Friday, November 30, 2012

Windows 8 Outpacing Windows 7 ? 40 Million Licenses Since Launch

In the month since the release of Windows 8, Microsoft has sold 40 million licenses of the new operating system. This according to one of the new co-heads of the Windows unit, who notes that sales of the new operating system are outpacing those of Windows 7 at the same stage. The figure, though, does not represent full sales through to customers; the bulk of the 40 million Windows 8 licenses were to PC manufacturers, who in turn sell those machines to companies.

Reuters reports that about 15 million PCs worldwide are currently running Windows 8, accounting for around one percent of the world?s total PC install base.

Windows 8 represents a sizable departure for Microsoft from its normal user interface. In place of the familiar mouse-oriented desktop, the software giant opted to make a touch-centric interface the center of the Windows 8 experience.

The fast growth in license sales may initially be a good sign, but it remains to be seen if enterprise adoption will be strong.

Source: http://www.takesontech.com/windows-8-outpacing-windows-7-40-million-licenses-since-launch

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Polar ice melting faster than thought, scientists warn

A new study published in 'Science' found the ice in Greenland is melting five times faster than in the early 90s, part of what accounts for a 20 percent rise in sea level over the past two decades. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

What had been a blurry picture about polar ice ? especially how it impacts sea levels???just got a whole lot clearer as experts on Thursday published a peer-reviewed study they say puts to rest the debate over whether the poles added to, or subtracted from, sea level rise over the last two decades.

"This improved certainty allows us to say definitively that both Antarctica and Greenland have been losing ice," lead author Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds in Britain, told reporters. Not only that, but the pace has tripled from the 1990s, the data indicate.

Combining satellite data from dozens of earlier studies, the study "shows that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have contributed just over 11 millimeters (0.4 inches) to global sea levels since 1992," he added. Two-thirds was from Greenland, a third from Antarctica.


NASA Earth Observatory

This 20-mile-long rift on Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, seen from a satellite on Oct. 26, will eventually calve off, possibly in the next few months, creating an iceberg the size of New York City. While that won't raise sea levels since the glacial tongue sits on water, the loss could speed up the flow of ice from Antarctica's mainland into the sea.

That's 20 percent of all sea level rise over the last two decades, with the rest mostly from thermal expansion of waters due to warming sea temperatures, the authors noted. In recent years, however, the percentage "has gone up significantly" to nearly 40 percent, added co-author Michiel van den Broeke from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Published in the journal Science, the study was based on input from 47 experts at the 26 institutes that produced earlier studies with wild variations. Some of those studies estimated melt was raising sea levels by up to 2 millimeters a year, Shepherd noted, while a few said that overall polar ice was growing, and thus countering sea level rise.

Much of the discrepancy was due to data showing that Antarctica's vast eastern ice sheet was adding, not losing ice.

Eastern Antarctica has indeed added ice, but continent-wide the last decade shows a "50 percent increase in ice loss rate," said study?co-author Erik Ivins, a satellite data expert with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.?

Most of that loss is in western Antarctica ? at places like Pine Island Glacier, where an iceberg the size of New York City is set to calve off. The iceberg itself won't raise sea levels since that ice is already atop water, but thinning glaciers mean that ice on the mainland can make its way downhill to the sea faster.

ESA/NASA/Planetary Visions

Based on the new study in Science, this chart shows changes in global sea level due to ice sheet melting since 1992. The background image shows thickening (blue) and thinning (red) of Antarctica's ice sheets over the same period.

Even more dramatic, Ivins said, is that Greenland?"is losing mass at about five times the rate today as it was in the early 1990s."

Greenland's melt rate has gone from 55 billion tons a year in the 1990s to nearly 290 billion tons a year recently, according to the study.?

A top ice expert who was not a study co-author told NBC News that the new data mark "an important step forward" in better estimating future sea level rise.

"While we had a basic picture of what was going on, it was an incomplete and blurry one," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "We needed to?step back and take a fresh look, making the best use of all of the different data sources?that we have.

"With this study," he added, "we now have a lot confidence in how the ice sheets are behaving."

The findings come as nations negotiate in Qatar over a new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases tied to a warming Earth.?

And while a 0.4 inch rise in sea levels over 20 years doesn't sound like much, many experts fear further warming will accelerate the polar melt. The ice sheets would raise sea levels by more than 200 feet if they completely melted over centuries ? not likely, but even a tenth of that would have catastrophic impacts on coastal areas.

The authors warned that while the new data should become the benchmark for future forecasts, any new studies could be compromised if aging satellites are not replaced. In the U.S., the Obama administration is overhauling its satellite program after an outside review team found it "dysfunctional."

Related: Sea levels rose 60 percent faster than forecast, study finds

"It?s really critical that these measurements are sustained and several satellites are beginning to fail," noted?Ian Joughin, a University of Washington researcher.

"If we really want to have meaningful information that you know planners can use to build seawalls," he added, "there?s going to have to be a big push to improve our projections of sea level rise using models."

More world stories from NBC News:

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15518574-antarctica-greenland-ice-definitely-melting-into-sea-and-speeding-up-experts-warn?lite

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The beginning of everything: New paradigm shift for the infant universe

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? A new paradigm for understanding the earliest eras in the history of the universe has been developed by scientists at Penn State University. Using techniques from an area of modern physics called loop quantum cosmology, developed at Penn State, the scientists now have extended analyses that include quantum physics farther back in time than ever before -- all the way to the beginning. The new paradigm of loop quantum origins shows, for the first time, that the large-scale structures we now see in the universe evolved from fundamental fluctuations in the essential quantum nature of "space-time," which existed even at the very beginning of the universe over 14 billion years ago. The achievement also provides new opportunities for testing competing theories of modern cosmology against breakthrough observations expected from next-generation telescopes.

The research will be published on 11 December 2012 as an "Editor's Suggestion" paper in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

"We humans always have yearned to understand more about the origin and evolution of our universe," said Abhay Ashtekar, the senior author of the paper. "So it is an exciting time in our group right now, as we begin using our new paradigm to understand, in more detail, the dynamics that matter and geometry experienced during the earliest eras of the universe, including at the very beginning." Ashtekar is the Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics at Penn State and the director of the university's Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Coauthors of the paper, along with Ashtekar, are postdoctoral fellows Ivan Agullo and William Nelson.

The new paradigm provides a conceptual and mathematical framework for describing the exotic "quantum-mechanical geometry of space-time" in the very early universe. The paradigm shows that, during this early era, the universe was compressed to such unimaginable densities that its behavior was ruled not by the classical physics of Einstein's general theory of relativity, but by an even more fundamental theory that also incorporates the strange dynamics of quantum mechanics. The density of matter was huge then -- 1094 grams per cubic centimeter, as compared with the density of an atomic nucleus today, which is only 1014 grams.

In this bizarre quantum-mechanical environment -- where one can speak only of probabilities of events rather than certainties -- physical properties naturally would be vastly different from the way we experience them today. Among these differences, Ashtekar said, are the concept of "time," as well as the changing dynamics of various systems over time as they experience the fabric of quantum geometry itself.

No space observatories have been able to detect anything as long ago and far away as the very early eras of the universe described by the new paradigm. But a few observatories have come close. Cosmic background radiation has been detected in an era when the universe was only 380-thousand years old. By that time, after a period of rapid expansion called "inflation," the universe had burst out into a much-diluted version of its earlier super-compressed self. At the beginning of inflation, the density of the universe was a trillion times less than during its infancy, so quantum factors now are much less important in ruling the large-scale dynamics of matter and geometry.

Observations of the cosmic background radiation show that the universe had a predominantly uniform consistency after inflation, except for a light sprinkling of some regions that were more dense and others that were less dense. The standard inflationary paradigm for describing the early universe, which uses the classical-physics equations of Einstein, treats space-time as a smooth continuum. "The inflationary paradigm enjoys remarkable success in explaining the observed features of the cosmic background radiation. Yet this model is incomplete. It retains the idea that the universe burst forth from nothing in a Big Bang, which naturally results from the inability of the paradigm's general-relativity physics to describe extreme quantum-mechanical situations," Agullo said. "One needs a quantum theory of gravity, like loop quantum cosmology, to go beyond Einstein in order to capture the true physics near the origin of the universe."

Earlier work with loop quantum cosmology in Ashtekar's group had updated the concept of the Big Bang with the intriguing concept of a Big Bounce, which allows the possibility that our universe emerged not from nothing but from a super-compressed mass of matter that previously may have had a history of its own.

Even though the quantum-mechanical conditions at the beginning of the universe were vastly different from the classical-physics conditions after inflation, the new achievement by the Penn State physicists reveals a surprising connection between the two different paradigms that describe these eras. When scientists use the inflation paradigm together with Einstein's equations to model the evolution of the seed-like areas sprinkled throughout the cosmic background radiation, they find that the irregularities serve as seeds that evolve over time into the galaxy clusters and other large-scale structures that we see in the universe today. Amazingly, when the Penn State scientists used their new loop-quantum-origins paradigm with its quantum-cosmology equations, they found that fundamental fluctuations in the very nature of space at the moment of the Big Bounce evolve to become the seed-like structures seen in the cosmic microwave background.

"Our new work shows that the initial conditions at the very beginning of the universe naturally lead to the large-scale structure of the universe that we observe today," Ashtekar said. "In human terms, it is like taking a snapshot of a baby right at birth and then being able to project from it an accurate profile of how that person will be at age 100."

"This paper pushes back the genesis of the cosmic structure of our universe from the inflationary epoch all the way to the Big Bounce, covering some 11 orders of magnitude in the density of matter and the curvature of space-time," Nelson said. "We now have narrowed down the initial conditions that could exist at the Big Bounce, plus we find that the evolution of those initial conditions agrees with observations of the cosmic background radiation."

The team's results also identify a narrower range of parameters for which the new paradigm predicts novel effects, distinguishing it from standard inflation. Ashtekar said, "It is exciting that we soon may be able to test different predictions from these two theories against future discoveries with next-generation observational missions. Such experiments will help us to continue gaining a deeper understanding of the very, very early universe."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by Barbara K. Kennedy.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Ivan Agullo, Abhay Ashtekar, and William Nelson. Quantum gravity extension of the inflationary scenario. Physical Review Letters, December 11, 2012

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/top_news/~3/KJ2HhYd9VXM/121129143452.htm

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Peanut butter plant closure angers New Mexico town

PORTALES, N.M. (AP) ? Farmers in a revered peanut-growing region along the New Mexico-Texas border should be celebrating one of the best harvests in recent memory.

Instead, millions of pounds of their prized sweet Valencia peanuts sit in barns at a peanut butter plant shuttered for two months amid a salmonella outbreak that sickened 41 people in 20 states.

Farmers are worried about getting paid for their peanuts, nearly a third the plant's 150 workers have been laid off, and residents wonder what toll an increasingly contentious showdown between the nation's largest organic peanut butter plant and federal regulators could ultimately have on the region's economy.

The tension boiled over when the Food and Drug Administration on Monday said it was suspending Sunland Inc.'s registration to operate because of repeated safety violations, meaning the plant will remain indefinitely shut down as the company appeals the decision. The company had planned to reopen some its operations this week after voluntarily recalling hundreds of products and closing its processing and peanut butter plants in late September and early October.

Many in this flat, dusty and solidly Republican farm town of about 20,000 denounce the FDA's tactics as unfair and unnecessarily heavy-handed ? and become defensive about the shutdown of the largest private employer in town.

"We had the best crop in years, and then these (expletives) came in and started this," said resident and local telecomm worker Boyd Evans.

For the first time ever, the FDA is using authority granted under a 2011 food safety law signed by President Barack Obama that allows the agency to shut food operations without a court hearing.

The FDA said inspectors found samples of salmonella in 28 different locations in the plant, in 13 nut butter samples and in one sample of raw peanuts. Inspectors found improper handling of the products, unclean equipment and uncovered trailers of peanuts outside the facility that were exposed to rain and birds. Inspectors also said employees did not have access to hand-washing sinks, and dirty hands had direct contact with ready-to-package peanuts.

The FDA has inspected the plant at least four times over the past five years, each time finding violations. Michael Taylor, the FDA's deputy commissioner for foods, said the agency's inspections after the outbreak found even worse problems than what had been seen there before.

The salmonella outbreak was traced to Trader Joe's peanut butter produced at the plant. Sunland produces products for a number of national grocery and retail chains, and New Mexico Peanut Growers Association President Wayne Baker says the industry generates about $60 million in the region each year.

Valencias are a variety of peanuts that come almost exclusively from eastern New Mexico. Because of their sweet flavor, they are favored for organic and natural peanut butter products because they require few additives.

The peanut is celebrated every year at the town's annual Peanut Valley Festival, and most residents have stories related to peanuts, whether growing up on a peanut farm, helping to haul them to harvest or knowing peanut workers or farmers.

"Peanuts is, like, everything here," said local shopkeeper Brittany Mignard.

The plant's retail store remains open, although its shelves are bare of its own products. The few items remaining include peanut brittle made in Lubbock, Texas. The shelves are stocked with jelly, but no peanut butter.

Baker, who is also a Sunland board member, said the company had never been notified of any past violations. And the company has vehemently denied FDA allegations that it knowingly shipped any potentially tainted products.

Plant officials said they were blindsided by the FDA's suspension on Monday. Just hours before it was announced, the plant had announced plans to start shelling the bumper crop on Tuesday. Plant officials said they had notified the FDA last week of their plans to reopen the processing operations while waiting for approval to resume making peanut butter.

"The FDA is overreaching its power and putting out information that isn't true," Baker said. "We don't understand what is going on. We don't think we are guilty."

FDA officials wouldn't comment on his allegations, saying it was an ongoing investigation.

Food safety expert and Cornell University professor Bob Gravani said given the number of salmonella outbreaks in recent years, he believes the FDA is being heavily scrutinized about why they are not using their rules more frequently or more aggressively.

Putting aside the "he-said, she-said" between the FDA and the company, he said, "I would say suspension is warranted in this case."

This is not the first major outbreak since the FDA gained authority to pull a facility's registration in the 2011 food safety law. An outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe in 2011 is linked to at least 30 deaths and investigators found similar conditions at Jensen Farms in Colorado. Unlike Sunland, however, Jensen Farms did not attempt to restart operations after the recall and FDA investigation. The company later filed for bankruptcy.

Baker said officials have been trying for the past two months to cooperate with the FDA to get the plant reopened.

"That hasn't worked," he said. "But we are not going to give up. We are going to fight this. We have got no choice."

He said officials have begun calling the state's senators and congressman and talking with other agricultural groups about getting help in Washington with an appeal of the FDA action. No hearing has yet been scheduled.

Coburn said about 30 percent of the plant's workers were laid off Monday.

Although peanuts can be stored for a while, Coburn and Baker acknowledged that time is of the essence for getting to work on what Coburn said were "many, many millions" of pounds harvested from this year's crop.

Farmers, Baker acknowledged, are worried about getting paid. But he said Sunland has committed to paying them for their crops.

Under a worst-case scenario, he said, Sunland could sell the peanuts to other producers.

___

Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jeri Clausing on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jericlausing

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/peanut-butter-plant-closure-angers-mexico-town-211629739.html

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Bring On Spring! We Love These Candy Colours From Dior And Butter London


  • Katie Jones
  • Assistant Editor, MyDaily

Get updates from Katie Jones:

Spring feels like a long way away, but when pictures of two brand new makeup collections landed in our inbox yesterday, we couldn't help but get very excited about these good-enough-to-eat candy colours.

dior620

First up is the Dior Cherie Bow range, which, according to the press release, is a "uniquely fresh fusion of the House of Dior?s iconic codes". Translation: three new stunning palettes, eyeshadow pens, a BB cream, a lip glow and three more Dior Le Vernis, all of which are centred around a pink and grey colour scheme. To summarise, we love.

butter

As for the second show-stopping Spring collection, Butter London will launch its Sweetie Shop range next year. Not only does this mean six super cute new colours, but the people at Butter really had fun with the naming game too. Meet Cuppa (creamy khaki), Fruit Machine (candy pink), Molly Coddles (violet), Fiver (mint), Jasper (lemon) and Kerfuffle (sherbet).

Dior Cherie Bow will launch exclusively at Selfridges from 4th January 2013 and nationwide from 18th January 2013, available from ?18 - ?59. Butter London's Sweetie Shop will also launch in Boots and Harvey Nichols in January, priced at ?12 each.

Here's what this month has to offer on the beauty front:

  • Topshop Lip And Eye Crayons

    The perfect way to add some colour to your party looks this season. ?6.50 from <a href="http://www.topshop.com/">Topshop</a>

  • Dior Tattoos

    24-carat gold tattoos? They could only be from Dior. ?80, available exclusively at <a href="http://www.harrods.com/">Harrods</a> from 2 November

  • Chanel Christmas Collection

    Chanel's Eclats Du Soir collection comes complete with eyeshadow palettes, a new Rouge Allure and Le Vernis, all centred aroundn a rich, plum shade. From ?18 - ?43, available from department stores on 9 November

  • Clinique Chubby Sticks

    Chubby sticks have become a bit of a beauty cult and we have good news for fans! Clinique is launching a new collection, with eight shades to choose from. We love the neutral but glossy Curviest Caramel. ?16 available from <a href="http://www.clinique.co.uk/">Clinique</a> in mid November.

  • Decleor Nature To Nature Collection

    Decleor has teamed up with Aqua Sana at Center Parcs to create this miniature skincare collection. Not only does it come in the perfect size for jet-setters, the brand will donate ?1 from every Nature to Nature Collection sold to The Tree Council. ?49.50 from Aqua Sana at Center Parcs

  • Mac Glamour Daze

    New from Mac this month is the Glamour Daze collection and as usual, it includes everything you'll need in your makeup bag. From eye shadows and lip glosses in candy colours to the shimmering Skin Finishes, this will see you through the festive season in style. ?15 - ?21.50 from <a href="http://www.maccosmetics.co.uk/">Mac Cosmetics</a>

  • ghd Metallic Collection

    ghd's in Christmas colours? That's a present for your beauty junkie friend sorted. ?135, from <a href="http://www.ghdhair.com/">ghd</a>

  • Nars Andy Warhol Collection

    Nars' limited edition Silver Factory Christmas collection takes inspiration from Andy Warhol. The result? Colour-popping palettes, nail polishes and eye-shadow duos. Already at the top of our wish-list. ?14 - ?54, from <a href="http://www.narscosmetics.co.uk/">Nars Cosmetics</a>

  • Bare Minerals Ready Luminzers

    Bare Minerals is launching two new palettes this month, which nourish and condition skin whilst adding a subtle touch of radiance to the cheeks. ?36 each, from <a href="http://www.bareminerals.co.uk/">Bare Minerals</a>

Source: http://www.mydaily.co.uk/2012/11/28/dior-makeup-nail-polish-spring_n_2203198.html

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

To get the best look at a person's face, look just below the eyes

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. However, to get a real idea of what a person is up to, according to UC Santa Barbara researchers Miguel Eckstein and Matt Peterson, the best place to check is right below the eyes. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's pretty fast, it's effortless ?? we're not really aware of what we're doing," said Miguel Eckstein, professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Using an eye tracker and more than 100 photos of faces and participants, Eckstein and graduate research assistant Peterson followed the gaze of the experiment's participants to determine where they look in the first crucial moment of identifying a person's identity, gender, and emotional state.

"For the majority of people, the first place we look at is somewhere in the middle, just below the eyes," Eckstein said. One possible reason could be that we are trained from youth to look there, because it's polite in some cultures. Or, because it allows us to figure out where the person's attention is focused.

However, Peterson and Eckstein hypothesize that, despite the ever-so-brief ?? 250 millisecond ?? glance, the relatively featureless point of focus, and the fact that we're usually unaware that we're doing it, the brain is actually using sophisticated computations to plan an eye movement that ensures the highest accuracy in tasks that are evolutionarily important in determining flight, fight, or love at first sight.

"When you look at a scene, or at a person's face, you're not just using information right in front of you," said Peterson. The place where one's glance is aimed is the place that corresponds to the highest resolution in the eye ?? the fovea, a slight depression in the retina at the back of the eye ?? while regions surrounding the foveal area ?? the periphery ?? allow access to less spatial detail.

However, according to Peterson, at a conversational distance, faces tend to span a larger area of the visual field. There is information to be gleaned, not just from the face's eyes, but also from features like the nose or the mouth. But when participants were directed to try to determine the identity, gender, and emotion of people in the photos by looking elsewhere ?? the forehead, the mouth, for instance ?? they did not perform as well as they would have by looking close to the eyes.

Using a sophisticated algorithm, which mimics the varying spatial detail of human processing across the visual field and integrates all information to make decisions, allowed Peterson and Eckstein to predict what would be the best place within the faces to look for each of these perceptual tasks. They found that these predicted places varied moderately across tasks, and closely corresponded to where humans actually do look.

At least for the three important tasks investigated ?? identity, emotion, and gender ?? below the eyes is the optimal place to look, say the scientists, because it allows one to read information from as many features of the face as possible.

"What the visual system is adept at doing is taking all those pieces of information from your face and combining them in a statistical manner to make a judgment about whatever task you're doing," said Eckstein. The area around the eyes contains minute bits of important information, which require the high resolution processing close to the fovea, whereas features like the mouth are larger and can be read without a direct gaze.

The study shows that the ability to learn optimal rapid eye movement for evolutionarily important perceptual tasks is inherent in humans; however, say the scientists, it is not necessarily consistent behavior for everybody. Eckstein's lab is currently involved in studying a small subset of people who do not look just below the eyes to identify a person. Other researchers have shown that East Asians, for instance, tend look lower on the face when identifying a person's face.

The research by Peterson and Eckstein has resulted in sophisticated new algorithms to model optimal gaze patterns when looking at faces. The algorithms could potentially be used to provide insight into conditions like schizophrenia and autism, which are associated with uncommon gaze patterns, or prosopagnosia ?? an inability to recognize someone by his or her face.

###

University of California - Santa Barbara: http://www.ucsb.edu

Thanks to University of California - Santa Barbara for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125495/_To_get_the_best_look_at_a_person_s_face__look_just_below_the_eyes

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Fire suppression systems urged in all cargo planes

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The government should require fire suppression systems in all cargo containers or compartments of planes to prevent the kind of ferocious in-flight blazes that have killed four cargo pilots over the past six years, federal accident investigators said Wednesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board didn't specify what kind of technology the Federal Aviation Administration should require airlines to install. But the board's letter to the FAA came a day after United Parcel Service said it has developed systems that can prevent or contain even fires in shipments of lithium batteries, which burn at very high temperatures.

Lithium batteries are suspected to have caused or contributed to the severity of the fire in the crashes of a UPS jumbo freight airplane in Dubai in 2010 and an Asiana Cargo plane off the coast of South Korea in 2011. In 2006, two UPS pilots were able to escape a plane shortly after landing in Philadelphia before it was consumed by flames. That plane also contained lithium batteries.

Current fire protection regulations for cargo planes are inadequate, according to the board's letter.

"These fires quickly grew out of control, leaving the crew with little time to get the aircraft on the ground," NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said in a statement. "Detection, suppression and containment systems can give crews more time and more options; the current approach is not safe enough."

FAA rules say airplane fire warning systems must be able to detect fire in a cargo container within a minute of its ignition. But the NTSB said its tests of two types of cargo containers showed a time lapse between ignition and detection ranging from 2 1/2 minutes to more than 18 minutes.

In the tests, the fires "grew very large, capable of causing significant damage to an aircraft" before they were detected, the letter said.

Current FAA regulations require halon gas fire suppression systems in below-deck cargo holds, but not in the main cargo compartment above deck. The main strategy for fighting fires above deck is to deprive them of oxygen by taking the plane to an altitude where depressurization is achieved.

In the case of the UPS plane that crashed in Dubai, however, there was a lapse of 2 1/2 minutes between detection of the fire and depressurization, which was enough time for the fire to damage the plane and affect the pilots' ability to control the aircraft, the NTSB said.

Also, halon systems don't work on fires involving lithium metal batteries, which are found in a watches, calculators and a wide range of consumer goods.

Unlike other kinds of batteries, lithium metal batteries can spontaneously ignite if exposed to air. Also, the positive and negative poles in some lithium batteries are close together, leading more easily to short circuiting, which can cause a fire.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which power devices such as laptop computers, cellphones and MP3 players, are a fire concern, too. Fires involving lithium-ion batteries can reach 1,100 degrees, close to the melting point of aluminum, a key material in airplane construction. Lithium-metal battery fires are far hotter, capable of reaching 4,000 degrees.

FAA officials didn't immediately reply to a request for comment. A report two years ago by the agency concluded that the cost of installing fire suppression systems in main-deck cargo compartments was too expensive to justify requiring airlines to add them.

UPS said tests last month of a new type of cargo container it has developed showed the container can suppress and contain lithium-ion battery fires for as long as four hours , which is enough time in most instances for pilots to safely land the plane. The tests were conducted at the FAA's technology center in Atlantic City, N.J., with FAA and NTSB officials looking on.

The container is made from fiber-reinforced plastic akin to materials used in body armor and suits for race-car drivers. Temperatures during the test reached as high as 1,200 degrees, but a powdered flame suppressant released inside the container prevented most of its contents from being damaged, UPS said. The airline is also testing a new type of flame-suppressing cover for cargo pallets.

While the new technologies require further testing, "we believe they have the potential to revolutionize cargo safety," UPS spokesman Mike Mangeot said.

___

Online:

NTSB letter: http://tinyurl.com/ch6obl2

___

Follow Joan Lowy at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fire-suppression-systems-urged-cargo-planes-165950338--finance.html

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iPad Mini Magazine Ad - Business Insider

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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-mini-magazine-ad-2012-11

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Apple sacks exec in maps fiasco: report

Wednesday, 28 November, 2012

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Source: http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/breaking-news/technology/apple-sacks-exec-maps-fiasco-report-20121128

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

No Gift for You

Emily Yoffe.

Emily Yoffe

Photograph by Teresa Castracane.

Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat live with readers. An edited?transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up here?to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie?s?Slate columns?here. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)

Q. Daughter Is Left Out of the Gift Exchange: I was an unmarried teenager when I gave birth to my now 8-year-old daughter Mandy. I am now engaged to Peter, a wonderful man who loves me and adores Mandy. The issue is Peter's parents. This don't care for Mandy, and they don't think much of me because I was in a position to give birth as an unwed teenager. They have lectured me a few times about premarital sex and the like. Christmas is coming up, and my future mother-in-law has informed me that she and her husband will not be buying presents for Mandy, and neither will Peter's siblings. Mandy's not entitled to presents, but since Peter's family does a big Christmas get-together, Mandy will see a bunch of kids get presents while she does not. It's hard to explain something like this to a kid. Peter's pretty upset with his family, but they're still his family, and ditching them would be incredibly painful for him, obviously. Do you have any advice?

A: Peter may be a wonderful man, but I hope one of his good qualities is that he is capable of standing up to his parents on behalf of his future wife and stepchild. There are still a few weeks left before Christmas, so I Peter needs to have a sit-down with his parents informing him that you and your daughter are going to be a part of the family and if his parents want all of you to be in their lives?and that includes the grandchildren to come?they need to stop making invidious comparisons among the grandchildren. Since Mandy is a new arrival it would be fine if they simply get her one thoughtful gift, but to deliberately leave her on the sidelines is unconscionable. If they back down, then you and Peter should each buy her a gift for under the tree so she doesn't feel left out. An 8-year-old is also old enough to be told that joining a new family can be a awkward and uncomfortable but that you and Peter will be looking out for her. If you go and Peter's family behaves dreadfully, you and he should have a signal that enough is enough and make an early exit from the nonfestivities.

Q. Bridezilla Buddy: My best friend from childhood is getting married in six months, and I am the matron of honor. I have been struggling with infertility, and was planning on trying in vitro in the spring. Well, to my surprise, I am unexpectedly pregnant. Obviously, my husband and I are thrilled. My family is thrilled. My friend is absolutely furious. She is angry that I will ?spoil? her wedding pictures by being about eight months pregnant, and she is worried that I won't fit into any dress that matches her plan. She is accusing me of intentionally ruining her big day. I want to simply tell her to get lost, but her family is close to mine, there is a lot of history there, and I worry about the repercussions between our families if I was to cut her out of my life. Frankly, I wish she would just ?fire? me as MoH, and make things easier. I have tried to explain to her, I didn't plan on this pregnancy, as I really thought I would never get pregnant on my own, and I had hoped she would be happy for me, as she knew everything we were going through. She just doesn't get it though, and continues to play the victim here. I could *almost* ignore her selfishness here, except she has started making comments along the lines of, ?Well, you may not even be pregnant when the wedding comes. With all your fertility issues, you may just miscarry, so no big deal.? I almost lost my mind at that point. I am beyond stressed about her and this wedding after all of this. Is it too late for me to just say no?

A: Your best friend hopes you miscarry so that you can properly devote your energies to her perfect day and not to your impending motherhood. What more do you need to know? It doesn't matter that the two families are close, someone has to clue this bride into the fact that she's become a gargoyle. You inform her right away that because of your pregnancy you will not be able to attend her wedding, period. No excuse making for your thoughtless reproduction plans, no snide comments that you're thinking the wedding might not come off because you hope the groom realizes he's about to hitch himself to a lunatic.

Q. Battling Cancer, Who Should Watch the Kids?: I will soon begin chemotherapy to battle cancer. My husband and I have three children under 6, so we'll need child care help over the coming months. My parents, who live 30 minutes away, would love to watch our kids when I am too sick to or when my husband needs to work. I would prefer this arrangement. My husband thinks his ex-wife Madeline should watch our kids, since she lives 10 minutes away. He and Madeline have two teenagers together, so spending time with Madeline would mean receiving additional support from their older brothers. I enjoy a fabulous relationship with Madeline, and she is a fantastic mom. But I still want my parents to be our children's primary baby sitters while I'm undergoing chemo. Part of me selfishly worries that my kids will begin to prefer Madeline when my hair falls out and I'm kind of scary because of the drugs I will be taking. I also feel more comfortable with my parents for reasons I can't explain; I feel like I won't be as worried about being sick or having rough days in front of them. I could use some outside perspective on this.

A: I'm so sorry you are going through this and I wish you a swift and complete recovery. You are blessed with several people who can step in to help with the kids, run errands, cook meals, and otherwise keep life as normal as possible. However, not one of these people will replace you in your children's hearts, no matter how upsetting it is to see you ill. Please do your best to prepare your children in an age-appropriate way for what's ahead. (Readers, any book suggestions or advice on this?) You do not have to choose between caregivers, and your husband should be sensitive to your desires. But if your treatment is a long haul it sounds as if it would be good to organize shifts of your parents and Madeline. Keeping your kids active and happy and surrounded by the many loving people in their lives will be the best medicine for all of you.

Q. Haunted By My Mistake: Last year my friend's girlfriend disappeared with their two young children. He was desperate to find them, but he did not trust the police so he did not involve them. I saw his girlfriend a few weeks later when I went to visit my sister a few hours away from where my friend and I lived. She seemed to be working at a hair salon. I called my friend and told him I'd seen her and where. My friend tracked his girlfriend down, followed her home, and killed her and one of their kids before taking his own life. I had no idea his girlfriend fled because he'd been abusing her; nothing ever indicated to me that he was controlling or violent. Even so, I am haunted by my mistake. I have fallen apart over the past year. I cannot hold down a job or maintain relationships. Two innocent people are dead because of me, and a child will grow up an orphan because of me. No one knows my involvement in the case. I fear a counselor would push me to confess to the victim's families. Maybe that is what I deserve: to be hated by them. I do not know what to do with myself.

A: I can understand your agony. While it is too late for this tragedy, it's good for anyone concerned about a friend or family member's domestic crisis that if someone does not want to police involved when that is the obvious place to turn, alarm bells should ring. You need to start taking steps to get on with your life. Naturally, you are awash with guilt, but your own ruination will do no one any good. You know you acted in all innocence?there are plenty of cases in which one parent absconds with the children leaving a decent parent bereft. You obviously would never have tipped off your friend had you known he was a maniac. First, I think you should have a consultation with a criminal defense lawyer. I'm not saying you are criminally liable, but you need to get these potential issues resolved. Then you do need to talk to a counselor. You must figure out a way to deal with your guilt and rebuild a productive life. This event will always be a scar across your psyche, but being destroyed yourself only makes one more person a victim of that monster.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4a8dc93ed31cd03baa1e79cfa6d05114

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DAVID ROSMAN: Fiscal cliff debate should include military and social spending

Wednesday, November 28, 2012 | 6:00 a.m. CST

I have a question to help enhance my own political understanding.

As we approach the ?fiscal cliff,? I understand most of the discussions as well as the pros and cons of the arguments. One position I do not understand is the seeming lack of the ?less-government? movement to trim the military budget to control our national spending. Why is this issue off everyone?s radar?

Our military budget is larger ($711 billion) than the following nine highest military budgets combined ($579 billion). The U.S. military budget represents 4.1?percent of our GDP. The only country in the top 15 that exceeds that is Saudi Arabia at 10 percent of GDP. Israel only made it to number 17.

I am also fully aware that U.S. military spending represents about 15 percent of the federal budget.

Entitlements have also grown. The Congressional Budget Office reported in June, ?major health care programs and Social Security (will) grow from more than 10 percent of GDP (in 2012) to almost 16 percent of GDP 25 years from now.? I concede that most of that increase is due to the Affordable Healthcare Act.

The budget office also states another major factor, that the ?baby-boom generation portends a significant and sustained increase in the share of the population receiving benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and as well as long-term care services financed by Medicaid.?

This does not include other federally funded safety net programs such as the food stamp program, housing, Temporary Assistance of Needy Families(TANIF), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and as some conservatives wish to include, student loan programs. Yes, there are a lot more and that number is growing. Why?

I am not pointing fingers here, but our economy did take a major hit in 2008 and the momentum continued on the downward slide for almost two?years. Yet the reality is that these safety-net programs also prevented the fiscal crisis from getting worse, saving many jobs and home ownerships.

The argument that the maintaining of military spending protects the jobs, direct and indirect, of millions of Americans is proper. However, the same argument can be said about Supplemental Security Income (SSI), federal health care and other ?welfare? programs that are in the budgetary gun sights of the ?pull yourself up by your boot strap? movements.

These same political movements reject the calamity that could have befallen our nation. The extensions of unemployment benefits alone kept a lot of people from filing for bankruptcy to pay basic bills.

Yet if one looks at the entire welfare system budget, it was just under $431 billion for 2012. Of the military spending, the Department of Defense?s budget alone is $708 billion ? both increasing by one-third since 2008. I admit the military budget is reduced in 2013, but we will have one less war to pay for and it is immediately offset by the welfare increases.

I believe both can be cut to meet today?s budgetary and citizenry needs without digging new holes and without leaving people in the gutter. I think we can spend under 4 percent of GDP for military and less than 6 percent of GDP for public programs.

The scenarios of both budgets are out of date, relying on war instead of peace and growth instead of the natural pendulum swing of the economy.

We have to re-evaluate, revamp and revise the safety net programs to see if the money could be better spent, such as creating jobs through government spending on rebuilding and repairing our infrastructure. We must also re-evaluate our military budget to better protect our citizens through new technologies, not new bombs. (OK, the last sounded a bit too liberal, but would you expect different from me?)

Paraphrasing Rene Descartes, Congress has made ?a habit of making ill-considered judgments? and has learned little from its errors. As a consequence, Congress does meet Einstein?s definition of insanity, ?doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.?

The military and welfare budgets are equal friends and foes in Congress? avoidance of a ?fiscal cliff.? Let?s treat them both as such. Put everything on the table.

Then, members of Congress really talk with each other and take down their fortresses of ideology.

David Rosman is an editor, writer, professional speaker and college instructor in communications, ethics, business and politics. Questions? Contact Opinion editor Elizabeth Conner.

Source: http://columbiamissourian.com/a/156290/david-rosman-fiscal-cliff-debate-should-include-military-and-social-spending/

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Record Powerball result of changes to boost sales

A customer fills in his numbers on a Powerball ticket for a chance to win the $450,000 jackpot Monday, Nov. 26, 2012, in Houston for a chance to win the $450,000 jackpot. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

A customer fills in his numbers on a Powerball ticket for a chance to win the $450,000 jackpot Monday, Nov. 26, 2012, in Houston for a chance to win the $450,000 jackpot. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

A customer purchases lottery tickets for the Powerball lottery at Foster Stationery in Bergenfield, N.J. on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012. The jackpot for Powerball's weekend drawing has climbed to $325 million, the fourth-largest in the game's history. Powerball organizers say this is the first run-up to a large jackpot that's fallen over a major holiday. (AP Photo/The Record (Bergen County), Don Smith)

(AP) ? The historic Powerball jackpot boosted to $500 million on Tuesday was all part of a plan lottery officials put in place early this year to build jackpots faster, drive sales and generate more money for states that run the game.

Their plan appears to be working.

Powerball tickets doubled in price in January to $2, and while the number of tickets sold initially dropped, sales revenue has increased by about 35 percent over 2011.

Sales for Powerball reached a record $3.96 billion in fiscal 2012 and are expected to reach $5 billion this year, said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Des Moines, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, the group that runs the Powerball game.

There has been no Powerball winner since Oct. 6, and the jackpot already has reached a record level for the game. It was first posted at $425 million but revised upward to $500 million when brisk sales increased the payout. It's the second highest jackpot in lottery history, behind only the $656 million Mega Millions prize in March.

It took nine weeks for the Mega Millions jackpot to get that high, before three winners ? from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland ? hit the right numbers, each collecting $218.6 million for their share of the split.

With soaring jackpots come soaring sales, and for the states playing the game, that means higher revenue.

"The purpose for the lottery is to generate revenue for the respective states and their beneficiary programs," said Norm Lingle, chairman of the Powerball Game Group. "High jackpots certainly help the lottery achieve those goals."

Of the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket, $1 goes to the prizes and the other dollar is kept by the state lottery organization, said Lingle, who also is executive director of the South Dakota Lottery. After administrative overhead is paid, the remaining amount goes to that state's beneficiary programs.

Some states designate specific expenditures such as education, while others deposit the money in their general fund to help supplement tax revenue.

The federal government keeps 25 percent of the jackpot for federal taxes.

Most states withhold between 5 percent and 7 percent. There's no withholding in states without a state income tax such as Delaware, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas. A New York City winner would pay more than 12 percent since the state takes 8.97 percent and the city keeps 3.6 percent.

Powerball and Mega Millions games are seeing jackpots grow faster and higher in part because the states that play both games agreed in 2010 to sell to one another.

Both games are now played in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands. The larger pool of players means jackpots roll over to higher numbers faster, which tends to increase the buzz about the jackpots which increases sales. It all can result in higher jackpots sooner.

"It really happened with both of these games became national games," said Terry Rich, CEO of the Iowa Lottery.

Still, just seven of the top 25 jackpots occurred after January 2010 when the cross-selling began. That just points to the unpredictability of games of chance like lotteries. It still comes down to the luck of the numbers, Rich said.

It has been proven that once the jackpot reaches a certain threshold more players buy.

The Quick Shop in Ottumwa, Iowa, is one of the state's highest-volume lottery ticket sellers due to its location across the street from a John Deere farm implement factory.

"It's picking up by the minute," said store owner Mark Ebelsheiser. "We're selling probably 60 to 70 percent more than normal. When it gets up this high they really come out and get them."

Bob Allison, a retired Indian Hills Community College instructor and administrator, buys tickets weekly for a group of people at the college in Ottumwa. On Tuesday he and two golfing and fishing buddies went in together to buy additional tickets. Allison said he usually buys a few additional tickets when the jackpot gets so high.

He said he'd make a lot of people very happy if he won.

"My kids would probably retire quick," said the father of three daughters.

Between $20 and $30 million in tickets were sold between Wednesday and Saturday drawings for most of October. Once the jackpot hit $100 million on Oct. 27, nearly $38 million worth of tickets were sold by Oct. 31. As the jackpot grew to more than $200 million on Nov. 17, sales surged by nearly $70 million by the next Wednesday. Then the jackpot reached over $300 million on Nov. 24 and ticket sales over the next four days surpassed $140 million.

"Somewhere around $100 million those occasional players seem to come back into the stores in droves," said Rich, the Iowa Lottery CEO. The lottery also notices a significant increase in workers and other groups joining together in pools to combine resources to buy numbers, he said.

Trina Small, manager at the convenience store in Bondurant, Iowa, where a couple bought a $202 million ticket on Sept. 26, said sales have been heavy. She said Monday night Powerball sales were at about $800, at least $200 more than normal. She expects Tuesday and Wednesday sales to be even more.

"It's kind of like Black Friday all over again," she said.

Small doesn't usually play the lottery herself but said she may buy a chance at the record jackpot. She's just trying to decide if her chances are better buying it elsewhere since a jackpot ticket was sold at her store just two months ago ? the old adage about lightning striking twice.

"The odds are against you anyway but I'm pretty sure they're more against you getting one from this store," she joked.

Powerball has posted sales exceeding $714 million in the current jackpot run since early October and it's possible more than $1 billion in tickets will have been sold by the end of Wednesday when the next drawing is held.

A single winner choosing the cash option would take home more than $327 million before taxes.

Strutt said the chance of getting a winner this Wednesday is approaching 60 percent.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-27-Powerball-Big%20Jackpots/id-41a037a5594d493d8c3260ac5e4685ec

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Birdman Wants To Drop 100 Cash Money Albums A Year

'The goal is to keep developing and keep putting out,' Birdman tells MTV News of his ambitious goal to drop 100 albums in one year.
By Rob Markman


Birdman
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698024/birdman-cash-money-100-records.jhtml

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Syria says 34 killed in Damascus bombings

'Tis the season of giving, and a grocery-store owner is doing just that. Joe Lueken, who owns and manages two grocery stores in Bemidji, Minnesota, and one in Wahpeton, North Dakota, is retiring at age 70. Instead of selling his stores to the highest bidder, though, he will transfer ownership to the stores' 400 or [...]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-launches-air-strikes-combat-rages-damascus-065905245.html

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Flu Fascism - The Healthy Home Economist

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Mamas, don?t let your babies grow up to be cowboys healthcare workers!

TriHealth, one of the largest employers in the Cincinnati, Ohio metro area, has confirmed the firing of 150 of its nearly 11,000 employees in recent days for refusing this year?s flu shot.

The deadline for employees to receive the flu vaccine was November 16, 2012. ?Employees who did not comply with the company?s directive were terminated Wednesday, November 21, 2012 according to a TriHealth spokesperson.

TriHealth?s excuse for its flu fascist policies?

The shots were offered for free!

What a deal!

Ladies and gentlemen, listen up: ? TriHealth cares so much for the wellness of its employees that it is paying for their flu shots out of its own pocket this year! ? This selfless, corporate act made out of true compassion and concern for its employees? health comes complete with the following ingredients (from Mercola.com) :

  • Aluminum ? a neurotoxin that has been linked to Alzheimer?s disease
  • Mercury ? a neurotoxin that has no allowable safety limit according to the EPA
  • Triton X-100 ? a detergent
  • Phenol (carbolic acid)
  • Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
  • Betapropiolactone ? a disinfectant
  • Nonoxynol ? used to kill or stop growth of STDs
  • Octoxinol 9 ? a vaginal spermicide
  • Sodium phosphate

In addition, this year?s flu shot also contains the Swine Flu vax which has been shown to increase the risk of fetal death by miscarriage or stillbirth by over 10 times if the person receiving the flu vaccination is pregnant!

Could it be that the company?s real motive for requiring the flu shot replete with these toxic ingredients is to help ensure that TriHealth?s employees will never be healthy or work long enough to collect that TriHealth pension or promised retirement benefits? ? Come to think of it, most employees probably won?t even be around long enough to fully vest those 401(k) matching funds!

Now there?s a company commitment to its employees that is worth its weight in, uh aluminum,?don?t you think?

The Rise of Flu Fascism

Since when did conditions of employment include the right of the employer to control the employee?s physical person and demand injection of known EPA toxins directly into an employee?s bodily tissues?

Sounds a lot like slavery to me. ?Will TriHealth be requiring their employees to be branded with the company logo next?

I certainly hope these employees have retained a high powered law firm to take this matter to court. There is absolutely no legal basis for forcing an employee to be vaccinated contrary to his/her religious or philosophical objections.

For those employees who are teetering on the brink of getting vaccinated in order to appeal for reinstatement of their TriHealth jobs, please consider another option: ?a written letter clearly stating your religious objections to the flu shot.

To read how to successfully refuse mandatory vaccinations and not get fired, click here for the details along with a sample letter for you to use.

?

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

Source: ?TriHealth Fires 150 Employees for Not Getting Flu Shot

Picture Credit

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Source: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/flu-fascism-150-healthcare-workers-fired-for-refusing-flu-shot/

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Egypt mass protests challenge Islamist president

Egyptians carry a protester wounded in clashes with security forces near Tahrir square, where an opposition rally has been called for to voice rejection of President Morsi's seizure of near absolute powers, in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. The Health Ministry said about 444 people have been wounded nationwide, including 49 who remain hospitalized, since the clashes erupted on Friday, according to a statement carried by the official news agency MENA. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

Egyptians carry a protester wounded in clashes with security forces near Tahrir square, where an opposition rally has been called for to voice rejection of President Morsi's seizure of near absolute powers, in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. The Health Ministry said about 444 people have been wounded nationwide, including 49 who remain hospitalized, since the clashes erupted on Friday, according to a statement carried by the official news agency MENA. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

Egyptians chant slogans during a demonstration in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. More than 200,000 people flocked to Cairo's central Tahrir square on Tuesday, chanting against Egypt's Islamist president in a powerful show of strength by the opposition demanding Mohammed Morsi revoke edicts granting himself near autocratic powers.(AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

Egyptian protesters attend an opposition rally in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Thousands flocked to Cairo's central Tahrir square on Tuesday for a protest against Egypt's president in a significant test of whether the opposition can rally the street behind it in a confrontation aimed at forcing the Islamist leader to rescind decrees that granted him near absolute powers.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Egyptian protesters chant slogans against President Mohammed Morsi in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Egyptians flocked to Cairo's central Tahrir square on Tuesday for a protest against Egypt's president in a significant test of whether the opposition can rally the street behind it in a confrontation aimed at forcing the Islamist leader to rescind decrees that granted him near absolute powers. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

Egyptian protesters carry large national flags in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Thousands flocked to Cairo's central Tahrir square on Tuesday for a protest against Egypt's president in a significant test of whether the opposition can rally the street behind it in a confrontation aimed at forcing the Islamist leader to rescind decrees that granted him near absolute powers. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

(AP) ? More than 200,000 people thronged Cairo's central Tahrir Square, protesting against Egypt's Islamist president Tuesday in an opposition show of strength, as the standoff over Mohammed Morsi's assertion of near-absolute powers escalated into the biggest challenge yet to his and the Muslim Brotherhood's rule.

The massive, flag-waving, chanting crowd in the iconic plaza rivaled the size of some of the large protests of last year's uprising that drove autocrat Hosni Mubarak from office. The same chants used against Mubarak were now turned against Egypt's first freely elected leader.

"The people want to bring down the regime," and "erhal, erhal" ? Arabic for "leave, leave," rang across the square.

Protests in Tahrir and several other cities Tuesday were sparked by edicts issued by Morsi last week that effectively neutralized the judiciary, the last branch of government he does not control. But it turned into a broader outpouring of anger against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which opponents say have used election victories to monopolize power, squeeze out rivals, and dictate a new, Islamist constitution, while doing little to solve Egypt's mounting economic and security woes.

Clashes broke out in several cities as Morsi opponents tried to attack offices of the Brotherhood, setting fire to at least one. At least 100 people were injured when protesters and Brotherhood members protecting their office pelted each other with stones and firebombs in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla el-Kobra.

"Power has exposed the Brotherhood. We discovered their true face," said Laila Salah, a housewife in the Tahrir protest who said she voted for Morsi in this summer's presidential election. After Mubarak, she said, Egyptians would no longer consent to an autocrat.

"It's like a wife whose husband was beating her and then she divorces him and becomes free," she said. "If she remarries she'll never accept another day of abuse."

Gehad el-Haddad, a senior adviser to the Brotherhood and its political party, said Morsi would not back down on his edicts. "We are not rescinding the declaration," he told The Associated Press.

That sets the stage for a drawn-out battle between the two sides that could throw the nation into greater turmoil. Protest organizers on a stage in the square called for another mass rally on Friday. If the Brotherhood responds with mass rallies of its own, as some of its leaders have hinted, it would raise the prospect of greater violence after a series of clashes between the two camps in recent days.

A Tweet by the Brotherhood warned that if the opposition was able to bring out 200,000-300,000 "they should brace for millions in support" or Morsi.

Another flashpoint could come Sunday, when the constitutional court is due to rule on whether to dissolve the assembly writing the new constitution, which is dominated by the Brotherhood and Islamist allies. Morsi's edicts explicitly banned the courts from disbanding the panel. If the court defies him and rules anyway, it would be a direct challenge that could spill over into the streets.

"Then we are in the face of the challenge between the supreme court and the presidency," said Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession. "We are about to enter a serious conflict" on both the legal and street level, he said.

Morsi and his supporters say the decrees were necessary to prevent the judiciary from blocking the "revolution's goals" of a transition to democracy. The courts ? where many Mubarak-era judges still hold powerful posts ? already disbanded the first post-Mubarak elected parliament, which was led by the Brotherhood. The judiciary has also been considering whether to dissolve both the constitutional assembly and the Islamist-led upper house of parliament.

Morsi's decrees Thursday banned the judiciary from doing so and gave any decisions issued by Morsi immunity from judicial review. Morsi also gave himself sweeping powers to take action to prevent threats to the revolution, stability or state institutions, which critics say are tantamount to emergency laws. The powers would last until the constitution is approved and parliamentary elections are held, not likely before spring 2013.

Opponents say the decrees turn Morsi ? who narrowly won last summer's election with just over 50 percent of the vote ? into a new dictator, given that he holds not only executive power but also legislative, after the lower house of parliament was dissolved.

Tuesday's turnout was an unprecedented show of strength by the mainly liberal and secular opposition, which has been divided and uncertain amid the rise to power of the Brotherhood over the past year. The crowds were of all stripes, including many first-time protesters.

"Suddenly Morsi is issuing laws and becoming the absolute ruler, holding all powers in his hands," said protester Mona Sadek, a 31-year-old engineering graduate who wears the Islamic veil, a hallmark of piety. "Our revolt against the decrees became a protest against the Brotherhood as well."

Raafat Magdi, an engineer, said, "We want to change this whole setting. The Brotherhood hijacked the revolution."

"People woke up to his (Morsi's) mistakes, and in any new elections they will get no votes," said Magdi, who was among a crowd of around 10, 000 marching from the Cairo district of Shubra to Tahrir to the beat of drums and chants against the Brotherhood. Reform leader Mohammed ElBaradei led the march.

Many said they were determined to push ahead with the protests until Morsi retreats. A major concern among the protesters was that Islamists would use the decree's protection of the constitutional assembly to drive through their vision for the next charter, with a heavy emphasis on implementing Shariah, or Islamic law. The assembly has been plagued with controversy, and more than two dozen of its 100 members have quit in recent days to protest Islamist control.

"Next Friday will be decisive," protester Islam Bayoumi said of the upcoming planned rally. "If people maintain the same pressure and come in large numbers, they could manage to press the president and rescue the constitution."

A fellow protester, Saad Salem Nada, said of Morsi, "I am a Muslim and he made me hate Muslims because of the dictatorship in the name of religion. In the past, we had one Mubarak, now we have hundreds."

Even as the crowds swelled in Tahrir, clashes erupted nearby between several hundred young protesters throwing stones and police firing tear gas on a street off Tahrir leading to the U.S. Embassy. Clouds of tear gas hung close to the ground at the area. Clashes have been taking place at the site for several days, fueled by anger over police abuses, separately from the crisis over Morsi.

A photographer working for the AP, Ahmed Gomaa, was heavily beaten by police using sticks while covering the clashes Tuesday. Police took his equipment, and Gomaa was taken to hospital for treatment.

Rival rallies by Morsi opponents and supporters turned into brief clashes in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, then anti-Morsi protesters broke into the local office of the Muslim Brotherhood, throwing furniture out the windows and trying unsuccessfully to set fire to it. Protesters also set fire to Brotherhood offices in the city of Mansoura.

Morsi's supporters canceled a massive rally they had planned for Tuesday in Cairo, citing the need to "defuse tension." Morsi's supporters say more than a dozen of their offices have been ransacked or set ablaze since Friday. Some 5,000 demonstrated in the southern city of Assiut in support of Morsi's decrees, according to witnesses there.

So far, there was little sign of a compromise in the crisis. On Monday, Morsi met with the nation's top judges and tried to win their acceptance of his decrees. But the move was dismissed by many in the opposition and the judiciary as providing no real concessions.

Saad Emara, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member, said Morsi will not make any concessions, especially after the surge of violence and assaults on Muslim Brotherhood offices.

Emara ccused the opposition "of resorting to violence and with a political cover," claiming that former ruling party and Mubarak-era businessmen are hiring thugs to attack Brotherhood offices with the opposition's blessing.

"The story now is that the civilian forces are playing with fire. This is dangerous scene."

___

AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-27-ML-Egypt/id-619fce935b0e4b428acc19cbf7c878ea

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