Budget battle guide: This time may be for real

Air Force personnel salute as Air Force One, with President Barack Obama on board, arrives at in the rain at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. The president was returning from Newport News, Va., for an event on the automatic budget cuts. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Air Force personnel salute as Air Force One, with President Barack Obama on board, arrives at in the rain at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. The president was returning from Newport News, Va., for an event on the automatic budget cuts. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Standing in front of a ships propeller, President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about about automatic defense budget cuts, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Following a closed-door party caucus, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow GOP leaders, meet with reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, to challenge President Obama and the Senate to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in four days. Speaking at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Boehner complained that the House, with Republicans in the majority, has twice passed bills that would replace the across-the-board cuts known as the "sequester" with more targeted reductions, while the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not acted. From left are, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kansas, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Boehner, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow members of the House GOP leadership, responds to President Barack Obama's remarks to the nation's governors earlier today about how to fend off the impending automatic budget cuts, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? America's leaders have threatened to shut the government down, drive it over a cliff and bounce it off the ceiling. Now they're ready to smack it with a "sequester." And it sounds like they mean it this time.

If no one backs down, big cuts in federal spending begin Friday. Should Americans be worried?

A primer on the nation's latest fiscal standoff ? how we got here, who could get hurt and possible ways to end this thing:

___

What, again?

Like life in a bad Road Runner cartoon, the United States has survived the New Year's "fiscal cliff," double rounds of debt-ceiling roulette and various budget blow-ups over the past two years. Now the threat is $85 billion in indiscriminate spending cuts that would hit most federal programs and fall hardest on the military.

By law, these cuts known as the "sequester" will begin unfolding automatically at week's end unless President Barack Obama and Congress act to stop them.

Why did they agree to a law like that? In hopes of finally getting the nation's trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficits under control.

___

Isn't deficit-cutting good?

Obama, nearly all of Congress and plenty of economists say two things:

1) The budget deficit needs to be reduced.

2) The sequester is the wrong way to do it.

"Only a fool would do it this way," says Paul Light, a budget expert at New York University. "Primordial. It's beyond belief."

It makes him think of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," with Slim Pickens riding bronco on an atomic bomb, waving his cowboy hat.

The sequester was designed to land with a mighty splat ? to create such a mess if allowed to occur that lawmakers would do the right and honorable thing and negotiate a measured, meaningful and discerning package of deficit reduction to head it off. But that didn't happen, so the sequester is about to.

And, yes, that should mean progress on the nation's debt. The sequester is one of several developments expected to restrain the nation's red ink after four straight years of deficits topping $1 trillion.

Yee-haw.

___

Are the cuts really that bad?

It's unlikely they will be as bad ? or at least as immediate ? as some overexcited members of the Obama administration have made out. But the cuts have the potential to be significant if the standoff drags on.

Early on, about 2 million long-term unemployed people could see a $30 cut in benefit checks now averaging $300 a week. Federal subsidies for school construction, clean energy and state and local public works projects could be pinched. Low-income pregnant women and new mothers may find it harder to sign up for food aid.

Much depends on how states and communities manage any shortfalls in aid from Washington.

Furloughs of federal employees are for the most part a month or more away. Then, they might have to take up to a day off per week without pay.

That's when the public could start seeing delays at airports, disruptions in meat inspection, fewer services at national parks and the like.

An impasse lasting into the fall would reach farther, probably shrinking Head Start slots, for example.

Much of the federal budget is off-limits to the automatic cuts. Among exempted programs: Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and veterans' programs.

Even so, officials warn of a hollowed-out military capability, compromised border security and spreading deterioration of public services if the sequester continues. It's "like a rolling ball," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "It keeps growing."

___

Maybe it's fiscal-crisis fatigue.

Americans are yawning this one off. Only 27 percent of those surveyed for a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll last week said they had heard a lot about the looming automatic spending cuts.

Less than a third think the budget cuts would deeply affect their own financial situation, according to a Washington Post poll. Sixty percent, however, believe the cuts would have a major effect on the U.S. economy.

That's what economists and business people are nervous about.

The political standoff is the factor that economists blame most for the slowing economy, according to the latest Associated Press Economic Survey. The uncertainty about future government spending is causing businesses to hold back on investment and hiring, and it's making consumers less confident about their own spending, economists warn.

___

How did it come to this?

Obama and congressional Republicans have been deadlocked over spending since the GOP won control of the House in 2010, with a big boost from tea party activists who champion lower taxes and an end to red-ink budgets.

House Republicans refused to raise the nation's borrowing limit in 2011 without major deficit cuts. To resolve the stalemate, Congress passed and Obama signed the Budget Control Act, which temporarily allowed borrowing to resume, set new spending limits and created a bipartisan "supercommittee" to recommend at least $1.2 trillion more in deficit reduction over 10 years. Republicans and Democrats on the supercommittee failed to compromise, however.

That triggered the law's doomsday scenario ? the so-called "fiscal cliff" package of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts.

In a New Year's Eve deal, Obama and Congress agreed to raise taxes on some of the nation's wealthiest earners. And they postponed the spending cuts for two months ? until Friday.

That was supposed to buy time to cut a deal.

___

But there's still no deal.

As the days before Friday's deadline melt into hours, neither side shows sign of blinking ? or even negotiating.

Obama insists on a blend of targeted spending cuts and tax increases. Republican leaders reject any more tax increases and say the savings must come from spending cuts.

While both sides talk about reducing the deficit, Obama and other Democrats say this must be done gradually, to avoid wounding an already weak economy.

The president is taking his case to the people, blasting Republicans at campaign-style events. GOP leaders, just back from a congressional vacation themselves, are publicly grousing that Obama should be bargaining with them, not grandstanding.

___

Is there a way out?

Expect intense negotiations to begin in Washington if enough Americans begin yelping about the pain from reduced federal spending.

Obama and Congress could agree to pare down the budget cuts to a more logical package of reductions, perhaps with some tax changes, too. Such a deal could also retroactively restore spending where they want to.

The "sequester" isn't the only line in the sand, however.

On March 27, legislation that has been temporarily financing the government expires. Without agreement to extend it, the threat of a partial government shutdown looms. Later in the spring, it will be time to raise the nation's debt limit again.

So far, two years of budget crises have been settled with temporary fixes. They have barely dented the underlying disagreement over how to reform Medicare, Social Security, taxes and spending to address the nation's long-term deficit problem.

If those festering questions remain unanswered, the U.S. economy will remain a hostage to politics.

___

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

___

Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-27-Budget%20Battle-News%20Guide/id-6a09cbe13dcd4e3c872235d7525859f0

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Oscars 2013 Predictions: Best Picture

'Argo' and 'Lincoln' are neck-and-neck for the ultimate award.
By Amy Wilkinson

Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln"
Photo: DreamWorks

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702449/oscar-2013-best-picture-predictions.jhtml

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United States eases sanctions on Myanmar banks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States relaxed sanctions on four large banks in Myanmar on Friday, allowing them access to the U.S. financial system as a reward for the country's political reforms.

The Treasury Department issued a general license to the Myanma Economic Bank, Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank, Asia Green Development Bank and Ayeyarwady Bank.

A general license eases restrictions and lets the banks deal with U.S. citizens and companies, but leaves sanctions laws on the books, giving Washington leverage should Myanmar start to backslide on reforms.

"Increased access to Burma's banking system for our companies and non-governmental organizations will help to facilitate Burma's continued social and economic development," said David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The United States still uses the traditional two-syllable name for the Southeast Asian country.

The announcement on Friday follows a similar move last July, when the U.S. Treasury issued general licenses allowing U.S. companies to invest in and provide financial services to Myanmar, as long as they make detailed disclosures about their dealings.

The United States, the European Union and others have gradually loosened restrictions on Myanmar in the last two years after the country started to open up its political system and freed hundreds of political prisoners.

Myanmar's leaders say sanctions have stifled their attempts to revive the economy and lift the resource-rich country out of poverty.

Sanctions have also been suspended or lifted by other developed countries, including Canada, Australia and Japan.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/united-states-eases-sanctions-myanmar-banks-190821556--sector.html

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Poll: California voters back citizenship for some in country illegally

SACRAMENTO -- Nine in 10 California voters say they support allowing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been here for several years to stay and become citizens if they have a job, learn English and pay any back taxes, according to a Field Poll released Friday.

The poll, which comes as Congress prepares to debate a federal immigration overhaul, also found that a majority of voters support allowing residents who are in the U.S. illegally to get California driver's licenses, a reversal from previous surveys.

Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, has proposed legislation this year that would allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue licenses to any resident who can show they pay taxes, regardless of their immigration status. Former state Sen. Gil Cedillo, a Democrat, tried for more than a decade to make such a change, but his efforts either did not make it through the Legislature or were vetoed by previous governors.

The Legislature took a partial step last year when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill by Cedillo that allows some young illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. Those immigrants would have to be eligible for work permits under a new federal deferred-action policy.

While the poll found voters support loosening restrictions on some people here illegally, it also found that two-thirds favor boosting the number of federal agents patrolling the border with Mexico. Most also support stringent penalties for employers who hire workers who don't have the proper permits.

Three-fourths of those surveyed said they supported adding significantly more visas for immigrants with engineering or other advanced degrees, creating temporary worker programs and allowing immigrants here illegally to pay in-state tuition for college as they do if they attend for three years and graduate from a California high school.

Under a law that took effect this year, low-income students here illegally who graduate from a California high school are eligible to receive Cal Grants to attend college and may apply for fee waivers in the community college system if they show they are in the process of applying to become legal residents.

Congress is in the midst of bipartisan negotiations over immigration reform, and the Obama administration is drafting backup legislation as a way to prompt action on the issue.

The debate in Washington is likely to include providing a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S., tightening border security, cracking down on businesses that employ illegal workers and strengthening the legal immigration system.

The Field Poll interviewed 834 registered voters by telephone Feb. 5-17. The poll has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50912389/ns/local_news-orange_county_ca/

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Romanian movie 'Child's Pose' wins at Berlin fest

BERLIN (AP) ? A Romanian drama that centers on a woman's effort to cover up her son's responsibility for an accident in which a boy is fatally injured won the Berlin film festival's top Golden Bear award on Saturday.

"Child's Pose," directed by Calin Peter Netzer, emerged as the winner from a field of 19 films that included a strong eastern European contingent this year ? the 63rd edition of the event, the first of the year's major European film festivals. Netzer said he was "a little bit speechless" at the award.

The tale of corruption and guilt depicts the efforts of an upper-class mother, played by Luminita Gheorghiu, to bribe witnesses to give false statements and keep her son ? the driver, who was speeding at the time of the accident ? out of prison.

"This is about a ... pathological relationship between mother and son," he told reporters later. "The rest is really just a backdrop," Netzer told reporters, stressing that it is "a very universal story" and that "corruption is not something which is only taking place in Romania."

A runner-up Silver Bear went to "An Episode In the Life of an Iron Picker," in which a Bosnian Roma, or gypsy, couple re-enact their own struggle to get treatment after their baby died in the womb. The movie was made on a tiny budget by Danis Tanovic, whose "No Man's Land" won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2002.

Nazif Mujic, the husband, was voted best actor by the festival jury.

"Of course, I'm not an actor ? I simply played my own story. I played myself in my family. I don't know what I should say," Mujic, who says that he still has no regular job and collects scrap metal as he did at the time the drama played out, told 3sat television.

Best actress was Paulina Garcia for the title role in Chilean director Sebastian Lelio's "Gloria." Garcia plays a divorcee at the end of her 50s trying to stave off loneliness, rushing into singles' parties but struggling to overcome disappointment.

American filmmaker David Gordon Green was honored as best director for "Prince Avalanche," a movie about two road workers whiling their way through a long, monotonous summer with little more than each other for company. It's a remake of an Icelandic film, "Either Way."

The best script award went to dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi for "Closed Curtain," a movie he co-directed with longtime friend Kamboziya Partovi in defiance of a ban on filmmaking.

The film, in which the two directors play the main roles, reflects Panahi's frustration at being unable to work officially ? it's set inside an isolated seaside villa, much of the time with the curtains drawn.

Partovi accepted the award on behalf of Panahi, who wasn't allowed to leave Iran, telling the audience that "it's never been possible to stop a thinker and a poet."

The prize for outstanding artistic achievement went to Aziz Zhambakiyev for his camerawork in Kazakh director Emir Baigazin's "Harmony Lessons," which centers on a teenager tormented by his schoolmates.

The festival's Alfred Bauer prize for innovation went to Canadian director Denis Cote's "Vic+Flo Saw a Bear."

A seven-member jury led by filmmaker Wong Kar-wai chose the winners.

Wong said the jury gave "special mentions" to two more films that didn't win awards, acknowledging "the integrity of their vision and their conviction that cinema can make a difference."

Those were Matt Damon's Gus Van Sant-directed drama on shale gas drilling, "Promised Land," and South African director Pia Marais' "Layla Fourie."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romanian-movie-childs-pose-wins-berlin-fest-190351480.html

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Facebook hacked, but says users not affected

Devin Coldewey , NBC News ? ? ? 2 hrs.

Facebook today announced that it was the target of a "sophisticated" hacking attempt in January, though the company assured its users that their data was not "compromised."

The information was communicated in a blog post by Facebook Security. The social network's security experts explained that a few employees had visited an infected site, which installed malware on their laptops via a then-unknown bug in Java. The laptops, Facebook noted in its defense, were "fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software."

Suspicious activity was noted on Facebook's internal networks shortly thereafter, tracked to the laptops in question, and remedied; The Java exploit was reported to Oracle (which makes the Web app platform), which issued a patch on Feb. 1.

Facebook's Chief Security Officer, Joe Sullivan, told Ars Technica that the attackers "were trying to move laterally into our production environment," where they would have access to lots of private and proprietary data. They were stopped before that point, but could have collected some non-user data like corporate emails and some code.

"We have found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised," the company wrote in the blog post.

Kaspersky Lab's Kurt Baumgartner told NBC News this is likely accurate and not just lip service: "They know their network layout, permissions, logging and which systems were hit." Baumgartner also said it was "clear" that this attack had nothing to do with the recent high-profile attacks on the New York Times, Washington Post, and other news organizations.

Facebook reported that it is working with law enforcement and other companies' security teams to analyze and prevent future breaches.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/facebook-hacked-says-users-not-affected-1C8398370

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Tyrannosaurus at center of custody case is going home

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A nearly complete 70-million-year-old tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton will be returned to Mongolia following the high-profile prosecution of a Florida paleontologist by federal authorities in New York, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

A New York federal judge ordered the skeleton and other fossils forfeited to the U.S. government this week after the paleontologist pled guilty in December to fraud and conspiracy.

Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said his office would return the 8-foot-tall (2.4 meter), 24-foot-long (7.3 meter), mostly reconstructed cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Mongolian officials demanded the skeleton's return after paleontologist Eric Prokopi sold it at a Manhattan auction last spring for $1.05 million. Mongolia suspected the skeleton had been smuggled out of its fossil-rich Gobi desert

U.S. authorities filed charges against Prokopi and seized the skeleton, which is fossilized bones welded to a metal frame. In announcing the seizure, Bharara called Prokopi a "one man black market in prehistoric fossils."

Authorities accused Prokopi of having lied on U.S. customs forms when he declared the fossilized bones were worth $19,000.

In a New York courtroom in September, Prokopi's defense attorney challenged the charge that his client had lied on the forms, saying the reconstruction was not a single creature but bones from multiple dinosaurs. Mongolian authorities and U.S. government paleontological experts believed it was a single creature.

A federal judge suggested the skeleton might be a "Frankenstein model of dinosaur parts" and asked a prosecutor why government experts had not recognized that the skeleton was from several sources.

"It was marketed as one dinosaur," the prosecutor said. "A 75 percent complete, but one dinosaur."

In December, Prokopi pleaded guilty to conspiracy, entry of goods by means of false statements, and the interstate and foreign transportation of goods taken by fraud.

He faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted on the fraud charge when he is sentenced in April.

(Reporting By Chris Francescani; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Toni Reinhold)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tyrannosaurus-center-custody-case-going-home-mongolia-002349241--mma.html

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GOP Senate leader supports bill to legalize hemp production

Toby Jorrin / AFP - Getty Images, file

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), speaks at the White House after meeting with US President Barack Obama on November 16, 2012 in Washington,DC.

By Kasie Hunt, NBC News

The federal government currently puts hemp in the same category of illegal drug as heroin, LSD and ecstasy -- but the Senate's top Republican wants to change that.

Senate Minority Leader?Mitch McConnell, R - Ky., joined forces Thursday with a pair of West Coast Democrats -- Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley -- to cosponsor a bill that would allow American farmers to grow hemp without fear of punishment. Also on board is libertarian Rand Paul, McConnell's fellow Republican Bluegrass State senator.

?I am proud to introduce legislation with my friend Rand Paul that will allow Kentucky farmers to harness the economic potential that industrial hemp can provide,? McConnell said in a statement Thursday. "During these tough economic times, this legislation has the potential to create jobs and provide a boost to Kentucky?s economy and to our farmers and their families."

The debate over legalization of hemp is contentious in Kentucky. The Chamber of Commerce supports legalization, but some law enforcement groups say it is a step that could lead to the legalization of marijuana.

McConnell's move follows action in the Kentucky state Senate, which voted Thursday to legalize hemp production there -- if the federal government also decrees that it's legal. Oregon has approved hemp production, but farmers can still be prosecuted under federal law.

Hemp is a variety of?Cannabis sativa,?the plant species that also produces marijuana. McConnell wants to legalize so-called industrial hemp, which contains a much smaller amount of THC, the chemical that produces marijuana's high.?

Proponents of industrial hemp tout its many legal uses, such as in soap, cosmetics, and rope for sailboats and other watercraft. Farmers say hemp twine is much stronger than other rope used to bind bales of hay.?Toyota -- which builds Camrys in Kentucky -- has spoken in favor of hemp legalization, saying they want to use the fibers in car panels and insulation.?

Typically, the plants that make great industrial hemp make less potent marijuana. Plants that make great pot don't usually produce the strongest industrial fibers.

Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/14/16967535-gop-senate-leader-supports-bill-to-legalize-hemp-production?lite

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Monday KULR-8 Sports On-Demand 2-11

Story Published: Feb 11, 2013 at 3:33 PM MST

Story Updated: Feb 11, 2013 at 3:33 PM MST

Top plays of the week are featured with Brandon Sullivan in the Super-8 plays of the week.

Your source for local and surrounding area scores, highlights, and sports news. Be sure to watch KULR-8 News at 6:00 and 10:00 nightly Monday - Friday, and 5:00 and 10:00 Saturday and Sunday nights, for complete sports news coverage.

Have a sports score to report, or have an idea for a sports story?
Send an email to the KULR-8 Sports Department at sports@kulr.com, or give us a call at 406-656-8558.

Source: http://www.kulr8.com/sports/local/Monday-KULR-8-Sports-On-Demand-2-11-190753911.html

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Digital gap: why aren't moviemakers learning narrative from videogames and the web?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - From killing off film prints to designing fantastical CGI worlds, movies are going digital in every way except one - storytelling.

Unlike the eras when the advent of photography inspired the fine arts to embrace abstraction, or when the rise of mass-media pushed writers into modernist and eventually post-modern terrain, movies remain largely impervious to the narrative techniques employed across the internet.

Hollywood views videogames and the web as an existential threat, but instead of radically altering its approach, most movies unfold over the course of two hours in a linear fashion, just as they have done for a century. Over the course of its history the medium has had no problem embracing change in film as long as its technologically driven, hence the shift from silent movies to talkies, or black and white to color. It has remained more precious, however, about how it spins its celluloid fantasies.

Today's top directors are more interested in aping classical cinema than forging a new filmmaking vernacular. That's in contrast to 10 years ago when movies like "The Matrix," "Memento," or "Being John Malkovich" turned cinematic storytelling on its head, gleefully experimenting with an inter-textuality that mirrored our hyperlinked world.

With a few exceptions like Joe Wright's "Anna Karenina," which re-imagined Leo Tolstoy's tragedy as a series of intersecting operas, or Martin McDonagh's "Seven Psychopaths," a bloody crime movie that is also a comment on the art of screenwriting, that flowering of experimentation is over.

"The films of early aughts engaged with virtuality in a way they don't today," Alissa Quart, a cultural critic and the author of the forthcoming "Republic of Outsiders," told TheWrap. "You had people like Steven Spielberg working on ?Minority Report,' now you have ?Lincoln.' Or Paul Thomas Anderson going from ?Magnolia' to ?The Master.'

"Those movies engaged with multiplicity and technology and surveillance, and now those same filmmakers are looking at these huge commanding triumphal figures in stories set in the past that look antique."

Films like "The Master" or "Zero Dark Thirty" or "Django Unchained" are referential, but their influences lie in film's history, mimicking the wide vistas favored by John Ford or the atmosphere of exquisite paranoia in 1970s thrillers like "All the President's Men." The directors gaze lingers in the past and rarely looks toward the future.

"A way to get serious as a filmmaker is to be very clearly dealing with your influences," Kurt Anderson, host of the arts and culture program "Studio 360," told TheWrap. "Now, I have no doubt that ?Pulp Fiction' was full of Quentin Tarantino's influences, but at the time it seemed like a new way of telling stories. When you get to ?Django,' it becomes all about his cinematic influences."

Even the methods that Hollywood has kicked up to convince teenagers to give up their game consoles and hit the multiplex are bizarrely retro.

Souped-up theatrical exhibition offerings like 3D are a throwback to the 1950s, when Hollywood was facing a different, though no less grave incursion from television. Likewise, what is IMAX and its mammoth projections but a reincarnation of Cinerama, the colossal wide-screen format the flourished in the Eisenhower era?

In contrast, television shows like "Lost" or "Once Upon a Time," which are set in fantasy worlds and tease out mysteries in episodic fashion, are more akin to what players expect from videogames.

That's not to say there isn't some cross-pollination. Flint Dille is a game designer on the likes of "Dead to Rights" and the screenwriter of movies like "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West." He says that both mediums steal from one another, claiming that the plot of 99 percent of videogames is derived from ?80s action movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In turn, today's action movies design their set pieces to appeal to audiences who grew up with "Mass Effect" and "World of Warcraft."

"When you look at ?The Hobbit' - that escape from the goblins' lair is a Nintendo game," Dille said. "It's like a videogame in its velocity. Or a movie like ?Jack Reacher' is like a game in that the main character arrives with no back story, and that's something we've been conditioned to accept from playing games where the protagonist is a cipher."

To be sure, studios have shown an appetite for persistent experimentation when it comes to using apps and viral marketing to generate excitement for tent pole films like "The Dark Knight" or "Star Trek Into Darkness." Yet the emphasis is on promotion, not narrative.

So why is it that, while computer technology has opened up brave new worlds in terms of special effects and advertising, it has not altered storytelling?

The culprit is a hodgepodge of commercial realities and artistic preferences.

"I've been spending a lot of time pondering the question what is a modern film?" Howard Suber, professor of film history at UCLA, told TheWrap. "I've come to the conclusion that it is basically everything that was made after the 1960s -- but that's 50 years. The reason why that's still modern is that not a hell of a lot has changed."

Suber said that when he shows a movie in his class from earlier eras, his students are unable to deal with the slower pacing and editing, but they have a less difficult time adjusting to anything made after that date.

"The entire field of modern film is 50 years long, which is staggering when you compare it to any earlier age films," he said. "The films of the ?20s looked antique to audiences in the ?30s, and the same was true with the way audiences in the ?50s viewed films from 10 years earlier."

Quart thinks that the kind of cultural permanence that Suber describes may be a conscious choice by artists who are looking to create spaces that are distinct from the fragmented world wrought by social media.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, Quart argued that "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" are popular in part because they allow viewers to take a break from Twitter, texts and other technologically enabled forms of multi-tasking.

She argues the same appeal underlies movies.

"My gut tells me that filmmakers are trying to give viewers respite from what the virtual world is offering," Quart said. "It's motivated by an esthetic defensiveness because we are inundated with all these modes of communication."

It hasn't helped that films that have exploded conventional approaches to storytelling sunk at the box office.

Sure, "The Matrix" was a worldwide blockbuster, grossing $463 million and spawning two sequels, but "Magnolia" ($48.4 million) and "Adaptation" ($32.8 million) were lucky to break even. More recent mind-bending films like "Anna Karenina" ($49 million globally), and "Synecdoche, New York" ($4.3 million globally) continued the trend of hardly making a ripple at ticket counters. Studios' obsession with tentpole films that can cross language and cultural barriers to appeal to global audiences have likely made them less receptive to films that revel in narrative complexity.

That could change. If filmmakers like J.J. Abrams get their way, blockbuster films will seep off the screen and into other platforms, rivaling the sprawling nature of the web.

The big shake up could come with Transmedia - the notion that stories should be told over various mediums ranging from comic books to videogames. This approach to popular culture has been a buzz word for over a decade, but its adherents believe the film industry is poised to take a dramatic leap forward.

"They're are a lot of film purists who believe their job is to get the script shot and make it beautiful," Jeff Gomez, president of Starlight Runner Entertainment and a trans media consultant on films like "Avatar," said. "But there's also a growing number of young people, who were weaned on videogames and immersed in multiple media platforms, for whom these new kinds of storytelling are intuitive."

Gomez notes that Joss Whedon's decision to set his upcoming ABC show "S.H.I.E.L.D." in the world of "The Avengers" films is a perfect example of a platform-agnostic approach.

It's a boundary that could keep eroding when Abrams gets hold of the "Star Wars" franchise. The director already has experimented with transmedia in television shows like "Lost," but the saga of the Skywalkers and new owner Disney's consumer products heft could open up whole new galaxies in terms of storytelling - ones that jet from games to toys to movies, creating a vast universe of narrative possibilities.

In 1977, "Star Wars" gave birth to the modern blockbuster. Nearly 40 years later when "Star Wars Episode 7" is scheduled to hit theaters, will it change the face of film again?From killing off film prints to designing fantastical CGI worlds, movies are going digital in every way except one - storytelling.

Unlike the eras when the advent of photography inspired the fine arts to embrace abstraction, or when the rise of mass-media pushed writers into modernist and eventually post-modern terrain, movies remain largely impervious to the narrative techniques employed across the internet.

Hollywood views videogames and the web as an existential threat, but instead of radically altering its approach, most movies unfold over the course of two hours in a linear fashion, just as they have done for a century. Over the course of its history the medium has had no problem embracing change in film as long as its technologically driven, hence the shift from silent movies to talkies, or black and white to color. It has remained more precious, however, about how it spins its celluloid fantasies.

Today's top directors are more interested in aping classical cinema than forging a new filmmaking vernacular. That's in contrast to 10 years ago when movies like "The Matrix," "Memento," or "Being John Malkovich" turned cinematic storytelling on its head, gleefully experimenting with an inter-textuality that mirrored our hyperlinked world.

With a few exceptions like Joe Wright's "Anna Karenina," which re-imagined Leo Tolstoy's tragedy as a series of intersecting operas, or Martin McDonagh's "Seven Psychopaths," a bloody crime movie that is also a comment on the art of screenwriting, that flowering of experimentation is over.

"The films of early aughts engaged with virtuality in a way they don't today," Alissa Quart, a cultural critic and the author of the forthcoming "Republic of Outsiders," told TheWrap. "You had people like Steven Spielberg working on ?Minority Report,' now you have ?Lincoln.' Or Paul Thomas Anderson going from ?Magnolia' to ?The Master.'

"Those movies engaged with multiplicity and technology and surveillance, and now those same filmmakers are looking at these huge commanding triumphal figures in stories set in the past that look antique."

Films like "The Master" or "Zero Dark Thirty" or "Django Unchained" are referential, but their influences lie in film's history, mimicking the wide vistas favored by John Ford or the atmosphere of exquisite paranoia in 1970s thrillers like "All the President's Men." The directors gaze lingers in the past and rarely looks toward the future.

"A way to get serious as a filmmaker is to be very clearly dealing with your influences," Kurt Anderson, host of the arts and culture program "Studio 360," told TheWrap. "Now, I have no doubt that ?Pulp Fiction' was full of Quentin Tarantino's influences, but at the time it seemed like a new way of telling stories. When you get to ?Django,' it becomes all about his cinematic influences."

Even the methods that Hollywood has kicked up to convince teenagers to give up their game consoles and hit the multiplex are bizarrely retro.

Souped-up theatrical exhibition offerings like 3D are a throwback to the 1950s, when Hollywood was facing a different, though no less grave incursion from television. Likewise, what is IMAX and its mammoth projections but a reincarnation of Cinerama, the colossal wide-screen format the flourished in the Eisenhower era?

In contrast, television shows like "Lost" or "Once Upon a Time," which are set in fantasy worlds and tease out mysteries in episodic fashion, are more akin to what players expect from videogames.

That's not to say there isn't some cross-pollination. Flint Dille is a game designer on the likes of "Dead to Rights" and the screenwriter of movies like "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West." He says that both mediums steal from one another, claiming that the plot of 99 percent of videogames is derived from ?80s action movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In turn, today's action movies design their set pieces to appeal to audiences who grew up with "Mass Effect" and "World of Warcraft."

"When you look at ?The Hobbit' - that escape from the goblins' lair is a Nintendo game," Dille said. "It's like a videogame in its velocity. Or a movie like ?Jack Reacher' is like a game in that the main character arrives with no back story, and that's something we've been conditioned to accept from playing games where the protagonist is a cipher."

To be sure, studios have shown an appetite for persistent experimentation when it comes to using apps and viral marketing to generate excitement for tent pole films like "The Dark Knight" or "Star Trek Into Darkness." Yet the emphasis is on promotion, not narrative.

So why is it that, while computer technology has opened up brave new worlds in terms of special effects and advertising, it has not altered storytelling?

The culprit is a hodgepodge of commercial realities and artistic preferences.

"I've been spending a lot of time pondering the question what is a modern film?" Howard Suber, professor of film history at UCLA, told TheWrap. "I've come to the conclusion that it is basically everything that was made after the 1960s -- but that's 50 years. The reason why that's still modern is that not a hell of a lot has changed."

Suber said that when he shows a movie in his class from earlier eras, his students are unable to deal with the slower pacing and editing, but they have a less difficult time adjusting to anything made after that date.

"The entire field of modern film is 50 years long, which is staggering when you compare it to any earlier age films," he said. "The films of the ?20s looked antique to audiences in the ?30s, and the same was true with the way audiences in the ?50s viewed films from 10 years earlier."

Quart thinks that the kind of cultural permanence that Suber describes may be a conscious choice by artists who are looking to create spaces that are distinct from the fragmented world wrought by social media.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, Quart argued that "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" are popular in part because they allow viewers to take a break from Twitter, texts and other technologically enabled forms of multi-tasking.

She argues the same appeal underlies movies.

"My gut tells me that filmmakers are trying to give viewers respite from what the virtual world is offering," Quart said. "It's motivated by an esthetic defensiveness because we are inundated with all these modes of communication."

It hasn't helped that films that have exploded conventional approaches to storytelling sunk at the box office.

Sure, "The Matrix" was a worldwide blockbuster, grossing $463 million and spawning two sequels, but "Magnolia" ($48.4 million) and "Adaptation" ($32.8 million) were lucky to break even. More recent mind-bending films like "Anna Karenina" ($49 million globally), and "Synecdoche, New York" ($4.3 million globally) continued the trend of hardly making a ripple at ticket counters. Studios' obsession with tentpole films that can cross language and cultural barriers to appeal to global audiences have likely made them less receptive to films that revel in narrative complexity.

That could change. If filmmakers like J.J. Abrams get their way, blockbuster films will seep off the screen and into other platforms, rivaling the sprawling nature of the web.

The big shake up could come with Transmedia - the notion that stories should be told over various mediums ranging from comic books to videogames. This approach to popular culture has been a buzz word for over a decade, but its adherents believe the film industry is poised to take a dramatic leap forward.

"They're are a lot of film purists who believe their job is to get the script shot and make it beautiful," Jeff Gomez, president of Starlight Runner Entertainment and a trans media consultant on films like "Avatar," said. "But there's also a growing number of young people, who were weaned on videogames and immersed in multiple media platforms, for whom these new kinds of storytelling are intuitive."

Gomez notes that Joss Whedon's decision to set his upcoming ABC show "S.H.I.E.L.D." in the world of "The Avengers" films is a perfect example of a platform-agnostic approach.

It's a boundary that could keep eroding when Abrams gets hold of the "Star Wars" franchise. The director already has experimented with transmedia in television shows like "Lost," but the saga of the Skywalkers and new owner Disney's consumer products heft could open up whole new galaxies in terms of storytelling - ones that jet from games to toys to movies, creating a vast universe of narrative possibilities.

In 1977, "Star Wars" gave birth to the modern blockbuster. Nearly 40 years later when "Star Wars Episode 7" is scheduled to hit theaters, will it change the face of film again?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/digital-gap-why-arent-moviemakers-learning-narrative-videogames-205902302.html

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How Oberlin, Ohio turned its garbage into cheap green energy and plans to be 90%...

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

Source: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151268796708059&set=a.69520283058.73972.13152108058&type=1

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Old drug may point the way to new treatments for diabetes and obesity

Feb. 10, 2013 ? Researchers at the University of Michigan's Life Sciences Institute have found that amlexanox, an off-patent drug currently prescribed for the treatment of asthma and other uses, also reverses obesity, diabetes and fatty liver in mice.

The findings from the lab of Alan Saltiel, the Mary Sue Coleman director of the Life Sciences Institute, are scheduled to be published online Feb. 10 in the journal Nature Medicine.

"One of the reasons that diets are so ineffective in producing weight loss for some people is that their bodies adjust to the reduced calories by also reducing their metabolism, so that they are 'defending' their body weight," Saltiel said. "Amlexanox seems to tweak the metabolic response to excessive calorie storage in mice."

Different formulations of amlexanox are currently prescribed to treat asthma in Japan and canker sores in the United States. Saltiel is teaming up with clinical-trial specialists at U-M to test whether amlexanox will be useful for treating obesity and diabetes in humans. He is also working with medicinal chemists at U-M to develop a new compound based on the drug that optimizes its formula.

The study appears to confirm and extend the notion that the genes IKKE and TBK1 play a crucial role for maintaining metabolic balance, a discovery published by the Saltiel lab in 2009 in the journal Cell.

"Amlexanox appears to work in mice by inhibiting two genes -- IKKE and TBK1 -- that we think together act as a sort of brake on metabolism," Saltiel said. "By releasing the brake, amlexanox seems to free the metabolic system to burn more, and possibly store less, energy."

Using high-throughput chemical screening at LSI's Center for Chemical Genomics to search for compounds that inhibit IKKE and TBK1, the researchers hit upon an approved off-patent drug: amlexanox. They then demonstrated that amlexanox had profound beneficial effects in both genetic and dietary-induced obese mice. The chemical lowered the weight of obese mice and reversed related metabolic problems such as diabetes and fatty liver.

"These studies tell us that, at least in mice, the IKKE/TBK1 pathway plays an important role in defending body weight by increasing storage and decreasing burning of calories, and that by inhibiting that pathway with a compound, we can increase metabolism and induce weight loss, reverse diabetes and reduce fatty liver," Saltiel said.

The drug has been on the market in Japan for more than 25 years.

However, the researchers don't yet know if humans respond with the same pathway, or if the discovery of amlexanox's effectiveness in mice can lead to a compound that is safe and effective for treating obesity and diabetes in humans.

"We will be working hard on that," Saltiel said.

Saltiel's search for a drug targeting the IKKE/TBK1 pathway was supported by the Life Science Institute's Innovation Partnership, which provides philanthropic funding and business mentorship to help move promising research toward commercialization.

The research was also supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center, the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, and the Nathan Shock Center in the Basic Biology of Aging.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Shannon M Reilly, Shian-Huey Chiang, Stuart J Decker, Louise Chang, Maeran Uhm, Martha J Larsen, John R Rubin, Jonathan Mowers, Nicole M White, Irit Hochberg, Michael Downes, Ruth T Yu, Christopher Liddle, Ronald M Evans, Dayoung Oh, Pingping Li, Jerrold M Olefsky, Alan R Saltiel. An inhibitor of the protein kinases TBK1 and IKK-? improves obesity-related metabolic dysfunctions in mice. Nature Medicine, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nm.3082

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/most_popular/~3/B9hZmGf5ZUs/130210143250.htm

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PFT: Suggs sees Flacco as Ravens' new leader

Getty Images

With the Patriots tepid on the topic of keeping cornerback Aqib Talib with a multi-year deal, his former college coach has offered a surprisingly strong assessment in response to the notion that Talib doesn?t work hard enough.

?[H]e loves to play football,? Mark Mangino recently told Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald.? ?He enjoyed practice time.? He hustled, made plays, did all of his drill work full speed, played hard in the games, did what was asked of him in the weight room, got bigger and stronger when he was with us.? I find that a little hard to believe.

?Things can change, obviously, but I stopped into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers training camp [last summer]. I visited with several members of the staff, front office people, strength coaches, trainers, assistant coaches. To the person, they told me what a great job Aqib was doing. ?He is showing leadership. He is working his tail off in the [OTAs].? He?s been a leader.? He is really busting his butt, and he is really working hard.?

?That doesn?t always happen. I have been to training camps in the past where I?ve had a former player that I?ve coached, and the coaches have come up to me and say, ?This player doesn?t work hard. He?s not into it.?? They?ll tell you the truth. When you go to these NFL places, they don?t mince any words.?

The Bucs may not have minced words, but they eventually traded Talib.? And it?s no surprise.? As coach Greg Schiano tries to build a roster of players of high character, Talib was one of several who simply didn?t fit.

That said, Talib possibly was working hard; it could be that his four-game suspension for violating the league?s policy regarding performance-enhancing substances prompted the trade.? And it could be that an Adderall-free Talib doesn?t work as hard as he does when taking the banned stimulant.

Still, it seems a little odd Mangino is singing Talib?s praises.? Throughout Talib?s various on-field and off-field struggles, Mangino has not been a particularly vocal defender.? Also, it was widely known during the weeks preceding the 2008 draft that Kansas coaches were not saying flattering things about Talib to scouts.

The question now for the Pats is whether they can strike a deal that will extend Talib?s stay beyond a handful of 2012 games.? If he leaves, they won?t have gotten much in return for the fourth-round pick they sent to Tampa.

But at least they got a seventh-round pick back in return.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/10/suggs-doesnt-think-hes-lewiss-successor-as-ravens-leader/related/

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The Best Text Expansion App for Mac

Strangely, Mac OS X has a wide variety of great text expansion apps and everyone does the job well. That said, TypeIt4Me is our favorite thanks to its comprehensive feature set, great performance, and reasonable price.

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• Type a short snippet that can expand to styled or unstyled text of virtually any length (and include pictures)
• Insert several types of variables into snippets, including date, time, other snippets, the clipboard, and more
• Create snippets that receive input from fillable forms
• Create snippet groups that respond to input in different ways
• Specify special behaviors for specific applications
• Easily back up your snippets to any folder
• Expand by typing or by choosing a snippet from the menu
• Invoke AppleScripts and shell scripts
• Reposition the cursor in a snippet so you're typing where you want to post-expansion
• Emulates key presses (e.g. tab, backspace, etc.)
• Import data from TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, and Automaton Typer

Despite the very low price for aText ($5), it's remarkably comprehensive. It offers mostly the same feature set as bigger apps like TextExpander for a fraction of the cost. Text expansion works as expected, you can specify when specific groups of snippets should expand, and you have the ability to include so many variables that one little snippet could, potentially, create a unique letter or document. If you use another text expansion app, there's a good chance aText imports its data. It doesn't cost much, it does practically everything, it's simple to use, and it's easy to switch from other popular solutions if you're interested.

While aText isn't short on features, one notable omission is the ability to sync snippets. While you can specify a backup folder, to which aText saves a backup of your snippets at a specified interval, you can't choose where it actually saves the original copy. This means you can't sync with services like Dropbox or Google Drive, making aText a somewhat less-desirable choice for those with multiple computers. Personally, I use it with two machines but find it a bit of a hassle to manually make the updates. That said, it's a small price to pay when you're already getting so much for such a small price. Additionally, Tran (the developer) tells me that syncing support is a forthcoming feature so it shouldn't be long until this isn't an issue at all.

TypeIt4Me ($5) was our former top pick. It packs quite a punch for $5, too, but doesn't offer as many variable options (like fillable forms) as aText. It does offer a number of unique features like autocorrect, however, so it's worth a look if you want something a little different from most of the competition at a very low price.

Text Expander ($35) offers a few more features than aText?notably sync?and a mobile app that's crippled by iOS' rules and restrictions. While TextExpander is a fantastic alternative?and, in some ways, better?it's not a better value than aText. You'll pay seven times more for a very similar experience.

Typinator (24.99?) offers a similar feature set to the other text expansion apps but its price has only gone up. While it is, at the moment, slightly cheaper than TextExpander it doesn't work quite as well. When filling out custom form variables, for example, if the form window loses focus (i.e. you click outside of it) it just disappears. I contacted the developer about this issue and was told it's impossible to fix. TextExpander doesn't have this problem, and when I found the same issue in aText its developer fixed it in less than 24 hours.

DashExpander (Free, $3 Premium) has an unusual interface and can be a little weird to use at first, but is nonetheless a solid text expansion app. It's also your only free option, so if you don't want to pay anything at all it's the only way to go. While we still really like it, when our first and second choices only cost $5 we highly recommend supporting these developers by paying such a small fee for their excellent work.

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Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

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You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. ?Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/obnlPBiWKw4/the-best-text-expansion-app-for-mac

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Five crew killed in cruise ship safety drill

Nestor Perez / EPA

A rescue vessel (bottom L) is seen next to the overturned lifeboat (bottom R) of the 'Thomson Majesty' cruise ship (behind) at the pier where 'Thomson Majesty' cruise ship is docked at Santa Cruz de la Palma, Canary Islands, Spain on Feb. 10.

?

By Sonya Dowsett and Teresa Larraz, Reuters

MADRID ? Five crew members died in an emergency drill on a cruise ship in the Canary Islands on Sunday, police said.

Cables snapped on a lifeboat and it plunged 65 feet to the ocean and fell upside down, killing the five and injuring three others aboard, during the mock rescue exercise on the Thomson Majesty, operated by British travel group TUI Travel. It was in the port of La Palma.

TUI, Europe's largest tour operator, did not respond immediately to telephone calls or email requests for comment.

Three of the dead were Indonesians. The other dead were a Filipino and a Ghanaian.

The Thomson Majesty, with five restaurants and two swimming pools, cruises to the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, according to Thomson's website.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/10/16917861-five-crew-killed-in-cruise-ship-safety-drill?lite

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Seagal, Ariz sheriff train posses to guard schools

PHOENIX (AP) ? The self-proclaimed "America's Toughest Sheriff" is joining forces this weekend with action movie star Steven Seagal to train volunteer armed posse members to defend Phoenix-area schools against gunmen.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced the controversial plan in the wake of the December Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left 27 people dead, including the gunman and 20 first-graders.

The exercise is planned for Saturday at a closed school site in suburban Fountain Hills outside Phoenix where sheriff's SWAT members will act as shooters and 25 teenagers will play the part of students during mock scenarios involving up to three gunmen.

Seagal, best known for his roles in movies such as "Above the Law" and "Under Siege," will lead training on hand-to-hand defense tactics, among other techniques, drawing from his expertise in martial arts, according to a sheriff's office news release.

Arpaio's office didn't respond to requests for comment Friday, and Seagal representatives also did not return telephone messages from The Associated Press.

When faced with criticism in January about the school posse plan, Arpaio snapped back: "Why would people complain about my posse being in front of schools to act as prevention?"

He boldly announced the plan on the grounds of an elementary school, saying at the time he wanted the patrols publicized.

"I want everyone to know about it for the deterrence effect," Arpaio said, adding that no taxpayer money would be spent on the patrols and volunteers will be supervised over the radio or telephone by actual deputies.

Arizona Democratic House Minority Leader Chad Campbell called the plan to use Seagal as an instructor "ludicrous."

"Steve Seagal is an actor. That's it. Why don't we also have Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris and Bruce Willis come out and train them too while we're at it," Campbell said.

Campbell has been a vocal critic of Arpaio's school posse protection plan, complaining that using untrained, armed civilians to protect students is a bad idea and likely will only make the facilities more dangerous.

"He's making a mockery out of it. You're having a movie actor train people how to protect schools?" Campbell said.

Randy Parraz, president of Citizens for a Better Arizona, also a longtime Arpaio critic, said it's unfortunate the sheriff, known nationally for his tough stance on illegal immigration, is using the "wake of a tragedy like Newtown" to grab headlines.

"We'd like to think he would take something like this much more seriously," said Parraz, who added that his group planned to be at Saturday's event with petitions to recall Arpaio.

The patrols were launched at 59 schools in January throughout unincorporated areas and communities that pay Arpaio's agency for police services. The sheriff announced this week he needs more members to continue the patrols, calling for 1,000 additional citizens to step up and volunteer.

Current posse members already are used to bolster the sheriff's office force by providing police protection at malls during the holidays, directing traffic and transporting people to jail.

Arpaio even sent one group of posse members to Hawaii to conduct an examination into the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

Joselyn Wells, a mother of three children at a school in suburban Phoenix, where Arpaio's posse has begun patrolling, said she was excited to hear about the initiative.

"A lot of people sit around and watch these things happen, watch key signs and no one wants to do anything about it," she said when Arpaio announced the plan. "Nobody wants conflict, nobody wants to be out in the limelight. And he doesn't care. He wants to do the right thing."

Andrew Sanchez, however, a town council member in Guadalupe, said he wants nothing to do with posse members patrolling schools in his community, which spends about $1.2 million annually for Maricopa County sheriff's patrols.

"We are paying him to have certified deputies here, not to bring a circus and not to use our town as a political platform," Sanchez has said.

The volunteers, dressed in uniforms and driving patrol vehicles, some authorized to carry guns after training, won't go onto school grounds unless they spot danger, but will instead patrol around the facilities, Arpaio said.

Seagal is already a volunteer posse member in Maricopa County, and has been deputized with sheriff's offices in New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, where a film crew followed the actor on ride-alongs with Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies for the reality TV show "Steven Seagal: Lawman."

Arpaio says other notable people also have joined his more than 3,000-strong volunteer armed posse, including "The Incredible Hulk" star Lou Ferrigno and actor Peter Lupus of TV's "Mission: Impossible."

___

Online: http://www.mcso.org/About/Posse.aspx

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/seagal-ariz-sheriff-train-posses-guard-schools-165630582.html

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NBR interviews Steve McIntyre: hard-hitting business journalism or ...

The National Business Review (NBR) is New Zealand?s biggest selling business weekly. This weekend it published a profile of Steve McIntyre, the ClimateAudit blogger and amateur statistician who has long had an unhealthy obsession with hockey sticks. Here?s how it introduced him on the web version of the article:

A man who has become the arch-enemy of climate scientists for exposing serious flaws in a United Nations study on global warming believes the issue has been greatly overstated.

Vilified by global warming zealots, Canadian Steve McIntyre, who was passing through Auckland this week, told NBR ONLINE the impact of global warming is likely to be ?about half? of what current scientific models are showing.

Unpacking all the errors and misrepresentations in just those two opening sentences is a major task, so I?ll restrict myself to a few bullet points:

• McIntyre has pissed off a few paleoclimate people (Mike Mann in particular), but is no ?arch-enemy? of an entire discipline.
• He exposed no substantial flaws in any study, though he has tried hard to create that impression. The sum total of his efforts has done nothing to change our understanding of paleoclimate.
• The United Nations doesn?t do climate studies. The UN and WMO coordinate the IPCC, which summarises all the science done in academic institutions around the world.
• McIntyre?s main contribution to science has been to orchestrate and agonise over freedom of information requests sprayed around the climate community, especially the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and thereby to waste a huge amount of real scientists? time.
• McIntyre lacks any credible expertise that would allow him to sit in judgement on the likely impact of a warming climate.

The NBR article continues:

Mr McIntyre, who is a mathematician and former mining company executive, says ?the onus is on the people arguing it?s a big problem to really show in an engineering quality report why it?s a big problem?.

More to the point is that McIntyre has been up to his elbows in organised efforts to delay action on climate change for at least the last ten years, as DeSmogBlog?s record of his activities shows ? but you wouldn?t guess that from the fawning interview by Rod Vaughan.

The really jaw-dropping moment, however, is when Vaughan presents McIntyre?s views on climate impacts:

Asked how much damage has been caused to the environment so far from global warming, he said:

[?]?Activists will tend to say that carbon dioxide emissions in the last 50 years have caused serious negative impacts.

?But from my point of view I would say I don?t know what they are and certainly on balance there?s been no serious impact.

There?s none so blind as those who won?t look at the Arctic, glacier retreat, increasing extreme weather events, or any of the many other signs of a rapidly changing climate system. McIntyre has made no contribution to the study of climate change, but he has made a huge contribution to the campaign to do nothing about it. His wilful ignorance, and his willingness to present it as wisdom, makes for unedifying reading. More?s the pity, then, that the NBR should choose to feature McIntyre?s piffle as worthy of its reader?s attention.

Climate change is already the biggest challenge the business community will have to face over the next century. Dealing with the impacts of climate change ? from extreme weather events to shifting climate zones and ocean acidification ? is going to be tough. Creating an economy in which business can thrive at the same as radically reducing emissions is an urgent necessity. It can?t be dismissed by the arm-waving of mining consultants with a political axe to grind.

It could be argued that the business community gets the journalism it deserves. On the basis of this dreadful and fatuous interview, it would appear New Zealand?s business community is in deep, deep trouble.

Tagged as: ClimateAudit, Michael Mann, NBR, Nevil Gibson, Steve McIntyre

Source: http://hot-topic.co.nz/nbr-interviews-steve-mcintyre-hard-hitting-business-journalism-or-fatuous-piffle-you-decide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nbr-interviews-steve-mcintyre-hard-hitting-business-journalism-or-fatuous-piffle-you-decide

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Explosive Power of Combustion Makes Floppy Little Silicone Robot Jump [Video]

A simple chemical reaction is used to power a robot's lofty leaps. Applications could be search-and-rescue operations

By Katharine Sanderson and Nature magazine

Image: Shepherd, R. F. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl.

From Nature magazine

Kaboom! Controlled explosions in the legs of this silicone 'soft robot' make it leap higher than 30 times its own height.

Researchers led by George Whitesides, a chemist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have engineered a three-legged silicone device that is powered by combustion ? previously used only in hard systems such as diesel engines.

The soft robot has in each of its legs a channel with a soft valve at the end. Methane and oxygen gases are fed into this channel in a ratio of one part methane to two parts oxygen. The computer that controls how much gas is let in also controls a high-voltage cable connected to electrodes in each leg.?

When the computer sparks the electrodes, the methane and oxygen explode, turning into carbon dioxide and water ? and releasing a lot of energy. The downward force from the explosion makes the robot jump ? higher than 30 centimetres so far, although the researchers say the range has been limited by the height of the testing chamber. The soft valve is crucial, says Robert Shepherd, a study co-author and engineer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It closes in response to high pressure, thus making the pressure even higher, and then it opens after the explosion to let the exhaust gases out.

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Soft robots are lighter and simpler than hard systems, and they are relatively inexpensive to produce ? but they have previously been limited to compressed-air power, owing to the high heat generated in combustion reactions. ?The key discovery is that this material can work at these high temperatures,? says Shepherd. The robot has withstood more than 30 consecutive explosive jumps so far. The results were published this week in Angewandte Chemie.

The researchers hope that a developed version of their device could be used for search-and-rescue operations, leaping and cartwheeling its way over any obstacles that might block its path.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on February 8, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=8b16a447ce6f7925ddc412f2f333370a

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