Saturday, March 31, 2012

Syria says it won't be first to lay down arms

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syria rejected international envoy Kofi Annan's call for the regime to halt violence first just days after the government agreed to a cease-fire plan. A senior official declared victory over the opposition.

It was the government's first response to an appeal by Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, to stop military operations first as "the stronger party" in a "gesture of good faith" to the lightly armed opposition. Annan brokered the agreement aimed at stopping the bloodshed and Assad agreed to it on Monday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said the government will not pull tanks and troops from towns and cities engulfed by unrest before life returns to normal there.

"The battle to bring down the state in Syria has already ended and the battle of reinforcing stability has started," Makdessi said in an apparent reference to a string of recent regime offensives that drove rebels from key strongholds. He spoke on state TV late Friday.

Activists reported fresh violence Saturday that killed more than two dozen people. The U.N. estimates more than 9,000 people have been killed since the uprising to oust Assad began a year ago.

The Foreign Ministry statement raised serious doubts about whether Annan's plan to end the conflict will even get off the ground.

The six-point proposal requires the government to immediately pull troops and heavy weapons out of cities and towns, and abide by a two-hour halt in fighting every day to allow humanitarian access and medical evacuations.

The government stance was reminiscent of a failed mediation attempt by the Arab League around the start of the new year. Assad also agreed to that plan to pull tanks and artillery out of cities and allow in foreign monitors in to assess compliance. But the mission ended in failure and Assad ultimately did not comply with the terms of the agreement he had signed on to.

The government blames armed groups carrying out a foreign conspiracy for the violence.

The opposition said the government appears to be playing for time by indicating broad agreement with the plan but then quibbling over or ignoring the details. A similar accusation was made when Assad agreed to the first Arab League plan.

Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council, said it was clear Assad's acceptance of Annan's peace plan was another "lie and a maneuver" to gain time.

"We have no illusions over the possibility of the mission's success because Bashar Assad and the Syrian regime have no credibility to engage in a political process," he said at a news conference in Istanbul.

"It will soon become obvious the regime won't even implement the first clause of the agreement."

Syria's uprising has become increasingly militarized and opposition groups now say their only hope is to drive out Assad. International opponents of Assad are struggling to pin down a strategy, as the peace plan put forward by Annan falters right out of the gate.

"The government must stop first and then discuss a cessation of hostilities with the other side," Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in Geneva on Friday. "We are appealing to the stronger party to make a gesture of good faith ... The deadline is now."

Assad promised on Thursday to "spare no effort" to make sure Annan's plan succeeds. But he demanded that armed forces battling his regime commit to halt violence as well.

Makdessi claimed the military is in populated areas "in a state of self defense and protecting civilians."

"The Syrian army is not happy to be present in residential areas," Makdessi said. "Once peace and security prevail in these areas, the army will not stay nor wait for Kofi Annan to leave. This is a Syrian matter."

For the U.S. and its allies, Syria is proving an especially murky conflict with no easy solutions. Assad's regime is one of Washington's toughest foes, a government that has long been closely allied with Iran and anti-Israel groups Hamas and Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers terrorist.

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Gulf countries are eager to see Assad's fall in hopes of breaking Syria out of its alliance with their regional rival, Shiite-majority Iran. The regime is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the opposition is Sunni dominated.

The Saudi foreign minister and the Syrian opposition called for arming the opposition so it can defend itself from Assad's "killing machine."

The calls came on the eve of a 60-nation "Friends of the Syrian People" gathering to be held in Turkey Sunday to discuss additional steps to increase pressure on the Syrian regime even as it boasts of having defeated those seeking to topple Assad.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said what the Syrian regime has done against its people "is nothing less than crimes against humanity."

Speaking at a joint news conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, al-Faisal called for arming the opposition and an immediate cease-fire.

"The arming of the opposition is a duty, I believe, because it cannot defend itself without weapons," he said. Clinton replied: "Very well said."

Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the most impatient and have spoken about possible military intervention, from arming Syria's badly overmatched rebels to creating safe zones from which the rebels can operate.

Washington remains opposed to arming the rebels, fearing a military escalation could lead to all-out civil war and play into Assad's hands, considering his vastly more powerful military.

Opposition leader Ghalioun also made an appeal for arming the opposition.

"We have called for the need to arm the Free Syrian Army so that it may defend the lives of the Syrian people. ... We hope the friends of Syria will adopt our position," he said. The Free Syria Army, made up mostly of army defectors, is the opposition's most potent fighting force.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA said Syrian troops foiled an infiltration attempt by gunmen from Lebanon into a village near the western town of Talkalakh. SANA said troops confiscated weapons and killed and wounded some of the infiltrators as others fled back into Lebanon.

In other violence, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops killed at least 25 people Saturday, mostly in the southern province of Daraa, the northwestern province of Idlib and the central region of Homs.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said security forces killed 36 people Saturday, nine of them in Idlib and eight in Homs.

___

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Bradley Klapper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.

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Syrian official says army will not make 1st move, withdraw troops from flashpoint areas

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remodeler fixes problem with local mentor | Home Improvement ...

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As I get more completed projects under my belt, there are still powerful lessons to be learned. Some are expensive, some are painful. As I say in my Selecting a Remodeler Booklet, it is wise to select a seasoned remodeler. The problem is,

?if you always do what you always did; then you?ll always get what you always got.?

This is why I love working on the business as much, or more than working in the business.

This post is about how I was able to make a systemic solution to what I discovered was a recurring nagging problem.

Working together

Remodeling is difficult enough without having to redo things. This is why there are so many ?one horse show? remodelers out there. No one can do it better than the remodeler him or herself. That is all well and good but my idea of remodeling necessitates me getting results through others.

I have always been a cooperative sort of guy. Great partnerships exist in EMS (Emergency Medical Services) where on a hot call, we rarely need to talk because we know what needs to be done. We work together in harmony to save a life. Like my dad Ed Levitch used to say, in reference to working hard together? ?when I come back, all I want to see is assholes and elbows?.

In my mind, the entire concept of remodeling? rests on bringing a crew of very talented people working hard together to create a project. I now believe that subcontractors and specialty contractors in general get an undeserved bad reputation. I couldn?t understand why a highly recommended subcontractor could screw up a project so easily. This became painfully obvious when we did a root cause analysis of a series of situational problems. When placed side by side, to my horror, they turned out to be a pattern of identical recurring problems. There was obviously a systemic flaw, yet I had no idea where or how to fix it. I now believe that it is the contractor not the subcontractor that holds the key to making the project go smoothly.

Subcontractor Agreement

Levco has always used a simple form to describe what we expect from our subcontractors. I figured it was worth publishing because we all need to be on the same page. I hold everyone who works for us in a subcontractor role to these standards. In the event that there are issues we go right back to the agreement. When something comes up that hasn?t been addressed, this is where it will go. I broke it up into two parts

1, Things I love

2, Things I won?t tolerate

Many companies do not even have this type of form. It was born out of frustration with the process. For years I thought this was the magic bullet to ensure my process would work. All of my subcontractors had agreed to work within the parameters, but something was still missing.

As it turned out, having this form in place was not enough. There was still a nagging problem that haunted me. The more I looked at it, the more I got stuck. Knowing full well that some of my best ideas come from being frustrated, I was not too worried. This time however, I was hopelessly paralyzed and extremely frustrated for a few weeks when I finally found a way out.

My Mentor

I was reading a self help book on business in general, when a brief paragraph recommended I seek out a mentor. It suggested that there are lots of smart people that are willing to help if you just ask. As it turns out, that was the tiny spark I needed. It reminded me that I had already developed relationships with wise, successful remodelers throughout the country, so I reached out to them. Amazingly, it was the one in my own back yard that was able to pinpoint the problem and, in a loving way, gave me a nudge in the right direction.

The problem, it turns out was deeply rooted in a flawed Description of Work document.? A pattern of small problems had turned into big problems. We were having to redo work that had already been done. In some cases work that was required had not been included in the bid. Thankfully, it appears that we have solved our problems, as I like to say, ?FFN? (forever for now). Our new improved Description of Work spells out the project in a surface by surface way that explains what the finished project will look like to everyone. Perhaps this is what one previous employee was trying to tell me when she said ?communication? when asked her opinion of our companies number one problem. Although I couldn?t see it then, I believe I?ve got it fixed now.

As we ring in the new year I give thanks to my mentors, my employees, my clients, and all of my subcontractors. I look forward to a year filled with clear expectations and fantastic results.

Your comments are welcome. To ask questions or get more information about remodeling, email me directly or visit our contact page.

Disclaimer: Some of these images came from the WEB. If they are yours, and you object to them being used, please claim them and I will gladly remove and replace them at once.
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New images of Titanic wreck revealed

Just in time for the 100th anniversary of the most storied maritime disaster in history, National Geographic magazine and a team of researchers have unveiled new images of the Titanic, revealing unrestricted views of the wreck for the first time ever.

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The detailed, sweeping images of the sunken ship were made by stitching together hundreds of optical and sonar images collected by three deep-diving robots during a 2010 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition.

One remotely operated vehicle and two autonomous swimming robots were equipped with sonar, used to make wide-area maps; and advanced 3D camera systems, used to conduct detailed investigations of the shipwreck.

The resulting images are the most comprehensive ever made of the ghostly site.

The initial survey covered an area about the size of Manhattan. The deep-diving vehicles made detailed maps of the seafloor, then moved in to concentrate on the colossal, broken pieces of the Titanic's wreckage, and the thousands of artifacts on the seafloor surrounding the shattered ship.

"There are very few places on the bottom of the ocean that we have a 25-year history of what's happened there, and this study will help scientists and others understand the long term fate of wrecks," WHOI's Bill Lange said in a statement.

"Having a better understanding of the conditions and long-term changes that can occur to these shipwrecks from corrosion, microbial activityand the pressure in the deep sea will give policymakers and environmental managers the tools and data they need," he said.

Lange was a member of the 1985 and 1986 WHOI teams that first discovered and explored the wreck. "There?s no doubt in my mind that the public's interest in Titanic helped propel the development of many of the technologies we use to explore the deep sea today," he said.

The images, made from 250 mosaics of the Titanic site, are published in the April 2012 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

RMS Titanic (a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc. and the only company permitted by law to recover objects from the wreck of Titanic) will be adding both still images and interactive applications of the work done by WHOI to its touring exhibits, "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition."

A full list of cities where these mosaics and more exclusive content from the most recent expedition will be on display is available online at www.rmstitanic.net.

Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

More from OurAmazingPlanet:

Image Gallery: Shipwreck Alley's Sunken Treasures
Image Gallery: Stunning Shots of the Titanic Shipwreck
Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep

More from msnbc.com:

Events mark 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking
Full Titanic wreck site mapped for first time
What sank the Titanic? Scientists point to moon
Cosmic Log archive on the Titanic

? 2012 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.

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Friday, March 30, 2012

How Fast Forward and IT Certifications Got an IT Career Back on Track

In early 2010, Melanie Moody had IT skills, having worked in the field for decades, but her skills were outdated because she had left her last IT job in 2005 due to health reasons. Fast Forward, a community technology center in Columbia, S.C., helped Moody earn CompTIA A+ and Network+ certifications to resume her IT career.

Melanie Moody

Melanie Moody

?Technology moves so fast in the IT field, when I tried to get back into it, I had a hard time; my knowledge was behind,? says Moody, who worked as an office manager for two years before being laid off in January 2010.

Amid recent high unemployment rates, employers can be choosy about who they hire. After she was laid off, Moody was determined to earn her IT certifications.

?You really have to have something to make yourself stand out,? she says. ?By having the certifications on my resume, I would be one step up over some of these other candidates. ?

In the spring of 2010, Moody learned that Fast Forward had partnered with CompTIA?s Creating IT Futures Foundation to offer online IT training and exam vouchers, and she quickly applied to the program and began to earn her A+ and Network+ certifications. In August of 2011, Moody was hired as a systems operator for Intralot, the company that administers the South Carolina Education Lottery.

Now in its 13th year, Fast Forward offers technology programming to veterans, seniors, preschoolers and adults with special needs, using federal, state, local and private funding sources.? Over the past five years, Fast Forward has administered roughly 150 scholarships?primarily for veterans? through the CompTIA Creating IT Futures Foundation.

?It?s really changed a lot of lives in this area,? says Fast Forward Executive Director Dee Albritton.

Moody came into Fast Forward?s program with experience repairing computers and helping people use computers. Out of high school, she earned a two-year certification in computer technology from an Atlanta technical school (Control Data Institute in Atlanta, which since closed). Her IT career included work as a computer technician for several companies in Atlanta and seven years as an IT support technician for the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

Even with that background, Moody says, ?I really believe the certifications helped me to get the job I have now.?

She has high praise for Albritton and the Fast Forward staff. ?They were instrumental in helping me get the job I have now,? she says. ?At one point, I was really struggling financially and had to turn off my Internet access. But I was able to come in to Fast Forward and get online to take my classes.?

Now Moody is preparing to take the CompTIA Security+ exam in April. She wants to continue to improve her IT knowledge and skills and increase her earning potential. The next goal? A Cisco certification.

?A Cisco certification is one of the best you can have right now in this industry, but it?s pretty expensive and time-consuming to get,? she says. ?That?s why I was so thrilled to get the certifications I have now through Creating IT Futures and Fast Forward. These certifications are going to help me back into a position where I could pursue other certifications on my own.?

Source: http://blog.comptia.org/2012/03/29/how-fast-forward-and-it-certifications-got-an-it-career-back-on-track/

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IT Tips for Small Business Marketing | Zoo in a Jungle Marketing

An effective technology setup is crucial for any small business marketing department. Strategy documents, forecasts, design documents and web files are all managed with computers. Here are some tips for helping you be more protected and productive?with your IT setup.

Back up your marketing files

The most important thing a small business can do is develop and implement a back-up process. The hard drive containing all of ?your marketing information is simply a mechanical device. And like any other machine with moving parts, eventually it?s going to fail. It?s certain that your hard drive is going to crash someday.

Fortunately, back-ups are pretty easy these days. If you use Macs, the included Time Machine app makes it simple to back up to an external hard drive. Windows 7 also has a Windows Backup utility.

For added protection, consider an off-site back-up service like Carbonite. This way your files are protected from catastrophes like fire.

Be smart with passwords

Social media marketing is great? unless your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blog accounts are hacked and subject customers to spam communications. I hate seeing this happen, especially since creating secure passwords is easy. Make sure you and your employees are considering security when they set up social media accounts. Microsoft has some nice guidelines for secure passwords here.

Buy professional equipment

I?m always amazed when I see a marketing professional editing video or switching between five PowerPoint presentations on a consumer-grade computer. The extra cost of a more powerful computer is well worth the investment when you consider the value of you and your employees? time.

Go for the big screens

One of the biggest boosts to productivity is adding screen size? whether that be buying a bigger display or a adding a second display. Apple, in an attempt to sell more Cinema Displays, published an interesting study on productivity and screen size. Here?s a graph from the study:

If you don?t trust Apple to be impartial (and I wouldn?t blame you!), the Wall Street Journal also has an article on the topic.

Calibrate your devices

If you are regularly disappointed that the colors you see on your display don?t match the colors on your final printed piece, try calibrating your devices. Calibration will ensure your display is showing colors correctly. X-Rite is one company providing this service with their i1 Display product.

These are just a few tips to get your small business started on your marketing department?s IT setup. The perfect setup for your small business depends on your goals, marketing partners, kinds of productivity you want to optimize for and how much protection is required. I recommend every small business take some time to think about what they really need. Too often, I uncover serious marketing problems for my clients that could have been prevented with a little planning.

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Tags: Budget, Design, IT Tips, Small Business Websites

Source: http://www.zooinajungle.com/2012/it-tips-for-small-business-marketing/

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

LEGAL LUNCH AND LEARN: Attorney Amanda Karr to present on ...

On April 19th, attorney Amanda Karr will provide a lunch and learn seminar on divorce in Nebraska.??During a divorce, the parties involved need to take certain steps to protect their interests. But the legal process is confusing and foreign to many people going through a divorce, and it is often their first experience in court. ?Divorce Overview? is a lunch and learn designed to provide general information about the divorce process.? If you or a friend or family member are contemplating divorce or currently going through a divorce and are not currently represented, we invite you to attend the ?Divorce Overview? lunch and learn on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 12:00 p.m.

This free lunch seminar is limited to the first 12 attendees, so RSVP early to rsvp@thompson.law.pro.

4/19/12 12-1pm at Thompson Law Office

Source: http://www.thompson.law.pro/2012/03/legal-lunch-learn-attorney-amanda-karr-present-on-divorce-overview/

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White House confident health reform 'constitutional'

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-supreme-court-reveals-splits-health-mandate-054635334.html

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Senegal's Sall hails new era after poll victory

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Finding life on Mars: Been there, done that?

NASA file

The Viking 1 lander sent back America's first pictures from the Martian surface in 1976. This picture shows off the lander's U.S. flag and Bicentennial logo as well as the planet's landscape.

By Alan Boyle

Thirty-six years after an experiment conducted by NASA's Mars Viking lander sparked controversial claims about the presence of life on the Red Planet, NASA's next Mars mission could conceivably hint that those claims were correct after all.

At least that's the hope held by the experiment's principal investigator, Gil Levin, who is keeping the Mars Viking flame alive even in retirement. He still thinks Viking was "the most remarkable unmanned mission ever," but he worries that its legacy will be lost amid the scientific shuffle.

"Twenty or thirty years from now, when the economy permits NASA to rise again, there will be missions to Mars, and they will find life, and they will take credit for it and not mention Viking at all," he told me.


It might not take 20 or 30 years to bring Viking back into the spotlight, however. NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission is due to deliver the car-sized Curiosity rover to the Red Planet in August?? and although the space agency insists that Curiosity doesn't have the capability to detect life, Levin believes it could show that his experiment was on the right track when it detected the chemical traces of organic activity.

GilLevin.com

Gil Levin was principal investigator for the Mars Viking probe's Labeled Release experiment.

Hopes of confirming the presence of life on Mars were riding high when the twin Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976. The scientific payload included the Labeled Release apparatus, designed by Levin and his colleagues, as well as three other life-detection experiments. The Labeled Release experiment, or LR, was set up to take a bit of Martian soil and add a drop of water containing nutrients tagged with radioactive markers. The air above the mix was then monitored to see if it gave off radioactive carbon dioxide ? which could be read as an indication that organisms in the soil were metabolizing the nutrients.

The good news for Levin and the other life-hunters was that the LR experiment came out positive. The bad news was that the other three experiments came out uniformly negative. If there really was an organic process going on, scientists thought an experiment conducted by Viking's Gas Chromatograph - Mass Spectrometer device, or GCMS, should have detected organic molecules in the soil as well. The failure to do so led most scientists to assume that the LR findings were a fluke.

But not Levin.

"If these results are precisely the same as the results from biological entities on Earth, that's hard to get around," he told me. Several suggested explanations have been put forward for the LR results ? for example, that the Martian environment is so chemically reactive, due to ultraviolet radiation, that the nutrients were broken down without life playing a part. Levin, however, says those explanations don't match up with the results produced during the LR experiments and the control experiments.

Hoping for new evidence
This might have ended up as one of those cold cases where nobody totally convinces everybody. But Levin says Curiosity's impressive array of scientific equipment could provide some hot new evidence. It has a suite of instruments known as Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, which is capable of detecting organic molecules in Martian soil or atmosphere. Another instrument suite, called ChemCam, can fire a laser blast at a soil or rock sample up to 23 feet (7 meters) away and use a spectroscopic imager to analyze the chemical composition of the vaporized material.

"I predict that one or more of these instruments, possibly all of them, will indeed find organic matter that the Viking GCMS missed," Levin said.

Finding organic molecules is not the same as finding life. After all, organic compounds have been detected within the interstellar stuff of distant galaxies, and it wouldn't be earth-shattering to detect them on Mars as well. But it would answer one of the objections raised about the LR results.

Even more telling evidence could come from Curiosity's high-resolution cameras. Some of the pictures taken during the Viking mission showed colored patches on Martian rocks that were a fair spectrographic match for the color of lichen on earthly rocks. "The spectra were identical, but of course the images were not sharp enough to be able to make a conclusion, and everybody pooh-poohed it," Levin said.

Curiosity's color cameras will have much better resolution, and Levin said they "could detect sufficient detail to establish whether these might be lichenlike organisms." It might even be possible to take multiple looks at the same rocks, and track whether their appearance goes through the kinds of changes one would expect from lichen.

Levin said lichen, which is one of the hardiest types of organisms on Earth's surface, could conceivably have hitchhiked from Earth to Mars on meteorites. "Preserved, frozen, they could survive the entry to Mars and grow under Martian conditions," he told me.

Live Poll

Do you think there's life on Mars?

  • 179850

    Yes, but it's well-hidden.

    40%

  • 179851

    Yes, and Viking found it.

    21%

  • 179852

    Once there was, but not today.

    34%

  • 179853

    Mars always has been dead.

    6%

VoteTotal Votes: 247

The long search for life
The scientists who are in charge of Curiosity and the Mars Science Laboratory say that they're aiming for the same goal that Levin has in mind, but they argue that the search for life on Mars has to follow a step-by-step process.

"What the world needs to understand is that this is really the very beginning of a very systematic and deliberate form of exploration," Caltech's John Grotzinger, principal investigator for Mars Science Laboratory, told me. "The era of 'Star Trek' exploration is not over, but ... one must be more deliberate about it, because that's the way we do it on Earth, and we know that works."

Levin, however, thinks the evidence to come will show that Viking was working correctly 36 years ago. "To suggest that we should go back and start at a lower level ... means we throw away a billion dollars, in 1976 dollars. That's about $5 billion or $6 billion today that we don't have," he said.

He'd like to see a future Mars mission duplicate the LR experiment with a few added technological twists, including a molecular analysis to check whether the molecules given off by the chemical processes on Mars have a different orientation, or chirality, than the molecules that would be given off by Earth's chemistry. He also thinks the findings from Viking should be given another good, hard look.

"Let's convene a panel of astrobiologists," Levin said. "Let's have Levin present his data. Let's have the antagonists present their data. Let's examine this trove of data which we've never examined fairly."

Will that happen in Levin's lifetime? The researcher is now 88 years old, and nobody lives forever. But he's hoping that when the next episode in the saga of the search for life on Mars plays out ... maybe in the next few months ... the Viking missions will get their share of the spotlight.

"The stories increasingly omit any mention of Viking," Levin said. "I think Viking should be lauded rather than ignored."

More about Viking and the Mars saga:


Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/26/10762034-mars-life-been-there-done-that

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Cuban-Americans head to Cuba for pope's visit

MIAMI (AP) ? Natalia Martinez speaks with a clinical distance when discussing her family's decision to leave Cuba two decades ago. But the graduate student's cool demeanor falls away when she speaks of returning to her homeland for the first time this week during Pope Benedict XVI's historic visit.

"I am excited. I am nervous, and I'm anticipating confusion," Martinez, 25, said with an anxious laugh.

She could be speaking for many of the more than 300 Cuban-Americans who will form a delegation to Cuba led by Miami's Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Wenski. Some of those making the pilgrimage Monday fled the island half a century ago. Some grew up with only the stories their exile parents told them of the island 90 miles (145 kilometers) across the Florida Straits.

What unites these pilgrims is the attachment they feel to the country their families left years ago, even those who have long opposed Fidel and Raul Castro and the communist government they ushered in 53 years ago.

Travel to Cuba is always controversial among Cuban-Americans and the half-century-old U.S. embargo of the island severely limits trips there. In the 1970s, those who visited were often blacklisted in South Florida. A few faced violence upon their return. These days, newer Cuban immigrants often visit relatives on the island. But the issue is still a requisite topic for politicians campaigning in Florida.

It has only been magnified in the run up to the pope's visit.

At least half a dozen older exiles who are returning for the first time to the island declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press because of concerns about the reaction their words might cause in Miami or in Havana.

Many exiles who fled during the early days of the revolution see little reason to return. Cubans are the only group of immigrants who are almost always granted what amounts to political asylum when they reach U.S. soil. Older exiles say travel to the island cheapens legitimate claims for asylum, and they complain that delegations such as Wenski's prop up the Cuban government, which has a stake in all of the country's hotels and tourism services.

Those traveling to Cuba argue more interaction can only help open up the island. Businessman Carlos Saladrigas, 61, is among this group. But it took him years to reach that conclusion.

Saladrigas came to Miami at the age of 12 on the so-called Pedro Pan flights that the Church organized in the early 1960s to bring Cuban children to the U.S. His parents reunited with him a year later. An outspoken critic of the Castro government, Saladrigas helped lead a successful effort to stop a similar archdiocese pilgrimage from going to Cuba during Pope John Paul II's trip there in 1998. That visit was the first by a pope since the Cuban Revolution.

Saladrigas says that experience was a turning point.

"I saw for the Cuban people how it became a great image for change and hope," he said. "And it quickly dawned on me that an isolated Cuba is the most counterproductive thing we can do."

Saladrigas is now co-chairman of the business-led Cuba Study Group. The nonprofit organization advocates for political and economic change on the island but also encourages more exchanges. He returned for the first time last year as part of his work with the Catholic charitable order known as the Knights of Malta.

"But I think this will feel different. I think this is going to be an historic moment," he said.

He is passionate about celebrating not only the pope's visit but also the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, Cuba's patron. The statue is housed in a church in an old copper mining town on the southeastern coast of Cuba, where Benedict will pray.

"More than a religious symbol, she is a patriotic symbol that brings Cubans together like nothing else can," he said.

John De Leon, president of the Greater Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says the historic and religious significance of the pope's trip moved him to go too.

"I am totally in solidarity with Catholics here and Catholics on the island, so I think anything that can foster that solidarity on both sides of the ocean is important," he added.

De Leon grew up in Miami and traveled for the first time to Cuba in 1993 as part of an academic mission, prompting his staunchly anti-Castro exile parents not to speak to him for months. He has returned on several occasions since then, but the last time was nearly a decade ago.

"There was a certain excitement when I went the first time" he said, "but then that sort of faded during the Bush years. There was a clamping down on any meaningful exchange."

President George W. Bush limited cultural and academic trips and prohibited Cuban-Americans from visiting the island more than once every three years. The Obama administration has since relaxed those limitations.

Now De Leon said he is interested in seeing the effects of recent economic changes instituted by Raul Castro, who took over from his ailing brother in 2006.

De Leon said his decision to go was unaffected by the Cuban government's crackdown on dissidents in advance of the pope's arrival. Cuban officials recently removed 13 people from a local church at the behest of Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega. The group had demanded the pope air a list of their grievances during his trip. Meanwhile, dozens of activists who march weekly in Havana following Sunday masses were detained last weekend and told there would be no more public protests ahead of or during the pope's visit. The opposition group Ladies in White was able to hold its weekly peaceful protest Sunday.

"Obviously it's of concern when there is oppression anywhere of individuals' civil rights," he said. But De Leon said he was not surprised about the stepped-up tensions.

"I think that's what dissidents should be doing, highlighting the problems and their cause, and the best time to do that is when the international spotlight is on the island. And I believe the pope's visit is bringing some kind of hope and expectation," he said.

For Martinez, the visit is less about religion and history than it is about rediscovering her own story.

Her family left when she was 6, while her father was working in Mexico. And her memories from the island are mere snapshots: growing a lima bean shoot in elementary school, her grandmother sneaking a cigarette on the patio of her parents' home, the difficulty some days of finding eggs at the store.

For years she followed her physicist father's creed of always looking forward, never back. But she has long felt something was missing and yearns for a glimpse of her childhood home.

She will be traveling with friends from the nonprofit Roots of Hope, which seeks to connect Cuban youth in the U.S. with those on the island.

"I have wanted to go for a while," she said. "I think I was waiting for the right time and the right group of people."

____

Follow Laura Wides-Munoz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/(hash)!/lwmunoz

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cuban-americans-head-cuba-popes-visit-194147454.html

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Monday, March 26, 2012

NRG to bring 200 fast-charging EV stations to the Golden State, pump $100 million into CA infrastructure

Way back before NRG was making electric DeLoreans and building solar power plants, it co-owned a slew of power facilities in California with Dynegy -- an energy outfit that got caught up in a long-term litigation over some old energy contracts with the state. Long story short, that legal dispute became NRG's problem in 2006, after it acquired Dynegy's majority stake in the partnership -- a problem it's finally resolving by peppering California with 200 fast-charging EV stations. The $120 million settlement promises to create jobs, invest in the state's economy and provide job training for the stations' maintenance and installation crews.

NRG may be shelling out some serious cash, but the deal is still mutually beneficial -- those extra vehicle chargers will be running on its own fee-based eVgo network, after all. Governor Jerry Brown calls the settlement the beginning of a "virtuous circle" that will boost EV sales for the state, which will in turn, provoke investors to expand California's charging infrastructure, which will, of course, sell more cars. In fact, he's banking on it, and has signed an executive order setting targets for EV adoption. If all goes as planned, you'll be looking at a smog free San Francisco skyline by 2050. Won't that be nice?

Continue reading NRG to bring 200 fast-charging EV stations to the Golden State, pump $100 million into CA infrastructure

NRG to bring 200 fast-charging EV stations to the Golden State, pump $100 million into CA infrastructure originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/25/nrg-to-bring-200-fast-charging-ev-stations-to-the-golden-state/

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The Save didn?t accident an official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic until 1969. Prior to the 1970s,beginning pitchers typically finished games. When they were never learned apt finish a game,christian louboutin chaussures prix, managers had apt wail aboard a group of ?has-beens? they kept amid the bullpen. Pitchers favor knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm,paul smith suits, made a alive coming out of the bullpen. In the ?70s,air jordan shorts, managers started looking for pitchers who could be counted on to acquire a few decisive outs toward the annihilate of the game. The wonderful Yankees teams of the late ?70s and early ?80s relied aboard an of the best relievers; Hall of Famer Rich ?Goose? Gossage. Gossage came up a pure reliever with the Chicago White Sox,hit his maximal with the Yankees. Fans began apt expenditure attention apt saves, which relievers earned by entering a game with a slender lead and preserving the victory. By the 1980s, relief pitchers prefer Dan Quisenberry,air jordan retro 11, Bruce Sutter and Dennis Eckersley became stars within their own right. The reliever character evolved toward additional specialization. The epoch of the iron-man closer coming among during the 7th inning was transient By the late ?80s,nike air max 90, closers were being asked apt obtain only three outs.
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Source: http://asics.manablog.jp/archives/13488

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

All Regarding Baths and Showers | The Brigante Brand Home ...

Posted by admin on March 25, 2012 |
in Bath and Shower
as Baths, Regarding, Showers
490911498 63524e180d m All Regarding Baths and Showers

We tend to pay therefore abundant cash on looking after our body. We tend to move to spas and sweetness parlors in our effort to look sensible and pay hours of our time and tons of bucks on trying fresh. However if you?re wanting at an inexpensive way to remain spruced up then nothing can beat a long and opulent bath. The importance of having a tub in maintaining a healthy body can?t be negated. It does not cost you abundant to own a bath. It?s most indulgent to require a thin dip in an exceedingly cast iron bath once a hard day at work. It enables you to relax and release the stress that has engineered up during the day.
Let us have a observe the different types of bathing choices in the form of bathtubs and showers.

Free standing baths will be positioned wherever you want it in the bathroom. It is also terribly straightforward to clean the tub.

You?ll easily overturn it to clean the underside. If you want to clean the ground around the tub, you?ll be able to simply shift the bathtub to try and do so. As long because the plumbing is finished the proper means, you can play with the d?cor of the bathroom with free standing baths. Roll high baths are another example. This tub has edges that curve at the high giving a distinctive spherical result to the edge of the tub. They?re obtainable in different varieties of styles. The material they?re created of conjointly varies relying on the manufacturer. They?ll be made from enameled metals or copper, porcelain, wood, plastic, acrylic or even glass.

Solid iron baths are a terribly in style alternative among all due to their distinctive appearance. They?re very durable. You will realize several cast iron baths that are tons of years recent and still as sturdy.

In fact, manufacturers give warranty that they can last for as long as they?re owned. The bathtubs are significant however resist scratches and dent the best. The bathtubs have totally different designs. They conjointly return in numerous colours, shapes, depths and sizes.

Walk-In showers are useful for those that find it difficult to get out and in of the bathtub. It additionally saves a lot on time. Not many have the posh of sitting in the bath and enjoying a protracted bath. They like a quickie, go below the shower, put on the soap and wash it off. A walk-in shower allows them to try and do just that. They also facilitate to avoid wasting on space.

Frameless showers haven?t any doors. They have a thick and clear tempered glass enclosure that helps to offer them an open look. They?re straightforward to clean. The glass can be frosted, colored, tinted, opaque etc.

Thermostatic showers can sense changes in temperature and modify the temperature and flow of water accordingly. Some cut out the flow of water when a failure in its flow is detected. Some can even stop the user from selecting terribly high temperatures.
With thus several options offered, you are positive to seek out something you prefer and take that soothing tub you have got continually been longing for.

Find More Bath And Shower Articles

Source: http://www.thebrigantebrand.com/2012/03/25/all-regarding-baths-and-showers/

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Spring into Netter Real Estate's Open Houses This Weekend ? Long ...

By knetter

Spring has sprung!? The values are in full bloom at Netter Real Estate?s Open Houses this weekend.? With interest rates at historic lows and home prices continuing to be reasonable, all you?ll need to do is follow the Netter Real Estate Open House Signs to the end of the rainbow to your new home.? The Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffet an nearly every financial expert out there says that buying real estate right now will yield a higher return, faster than stocks or any other investment you can make.

?

Turn to Netter Real Estate for all your real estate needs. Our agents at Netter Real Estate will nurture your family as it blooms by finding the home of your dreams?and right now with reasonable prices and incredibly low interest rates, you won?t have to clean out your wallet to buy it!

Please check our website regularly for Netter Real Estate happenings and be sure to ?like? the Netter Real Estate fan page on Facebook for up-to-the-minute information on what?s going on in our community.

Netter Real Estate, serving our community since 1949.

Tell us how we can best serve you 631-661-5100.

Source: http://blog.netterrealestate.com/2012/03/24/spring-into-netter-real-estates-open-houses-this-weekend/

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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Kim Kardashian: Attacked by Woman, White Powder


This is so not kool, people.

During an event at the London Hotel in West Hollywood last night, Kim Kardashian was walking the red carpet when a woman ran up and tossed white powder all over the reality star's back and hair.

You can see the before-and-after shots from the fragrance launch below, with Kim being led away, following the assault, in the latter photo:

Kim Kardashian on a Red CarpetKim Kardashian White Powder Pic

The fire department was called in to determine the powder was simply cooking flour and police have detailed the assailant, who really is a moron.

If you aren't a fan of Kim Kardashian, ignore her on Facebook and Twitter. Don't make her sympathetic in the eyes of the public and definitely don't give her a reason to make more headlines.

Seriously, even Jon Hamm would not approve of this idiotic act.

[Photo: B. Dowling/WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/03/kim-kardashian-attacked-by-woman-white-powder/

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How To Clean Your Windows Registry | Article Directory - Submit ...

Your computers registry is a lot like an enormous phone book that stores millions of entries. It really is certainly one of the vital components of the computer, and you also need to take quite fantastic care of it. All of your computer software info, applications, and profiles are generally stored in here. If any of those almost everything is removed, even by accident, your personal computer can become useless. You?ll wish to keep your registry neat and in order so your personal computer can run and accumulate all the information it has to keep becoming made use of. After you continue to use your personal machine, your registry will get clogged with a lot of additional points you do not want on your hard drive.

In the event you don?t fix it frequently, your data can develop into cracked, and unusable. This may lead you to purchasing a brand new pc program, and that will quickly set you back a variety of hundred dollars. As you browse you discover one, you could see that there is various amounts of registry cleaners you can download you will discover, you do have to shell out following trying them, even so at the very least you get a trial present. You shouldn?t complain about getting to spend for your registry cleaner mainly because, it will save you time and funds getting to obtain a broken registry fixed.

Any time you download your registry cleaner, you?ll need to make sure you back up your existing original registry first. The in all probability asking yourself why since the registry demands to be cleaned up, but if one thing was to go incorrect you need to no less than be able to go back to the original registry which you had. Following backing up your computer registry, you are able to scan that to find errors. Immediately after the scan is more than every single one of the errors identified will probably be on computer and you?ll have the possibility to destroy them or fix them.

If it is potential to fix them, you must choose this selection. Removing synonyms can be a quite dangerous job. You will desire to use an expert take a look at in addition to do this for the reason that if any individual delete the wrong one specific, you could corrupt the entire laptop or computer database and destroy the registry entirely. (Which can be exactly where that backup will are available in handy, should you be fortunate)

You wish to generate confident to take great care of one?s complete laptop, but most drastically your computer registry. You must maintain it up currently, and repaired at all times otherwise you may and can lose useful information. There is certainly no way surrounding this step. You must clear your registry as soon as inside a though or else you?ll be able to say goodbye for your private computer and all of your information. Commence cleaning promptly, and download your program sooner than later.

For more information on computer system registries and personal computer registry websites I recommend you have a look at How To Speed Up Computer at http://www.systemregistrycleaners.com/

Source: http://ads4india.net/how-to-clean-your-windows-registry/

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VA Home Loan Eligibility FAQs for Whidbey Island-Part 1 | Whidbey ...

Answering questions about VA loan is what this website is all about. There are a lot of questions so I will break it down into different areas. The first is a question that I got this morning.This is part 1 of?2 on VA Home Loan Eligibility?FAQs: (Most of these come directly from the VA Home Loan website.)

Q: Can I refinance my current conventional loan with a VA guaranteed home loan?
A: You can finance with a VA loan, however, it is not 100% loan to value financing like a purchase. VA doesn?t have a difference between cash out and rate and term refinance, both are limited?to 90 percent loan to value unless you are doing a VA to VA refinance and then there is a difference between a cash out and an IRRRL (interest rate reduction refinance loan).

Q: How do I apply for a VA guaranteed loan?
A: You can apply for a VA loan with any mortgage lender that participates in the VA home loan program. At some point, you will need to get a Certificate of Eligibility from VA to prove to the lender that you are eligible for a VA loan.FHAVAUSDAApproved1

Q: How do I get a Certificate of Eligibility?
A: Complete a

VA Form 26-1880, Request for a Certificate of Eligibility: You can apply for a Certificate of Eligibility by submitting a completed VA Form 26-1880, Request For A Certificate of Eligibility For Home Loan Benefits, to the Atlanta Eligibility Center, along with proof of military service. In some cases it may be possible for VA to establish eligibility without your proof of service. However, to avoid any possible delays, it?s best to provide such evidence.

Q: Can my lender get my Certificate of Eligibility for me?
A: Yes, it?s called Web LGY. Most lenders have access to the Web LGY?system. This Internet based?application can establish eligibility and issue an online Certificate of Eligibility in a matter of seconds. Not all cases can be?processed through Web LGY?- only those for which VA has sufficient data in our records. However, veterans are encouraged to ask their lenders about this method of obtaining a certificate.

Q: What is acceptable proof of military service?
A: If you are still serving on regular active duty, you must include an original statement of service signed by, or by direction of, the adjutant, personnel officer, or commander of your unit or higher headquarters which identifies you and your social security number, and provides your date of entry on your current active duty period and the duration of any time lost.
If you were discharged?from regular active duty after January 1, 1950, a copy of DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge From Active Duty should be?included with your VA Form 26-1880. If you were discharged?after October 1, 1979, DD Form 214 copy 4 should be included. A PHOTOCOPY OF DD214 WILL SUFFICE?..DO NOT SUBMIT AN ORIGINAL DOCUMENT.
If you are still serving on regular active duty, you must include an original statement of service signed by, or by direction of, the adjutant, personnel officer, or commander of your unit or higher headquarters which shows your date of entry on your current active duty period and the duration of any time lost.
If you were discharged from the Selected Reserves or the National Guard, you must?include copies of adequate documentation of at least 6 years of honorable service. If you were discharged?from the Army or Air Force National Guard, you may submit NGB?Form 22, Report of Separation and Record of Service, or NGB?Form 23, Retirement Points Accounting, or it?s equivalent. If you were discharged from the Selected Reserve, you may submit a copy of your latest annual points statement and evidence of honorable service. Unfortunately, there is no single form used by the Reserves or National Guard similar to the DD Form 214. It is your responsibility to furnish adequate documentation of at least 6 years of honorable service.
If you are still serving in the Selected Reserves or the National Guard, you must include an original statement of service signed by, or by the direction of, the adjutant, personnel officer, or commander of your unit or higher headquarters showing the length of time that you have been a member of the Selected Reserves. Again, at least 6 years of honorable service must be documented.

Q: How can I obtain proof of military service?
A:
Standard Form 180, Request Pertaining to Military Records, is used?to apply for proof of military service regardless of whether you served on regular active duty or in the selected reserves. This request form is NOT processed by VA. Rather, Standard Form 180 is completed?and mailed to the appropriate custodian of military service records. Instructions are provided on the reverse of the form to assist in determining the correct forwarding address.

If you have questions about an VA Guaranteed Home Loan, please contact me, your Whidbey Loan Guy. I am a Vietnam era veteran and have a VA loan myself. I would be happy to help you in your loan needs. Even if we can?t get you qualified today, I will spend the time with you getting things straightened out so you can qualify in the future. I am a Senior Mortgage Advisor with Pinnacle Mortgage Planning, 3157 N. Goldie Rd., Suite 107, Oak Harbor WA 98277. You can reach me at 360-682-6913/541-221-3455 cell or by e-mail.

Source: http://navalstationwhidbeyvaloans.com/2012/03/23/va-home-loan-eligibility-faqs-for-whidbey-islandoak-harborault-fieldpart-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=va-home-loan-eligibility-faqs-for-whidbey-islandoak-harborault-fieldpart-1

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