Ansar Din (Followers of God) militant group stated in August: "We do not want Satan's music."

"At the cultural centre, they made a fire in the street of all the instruments. Now all the musicians have left, for Bamako, for Niger, for Burkina Faso," Toure said.

Malians welcomed the French military action three weeks ago as Islamist forces advanced on the capital Bamako, he said.

"Without the French intervention, that would have been the end of Mali. The French saved Mali," he said.

WELLSPRING OF THE BLUES

Until the war pushed Mali to the forefront of U.S. and European security concerns with fears the Islamists would turn the country into a base for international attacks, Mali was probably best defined for the outside world by its music.

It is seen as the wellspring of American blues, transported to Mississippi and Memphis by slavery.

Artists such as Amadou and Mariam, the blind couple from Bamako, have sold millions of records and fill concert halls worldwide. The desert blues band Tinariwen, born out of the Touareg rebellion, won a Grammy award last year.

The annual Festival in the Desert, held near the fabled city of Timbuktu, was a pilgrimage for many foreigners, among them ex-Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and U2's Bono. That will not happen this year.

"Today Mali is different, because of terrorism by those who want to impose sharia; no music, no TV, no telephones, no democracy. This is no good," Kouyate told the audience.

Kouyate, from Segou, southern Mali, plays a wooden acoustic instrument called the ngoni, a forebear of the banjo. He recalled that on the day of the military coup last March, his band had just started recording their latest album in Bamako. They heard the shooting in the streets.

His final song, "Ne me fatigue pas", takes aim at the coup that brought down an elected government.

The coup gave new impetus to a long-running Touareg separatist rebellion in the Sahara desert of the north. That, however, was swiftly taken over by the Islamists, many said to be foreign veterans of the Afghan and Libyan battlefields.

Last week a host of Malian musicians, including Amadou and Mariam, recorded a song for peace in Bamako under the banner Voices United for Mali.

"Malian people look to us," singer Fatoumata Diawara, the project organizer, said in Bamako. "They have lost hope in politics. But music has always brought hope in Mali."

The lyrics refer directly to the situation in the north, saying: "Such catastrophe, such desolation ... tell the North that our Mali is one nation, indivisible!"

TOUAREG STRUGGLE

The Touareg band Tamikrest took to the stage in London in desert robes to play their songs of struggle, the hypnotic guitar jams punctuated by ululations.

But leader Ousmane Ag Mossa made clear beforehand that although he was all for peace, Malian solidarity was a different matter.

The government based in the south was just as much his problem as the Islamists, he told Reuters.

"We have never seen Mali as one country. Our movement is for our independence. We are the children of suffering. There have been a lot of massacres against us. It was always like this."

"Now they want to destroy us under the banner of fighting terrorism. The message of the music is always peace. But the musicians of the south are only finding out now what has been going on," he said.

As a boy in the 1990s, Ousmane lost family in a period of intense warfare between the army and the Touareg. He took up the guitar as the best way to get his people's message across, founding the band, now based in Algeria, in the city of Kaled in 2006.

"If we had been treated well and fairly, our situation would have been different. We have been treated as a bunch of nomads only good for herding livestock. We are not seen as Malians," he said, speaking in Tamashek, the Touareg language.

"People who are interested now are only smelling the smoke of the fire we have been in for a century," he said.

For the show's finale, the three bands joined together on stage for a rousing jam fusing electric guitars, ngonis, scratch percussion and vocals.

A fleeting moment of unity, or a sign that Malians might one day achieve harmony?

(Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Will Waterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/malian-musicians-back-power-harmony-over-guns-110042682.html

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Canada's wine and spirits market to continue rapid growth ...

Note: A Vinexpo study forecasts that growth in Canadian wine and spirits consumption will continue to grow up to 2016 and will be three times greater than that of the rest of the world. What follows are the results of the study.

TORONTO ? The unveiling of Vinexpo?s 11th study on the Current trends in the international wine and spirits market and outlook to 2016, conducted by British firm, The International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR) on behalf of Vinexpo was held in Montr?al and Toronto, with the participation of the prestigious fair?s spokespersons, Robert Beynat, general manager and Xavier de Eizaguirre, chairman.

A veritable benchmark for sector professionals, this much-anticipated study confirms that Canada will maintain its impressive growth rate with regard to wine consumption between 2012 and 2016 (+14.27 per cent), three times greater than the global average.

Between 2012 and 2016, Canada will become the world?s fifth biggest wine consumer, behind China, the United States, Russia and Germany.

Vinexpo, the international wine and spirits fair, will open its doors in five months, running from June 16 to 20, 2013. Held every two years, the fair highlights the achievements made by sector professionals. More than 650 Canadian operators will join the event?s 48,000 expected visitors.

Accelerated growth within the international wine market

Still and sparkling wines posted a +2.8 per cent increase between 2007 and 2011, for a sales total of 2.679 billion 9-litre cases, representing 32 billion bottles. The Vinexpo study forecasts that said consumption growth rate will increase between 2012 and 2016 and re-establish the pace it set in the early 2000s at +5.3 per cent over five years. The study further estimates that international consumption in 2016 will reach 2.873 billion 9-litre cases, representing 34.48 billion bottles.

?This growth is easy to explain,? comments Robert Beynat, general manager of Vinexpo. ?China, the United States and Russia are core markets that drive international growth. In 2010, China became the world?s fifth biggest wine consumer, while the United States took the lead.?

These three markets and Australia alone saw their consumption jump by 1.55 billion bottles between 2007 and 2011.

However, the situation is reversed across Europe, where wine consumption is undergoing a downturn. For the first time in 15 years, the United Kingdom and Germany posted a respective drop of -4.07 per cent and -2.73 per cent between 2007 and 2011. France and Italy were similarly affected during this period, with respective drops of -7.13 per cent and -2.51 per cent, while Spain underwent a significant free-fall of 19.67 per cent over the past five years. The United States, France and Italy were the period?s top three consumers.

On the export side, the French have reaffirmed their international leadership position with an export sales figure of US $9.9 billion (+5.24 per cent since 2007).

Italy, Spain and Australia are hot on their heels, posting significant sales volume increases. Sadly, said boosts are not proportional to their sales figure increase, reflecting a notable average price drop among export wines.

Evolving consumption habits

The Vinexpo study underscores several major changes in consumption habits, namely the rapid growth of sparkling wines, with an 8.52 per cent increase between 2012 and 2016, as well as the steady rise of ros? wines, which will rise 7.58 per cent by 2016.

Red wines are still dominating the international market, as they represented 54.7 per cent of still wine consumption in 2011 and will post a 9.1 per cent increase by 2016.

It also bears mentioning that consumers are looking for quality. Bottles sold at over $10 per unit totalled 213.566 million 9-litre cases in 2011 and said volume will undergo significant growth (+29.93 per cent) between 2011 and 2016.

Canadian consumers are no different, with 69.5 per cent of wines bought in Canada valued at over $10. Furthermore, the Vinexpo study believes this consumption rate will increase by 30.45 per cent by 2016.

Fast-growing Canadian market

Between 2007 and 2011, wine consumption in Canada increased by +14.55 per cent, for a total of 43.21 million cases consumed in 2011. By 2016, this rate should stay the course, reaching 50.70 million cases, representing 14.27 per cent increase between 2012 and 2016, three times greater than the average international growth.

Consumption trends are stable, with a 17.49 per cent increase in red wine consumption between 2012 and 2016, representing 61.7 per cent of Canada?s still wine consumption, while ros?s continue their rapid ascension, with a 45.41 per cent boost between 2012 and 2016.

As for value, sales figure growth keeps pace with volumes, with wine sales in Canada expected to increase by +14.75 per cent, for a total of $5.7 billion in 2016.

Import wine consumption is going strong, totalling 31.27 million cases in 2011 and expected to post 37.59 million cases by 2016, representing a 17 per cent increase. However, the domestic wine consumption rate is likely to drop slightly (from +10.71 per cent to +7.72 per cent) by 2016.

Coming as a major change since 2011, France has lost its status as Canada?s foremost supplier to Italy, whose exports to Canada posted a +16.1 per cent increase, while France saw its Canada-bound exports drop by -3.74 per cent.

Spirits market stabilization

According to the Vinexpo study, world spirits consumption should stabilize, posting a +8.98 per cent growth rate increase by 2016, well below its +32.64 per cent growth between 2007 and 2011.

The Asia-Pacific region is the world?s foremost spirits consumption zone (61.5 per cent of global consumption). This region posted a tremendous growth rate of +74.31 per cent from 2007 to 2011, which should stabilize to +13.63 per cent between 2012 and 2016.

In Canada, spirits consumption should grow +3.70 per cent between 2012 and 2016. This accelerated growth stems from an increase in import spirits consumption (+4.16 per cent) in 2012 and a drop in domestic spirits.

Vodka, the most popular spirit in Canada (4.76 million cases in 2011), is expected to grow +9.83 per cent between 2012 and 2016. It is followed by rum, which saw its consumption rate increase by +6.55 per cent between 2007 and 2011.

About Vinexpo

Created in 1981 by the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Vinexpo exhibition has stood out over the years as being the largest global world wine and spirits exhibition for decision-makers, distributors and producers in the field. Held in Bordeaux every other year, Vinexpo has seen an impressive growth since its creation. In 2011, Vinexpo welcomed 2,400 exhibitors from 47 countries, 48,122 visitors from 148 countries and more than 1,254 journalists and writers. An exceptional showcase for products from around the world, Vinexpo is an exchange and debate point in the heart of the world?s most renowned wine-producing districts. Beyond the exhibition itself, Vinexpo has succeeded in providing wine and spirits professionals with a genuine tool for strategic reflection and planning through studies, symposia and conferences.

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Source: http://winesinniagara.com/2013/01/canadas-wine-and-spirits-market-to-continue-rapid-growth-according-to-vinexpo-forecast/

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3D printing and NFC make a great looking Nexus 4 dock

We're all waiting for someone to sell that fancy orb docking station for the Nexus 4. In the meantime, Ingenuity never rests and this 3D printed dock would make an awesome substitute. It uses a standard USB cable for charging, and an NFC sticker to trigger the NFC Task Launcher app to drop it into dock mode.

If you have access to a 3D printer, be sure to give this one a good look. And if you make any extra ones, give me a yell so I can throw my money at you.

Source: Thingiverse; via Android Central forums

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/8f8IGfzzjxw/story01.htm

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Finally, Marissa Mayer Explains What Her Yahoo ... - Business Insider

The question that has plagued every Yahoo CEO for the last 10 years or so is a pretty simple one: What does Yahoo do?

Marissa Mayer, six months on the job now, seems to have come up with a pretty good answer.?

She debuted it this morning in a keynote interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

She said that the Web has become "vast" with content, and that what Yahoo can do is use all the contextual clues it has about its users ? their "social context," their specific location, their activity on Yahoo and elsewhere ? "to make sense of the content."

In short, what Marissa Mayer's Yahoo will do is present "The Internet, ordered for you."

"We provide a feed of information that is ordered ? a web, ordered for you, [that] is also available on your mobile phone."

"Which is interesting," she said, "because it brings Yahoo back to its roots."

That's the kind of vision that will excite Yahoo shareholders, employees, users and clients.?

Unfortunately, Mayer says it's not going to happen right away.

Personalization that fully takes advantage of "personalized notions" ? "things like likes on Facebook, tweets, articles you click on" ? "will probably happen in the next three to five years," Mayer told the audience.

You can watch Mayer talk about this specific idea, here.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/finally-marissa-mayer-explains-what-her-yahoo-does-we-provide-a-web-ordered-for-you-2013-1

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Panetta to Announce End of Direct Combat Exclusion for Women

Speaking anonymously, a senior defense official said on Wednesday that the Pentagon would be lifting the rule against women being assigned to direct combat roles. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey will make the official announcement. The policy change will allow the military services to begin planning their implementation of the decision. Modern warfare has brought more women than ever to the front lines, where there were front lines, and into combat.

Heroes

Many women have been recognized for their bravery in combat. Here are just a few. Army helicopter pilot Rhonda Cornum was captured by Iraqi forces in 1991 and held for two weeks. Kim Campbell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for her piloting of a severely damaged A-10 over Iraq in 2003. The Silver Star is the nation's third highest medal for valor in battle. Two women were awarded this honor in the last decade, a first for a woman since World War II. Leigh Ann Hester received a Silver Star for her heroic actions during an ambush in Iraq in 2005 that killed 27 enemy fighters. In an Afghan fight in 2007, Monica Lin Brown received a Silver Star for her bravery as a combat medic while treating wounded under fire.

Killed in Action

Hundreds of American military personnel who are women have been killed or wounded since 2001. Here is a small sample of those losses. In 2006, Amanda Pinson was waiting for a bus on a U.S. base in Iraq when she was killed by mortar fire. Jennifer Parcell served with the Marine Lioness program in Iraq and was killed by a female suicide bomber in 2007. Rachael Hugo was killed in an convoy ambush in Iraq in 2007. Jessica Sarandrea was killed in a mortar attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in 2009. Devin Snyder was killed in 2011 when her vehicle hit a mine in Afghanistan.

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Arizona Sen. John McCain, a career Navy officer and former POW, has this to say about the decision to open direct combat roles to women: "I respect and support Secretary Panetta's decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat. The fact is that American women are already serving in harm's way today all over the world and in every branch of our armed forces. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice, and our nation owes them a deep debt of gratitude."

Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth, herself a combat veteran who was badly wounded when her helicopter was struck by enemy fire, also applauded the decision. "This decision to allow women to serve in combat will allow the best man or woman on the frontline to keep America safe. ... As a veteran who saw combat action I know the inclusion of women in combat roles will make America safer and provide inspiration to women throughout our country."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/panetta-announce-end-direct-combat-exclusion-women-173600142.html

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