Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/166903185?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Investing For The Future | hellinahandbasket.net
Walter Russell Mead brings us news that business is booming for Syrian black market arms sales.
Rocket grenade launchers appear to be the hottest investment grade item, with prices more than sextupling from $400 to $2500 in recent months.? Kalashnikovs and M16s are also up sharply, with 75 percent appreciation on the Russian guns and 100 percent on the US model.
The reason why the guns are flying off the shelf, with increased demand resulting in sky high prices, is because the folks in that part of the world are gearing up for some good old fashioned genocide.
This is the pattern I saw at work in Yugoslavia and the Caucasus twenty years ago as ethnic groups geared up to butcher their neighbors and drive them from their homes; I will never forget the night a Georgian poet asked me how much guns cost on the Istanbul black market; he was arming himself against what he called the ?Abkhazian menace.?
Sounds like Dr. Mead has a pretty good handle on the situation.? Unless one were going up against tanks, I wouldn?t consider an RPG to be a defensive weapon.
(Picture source.)
I am a professional self defense instructor, and I live in central Ohio. This entry was posted in Books, History, Military. Bookmark the permalink.Source: http://hellinahandbasket.net/?p=8896
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Cricket unveils ZTE Chorus, its third Muve Music smartphone
Continue reading Cricket unveils ZTE Chorus, its third Muve Music smartphone
Cricket unveils ZTE Chorus, its third Muve Music smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sunday, November 27, 2011
NASA's biggest Mars rover poised for blastoff (AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? NASA is all set to launch the world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer.
A six-wheeled, one-armed Mars rover is due to blast off Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral. The unmanned Atlas V rocket will put the spacecraft on an 8 1/2-month trek to the red planet.
The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is the size of a car. It's a mobile laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right there on the surface. There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.
Curiosity will spend two years looking for evidence that Mars may once have been ? or still is ? suitable for microbial life.
The mission costs $2.5 billion.
Forecasters expect decent launching weather.
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Thursday, November 24, 2011When seeking a physician, you should look for one with experience. Right? Maybe not. Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment.
"We found that all the physicians in the study included irrelevant criteria in their decisions," said Read Montague, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. "Notably, however, the most experienced doctors were the poorest learners."
The research is published in the Nov. 23 issue of PLoS One, the Public Library of Science open-access journal, in the article, "Neural correlates of effective learning in experienced medical decision-makers," by Jonathan Downar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital; Meghana Bhatt, Ph.D., assistant research professor at Beckman Research Institute, the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, Calif.; and Montague, who is also a professor of physics in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brain activity of 35 experienced physicians in a range of non-surgical specialties as they made decisions.
The doctors were instructed to select between two treatments for a series of simulated patients in an emergency room setting. "First they had a chance to learn by experience which of two medications worked better in a series of 64 simulated heart-attack patients, based on a simplified history with just six factors," said Bhatt.
Unknown to the test subjects, of the six factors, only one was actually relevant to the decision: diabetes status. One medication had a 75 percent success rate in patients with diabetes, but only a 25 percent success rate in patients without diabetes. The other had the opposite profile. The physicians had 10 seconds to select a treatment. Then they were briefly presented with an outcome of "SUCCESS: (heart attack) aborted" or "FAILURE: No response."
"After the training, we tested the physicians to see how often they were able to pick the better drug in a second series of 64 simulated patients," said Bhatt. "When we looked at their performance, the doctors separated into two distinct groups. One group learned very effectively from experience, and chose the better drug more than 75 percent of the time. The other group was terrible; they chose the better drug only at coin-flipping levels of accuracy, or half the time, and they also came up with inaccurate systems for deciding how to prescribe the medications, based on factors that didn't matter at all."
In fact, all the doctors reported including at least one of the five irrelevant factors, such as age or previous heart attack, in their decision process.
"The brain imaging showed us a clear difference in the mental processes of the two groups," said Montague. "The high performers activated their frontal lobes when things didn't go as expected and the treatments failed." Such activity showed that the doctors learned from their failures, he said. These physicians gradually improved their performance.
In contrast, the low performers activated their frontal lobes when things did go as expected, said Bhatt. "In other words, they succumbed to 'confirmation bias,' ignoring failures and learning only from the successful cases. Each success confirmed what the low performers falsely thought they already knew about which treatment was better." The researchers termed this counterproductive learning pattern "success-chasing."
"The problem with remembering successes and ignoring failures is that it doesn't leave us any way to abandon our faulty ideas. Instead, the ideas gain strength from each chance success, until they evolve into something like a superstition," said Downar.
The fMRI showed that a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens "showed significant anticipatory activation well before the outcome of the trial was revealed, and this anticipatory activation was significantly greater prior to successful outcomes," Montague said. "Based on the outcome of the training phase, we were actually able to predict results in the testing phase for each low-performing subject's final set of spurious treatment rules."
The authors state in the article that the formation of spurious beliefs is universal, such as an athlete's belief in a lucky hat. "But the good news is that physicians can probably be trained to think more like the high performers," said Downar. "I tell my students to remember three things: First, when you're trying to work out a diagnosis, remember to also ask the questions that would prove your hunches wrong. Second, when you think you have the answer, think again and go through the possible alternatives. Third, if the treatment isn't going as expected, don't just brush it off ? ask yourself what you could have missed."
"These findings underscore the dangers of disregarding past failures when making high-stakes decisions," said Montague. "'Success-chasing' not only can lead doctors to make flawed decisions in diagnosing and treating patients, but it can also distort the thinking of other high-stakes decision-makers, such as military and political strategists, stock market investors, and venture capitalists."
###
Virginia Tech: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu
Thanks to Virginia Tech for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 104 time(s).
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Don't Take Your Eyes Off Mistras (The Motley Fool)
Mistras Group (NYSE: MG - News), which provides technology-enabled non-destructive testing solutions, recently reported better-than-expected results for the first quarter with profits surging a whopping 103%. Let's take a closer look at the impressive numbers.
Rise and fall
Revenue increased by 34% to $91.4 million due to increased demand for inspection services along with an increase in "run and maintain" or "evergreen" contracts. Advanced non-destructive testing services, which have higher margins than traditional NDT services, also increased noticeably over the last year. NDT services are basically analysis techniques to evaluate the properties of a material, component, or system cost-effectively and without causing damage. Increased growth of 40% from targets other than oil and gas also added to the revenue.
Oil and gas contributed 56% to the top line, down from 61% in the same period previous year. Gross profits decreased because of lower margins associated with the energy sector caused by longer contracts and a high concentration of traditional NDT services. When it came to new contracts, the company was not able to command prices, which may lead to lower margins in the short term. However, Mistras put a sizable effort in improving gross profits by focusing on utilization rates of its service technicians, controlling other costs of revenues, and introducing more advanced NDT tools to its services segment.
The net effect on the bottom line was a whopping 103% increase to $3.2 million, primarily due to an increase in revenue. The growth could have been higher but was stymied by higher selling, general, and administrative expenses. These were borne from infrastructure- and acquisitions-related costs.
Is it just Mistras or is it an industry trend?
Although the three-digit growth was not felt across the board, peers didn't do badly either. Team (Nasdaq: TISI - News) put up a good show in its last quarter with a 78% increase in net income. Furmanite (NYSE: FRM - News) also experienced a 98% increase in the bottom line. This shows that the industry is going through a strong positive trend.
And this is a big advantage for Mistras as it is well-positioned as a "one source asset protection solution" provider for its customers. In other words, it is like a one-stop shop. This should assist the company in further enhancing its top line.
Mistras, which earns a major chunk of revenues from the oil and gas industry, has many midstream and upstream companies as its clients. This particular sector is poised for huge growth given the high natural gas reserves around the world and the demand associated with it. The impending expansion should also increase opportunities for Mistras' services.
What's cooking?
Mistras Group has shown a strong uptrend through its top-line growth. The company's positioning as a one-stop shop within the target market has the potential to maintain the growth momentum. Given that it can market its services well, I believe it is worth keeping an eye on.
Abantika Chatterjee does not own shares of the companies mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
On Thanksgiving, space station astronauts don't have to watch their weight
The Thanksgiving menu for astronauts aboard the International Space Station includes turkey, yams, and cherry-blueberry cobbler, all served up ? or is it down? ? in a microgravity environment.?
A light Thanksgiving dinner doesn't necessarily mean skimping on the turkey or stuffing, not even aboard the International Space Station. The three crew members, who arrived just in time to spend a weightless holiday in orbit, will enjoy a feast of irradiated smoked turkey and heat-treated yams while floating 220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth tomorrow (Nov. 24).
Skip to next paragraphThe?weightless feast?will include traditional favorites with a space-y twist, such as NASA's own cornbread dressing, home-style potatoes, cranberries, and for dessert ? drum roll! ? cherry-blueberry cobbler, served in a space pouch.
Around the table will be NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin. The trio arrived at the space station Tuesday (Nov. 22), and they are scheduled to live and work aboard the outpost until March. Their time will be spent conducting experiments and preparing for the arrival of new commercial cargo-carrying spacecraft.
Burbank recently described the crew's Thanksgiving plans in a NASA holiday video message, with Burbank catching floating food packages as he gave Earthlings a rundown of the Thursday menu. [A Gallery of Space Food]
The one important missing ingredient? Family.
"We're going to be missing the family and friends back home; we're going to hopefully get a chance to talk to them," Burbank said.
Even so, the astronaut has a lot on his gratitude list.
"We're going to enjoy some great food, we're going to enjoy?a view of planet Earth from here, we're going to be real thankful for the opportunity that we have to fly aboard this magnificent space station, and we're going to be thankful for the love and support of all the folks that we have back home," Burbank said.
Even though the crew members won't be able to bow their heads in thanks with their families and friends, the feast will provide a reminder of home. "The food we eat in space tastes very much like the food we enjoy on Earth," a former space station occupant, NASA astronaut Clay Anderson, said from the ground.
The trickiest part of preparing a space Thanksgiving meal has to do with shelf life: Without any food refrigerators or freezers on the space station, food must last in room temperature for long periods of time, said NASA food scientist Vickie Kloeris, manager of the space station's food system. That's why they freeze-dry and thermostabilize the foods. Thermostabilizing involves pre-heating the food to kill bacteria.
Outdoing a meal with family and friends may be difficult, but the space station has something Grandma's house doesn't, and that's microgravity.
"It's totally legal to play with your food in outer space," Anderson told SPACE.com, adding that astronauts can spin the floating food on their spoon, which is "great fun." And Anderson would know. He spent 152 days living aboard the station in 2007, returning to the outpost in 2010 as a member of space shuttle mission STS-131.
During his stays, he said, he ate all of the foods being served at Thanksgiving, though he wasn't on the station for turkey day or?Christmas in space.
The astronauts may wind up in the same?turkey coma?as people on Earth. Anderson said that even in microgravity it's tempting to stuff yourself. "I ate like a pig when I was there," he said, "and I still lost weight."
Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcomand on?Facebook.
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Search for Black Friday deals with TGI Black Friday
For some, Black Friday has arrived, and for others, it’s only hours away and TGI Black Friday for iPhone is here to add some order to such a chaotic day. This little app breaks down all the big deals by store (including the App Store), categories, and popularity and...
 |  |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/wyFeaIQi_wA/story01.htm
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U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: Eight years worth of stuff (Reuters)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? At the peak of the United States' war in Iraq, the U.S. military had more than 170,000 troops, 500 bases replete with tents and toilets, kitchens and motor pools, and an airline that flew hundreds of times a day across the country.
Moving day has lasted more than a year.
The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq after nearly nine years of war is believed to be one of the largest removal jobs in history. At the start of the year logistics experts calculated there were nearly 3 million pieces of equipment to be moved, from airplanes, helicopters and tanks to laptops and lights.
"It is the largest move of military equipment we have done since World War Two," said Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Brooks, a U.S. military historian.
Soldiers, trucks and weaponry are streaming out of Iraq every day. From that peak of 170,000 troops, about 18,000 remain this week, with hundreds leaving daily. Virtually all will be gone before Christmas.
Since September 2010, around 2 million pieces of equipment have been redeployed, U.S. officials say, some back to the United States, others to Afghanistan or other locations.
By September 1, the clutter had been reduced to about 20,000 truckloads. This week, about 9,000 truckloads remained.
"It's not as glamorous as it was when you're out on patrol in a village, helping some young Iraqi, or building a school or capturing a terrorist. But it's historic," said Brigadier General Bradley Becker of the move out.
"Someday I truly believe that future military classes ... will study the logistics (of our) move out of Iraq."
PALACES EMPTIED
Closing down the Iraq war has meant shutting down the U.S. military bases, which numbered 505 at the peak and included everything from small desert fueling depots to massive installations where Americans have been entrenched for years.
The Victory Base complex in Baghdad, the heart of the war operation surrounded by 42 km (27 miles) of concrete blast walls and razor wire, once hosted 40,000 troops and more than 20,000 contractors. Balad, north of Baghdad, had 36,000 residents.
Victory was so big it had a reverse osmosis water plant that could generate 1.85 million gallons a day, an ice plant, a 50-megawatt power generating station, stadium-sized chow halls and a laundromat with 3,000 machines able to do 36,000 loads a day.
Now the generals have moved from Saddam's missile-damaged palaces, the war operations room has been cleared of computers and phones and the barber shops, DVD stores and restaurants like Burger King, Subway and Green Bean are fast disappearing.
AIR SERVICE WINDING DOWN
For years, in U.S. air terminals across Iraq, on flat-screen monitors or white boards, generals and soldiers, journalists and contractors watched for flight information to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport), Tikrit, Mosul or other destinations.
Between combat, medical evacuations and ferry service, the U.S. intra-Iraq airline flew scores of times every day.
At the peak in 2009, there more than 400 aircraft which flew daily, Brooks said.
"The MNC-I Aviation brigade averaged 157 missions a day. We had 28 helicopters devoted to just flying passengers around Iraq on scheduled flights."
Joint Base Balad, with two 11,000-foot runways, had 27,500 takeoffs and landings a month in 2006, second only to London's Heathrow, U.S. officials said.
THE WAY OUT
For months, a steady stream of tanks, troop carriers, artillery and other gear has flowed from remote bases to collection yards in Baghdad and elsewhere, and then out of the country, mostly to Kuwait.
One U.S. military officer said logistics experts had estimated there was $7.8 billion worth of "theater-provided equipment" -- the tanks, trucks, tables and chairs and other things the soldiers don't carry themselves -- to move.
On a single day, the dusty yard at Victory Base held 186 HumVees, 22 MRAPs, four M-1 Abrams tanks, eight Paladin Howitzer artillery systems, four Stryker fighting vehicles and scores of generators, lighting systems and other gear.
U.S. record-keepers itemize everything, including the equipment to be left behind. About a quarter of the gear, mainly HumVees, radios and weapons, was headed to Afghanistan.
At big bases like Victory, buildings, mess halls, offices, water treatment and electrical plants, Containerized Housing Units (CHUs), desks, tables and chairs, are being handed over to the Iraq government, and tons of equipment is being scrapped.
In many cases, the cost of moving something wasn't worth it. In others, the equipment wasn't worth it.
"A lot of the computers we've been using for the last eight years ... the guts are ripped out," said 1st Lieutenant Michael Saslo, logistics coordinator at the yard. "There's no point putting those on a convoy and risking a soldier's life for it."
By early November, nearly 4 million items worth $390 million had been given to Iraq, including 26,000 CHUs worth $124 million and 89,000 air conditioners worth $18.5 million. Logisticians said they had saved taxpayers $685 million in transport costs.
"We don't ship toilets," said one soldier.
The exception appeared to be Saddam Hussein's toilet, taken from the Victory Base cell where he was held for two years and destined for display in a U.S. military museum.
(Reporting by Jim Loney; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Thursday, November 24, 2011
Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure
Thursday, November 24, 2011When seeking a physician, you should look for one with experience. Right? Maybe not. Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment.
"We found that all the physicians in the study included irrelevant criteria in their decisions," said Read Montague, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. "Notably, however, the most experienced doctors were the poorest learners."
The research is published in the Nov. 23 issue of PLoS One, the Public Library of Science open-access journal, in the article, "Neural correlates of effective learning in experienced medical decision-makers," by Jonathan Downar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital; Meghana Bhatt, Ph.D., assistant research professor at Beckman Research Institute, the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, Calif.; and Montague, who is also a professor of physics in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brain activity of 35 experienced physicians in a range of non-surgical specialties as they made decisions.
The doctors were instructed to select between two treatments for a series of simulated patients in an emergency room setting. "First they had a chance to learn by experience which of two medications worked better in a series of 64 simulated heart-attack patients, based on a simplified history with just six factors," said Bhatt.
Unknown to the test subjects, of the six factors, only one was actually relevant to the decision: diabetes status. One medication had a 75 percent success rate in patients with diabetes, but only a 25 percent success rate in patients without diabetes. The other had the opposite profile. The physicians had 10 seconds to select a treatment. Then they were briefly presented with an outcome of "SUCCESS: (heart attack) aborted" or "FAILURE: No response."
"After the training, we tested the physicians to see how often they were able to pick the better drug in a second series of 64 simulated patients," said Bhatt. "When we looked at their performance, the doctors separated into two distinct groups. One group learned very effectively from experience, and chose the better drug more than 75 percent of the time. The other group was terrible; they chose the better drug only at coin-flipping levels of accuracy, or half the time, and they also came up with inaccurate systems for deciding how to prescribe the medications, based on factors that didn't matter at all."
In fact, all the doctors reported including at least one of the five irrelevant factors, such as age or previous heart attack, in their decision process.
"The brain imaging showed us a clear difference in the mental processes of the two groups," said Montague. "The high performers activated their frontal lobes when things didn't go as expected and the treatments failed." Such activity showed that the doctors learned from their failures, he said. These physicians gradually improved their performance.
In contrast, the low performers activated their frontal lobes when things did go as expected, said Bhatt. "In other words, they succumbed to 'confirmation bias,' ignoring failures and learning only from the successful cases. Each success confirmed what the low performers falsely thought they already knew about which treatment was better." The researchers termed this counterproductive learning pattern "success-chasing."
"The problem with remembering successes and ignoring failures is that it doesn't leave us any way to abandon our faulty ideas. Instead, the ideas gain strength from each chance success, until they evolve into something like a superstition," said Downar.
The fMRI showed that a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens "showed significant anticipatory activation well before the outcome of the trial was revealed, and this anticipatory activation was significantly greater prior to successful outcomes," Montague said. "Based on the outcome of the training phase, we were actually able to predict results in the testing phase for each low-performing subject's final set of spurious treatment rules."
The authors state in the article that the formation of spurious beliefs is universal, such as an athlete's belief in a lucky hat. "But the good news is that physicians can probably be trained to think more like the high performers," said Downar. "I tell my students to remember three things: First, when you're trying to work out a diagnosis, remember to also ask the questions that would prove your hunches wrong. Second, when you think you have the answer, think again and go through the possible alternatives. Third, if the treatment isn't going as expected, don't just brush it off ? ask yourself what you could have missed."
"These findings underscore the dangers of disregarding past failures when making high-stakes decisions," said Montague. "'Success-chasing' not only can lead doctors to make flawed decisions in diagnosing and treating patients, but it can also distort the thinking of other high-stakes decision-makers, such as military and political strategists, stock market investors, and venture capitalists."
###
Virginia Tech: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu
Thanks to Virginia Tech for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 79 time(s).
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Moroccan elections challenged by voter mistrust (AP)
RABAT, Morocco ? It should be a moment of excitement: Moroccans are choosing a parliament in elections Friday prompted by the Arab Spring's clamor for freedom.
Yet there are few signs here that elections are even taking place.
Posters and raucous rallies for candidates are absent in the cities and instead there are just stark official banners urging citizens to "do their national duty" and "participate in the change the country is undergoing."
"The parties have presented the same people for the past 30 years, the least they could do is change their candidates," said Hassan Rafiq, a vegetable vendor in the capital Rabat, who said he didn't plan to vote.
Like elsewhere in the Arab world, Moroccans hit the streets in the first half of 2011 calling for more democracy, and King Mohammed VI responded by amending the constitution and bringing forward elections.
But since then the sense of change has dissipated.
The real challenge for these polls, in which an opposition Islamist party and a pro-palace coalition are expected to do well, will be if many people come out to vote in the face of a strident boycott campaign by democracy campaigners.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said that since Oct. 20 government has taken more than 100 activist in for questioning for advocating a boycott.
"Summoning scores of boycott activists in cities around the country to police stations for questioning amounts to a state policy of harassment," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group's Mideast director in a statement Wednesday.
It's a sharp contrast to the electric atmosphere that characterized Tunisia's first free elections just last month.
"Moroccans feel that aside from the constitutional reform, nothing has really changed, meaning that the elections of 2011 will be a copy of the elections 2007 and that is what will probably keep the participation low," said Abdellah Baha, deputy secretary general of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.
The 2007 elections, the first with widespread international observation, had just 37 percent turnout, and some fear it could be even lower this time around.
A close U.S. ally and popular destination for European sunseekers, Morocco with its many political parties and regular elections was once the bright star in a region of dictatorships.
But all that has changed with the Arab uprisings that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Now a political system that holds elections but leaves all powers in the hands of a hereditary king does not look so liberal.
"Morocco can no longer say it is the only one with pluralism or that it has the 'most,' (pluralistic)," said Jeffrey England, of the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to furthering democracy.
Yet the Arab Spring has not left the country untouched, and Moroccans today do expect greater freedoms and reform. "Even if the system structure hasn't changed much, it has certainly changed the population's perceptions and expectations," said England, the institute's resident director in Morocco.
But even people who voted in July's referendum for a new constitution may not come out come out to vote in this week's elections because of widespread suspicions the referendum results were skewed, said Mounia Bennani-Chraibi, a Morocco expert at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
The constitutional referendum passed with over 98 percent voting in favor, and a staggering 72 percent turnout, which most observers found hardly credible.
"There are people who have voted 'yes' for constitution and were then humiliated by the results, they regretted it and felt it was the same methods as before, and nothing has really changed," she said.
One new reform in these elections is that 90 seats have been added to the parliament, with 60 reserved for women, and another 30 for candidates under 40 years old.
But there's a pervasive sense that the murky electoral machine has been preserved intact.
The law organizing the parliamentary elections was passed in October with little discussion in wider society and preserves a complex system with disproportionate districts that favor rural voters and leaves a splintered parliament.
Larger parties often receive less seats than their proportion of the popular vote.
Traditionally, that has allowed the palace to pick one party to weld together a coalition of many small parties ? which then does the palace's bidding regardless of its ideological stripe.
Under the new constitution, the largest party must form the government, which could well be the Islamist party, known by its French initials PJD. But there's uncertainty over whether it can truly change anything.
Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi-Fihri dismissed any threat deriving from an Islamist party possibly leading the government.
"The parties will have to come together in coalitions, in fact some are already doing so, so I don't think there is much risk," he told French news channel France 24. "On the contrary, we have continuity with a change of face."
Moroccan political analyst Matti Monjib explained that the king "wants a government that doesn't govern too much," which could be a problem if any new coalition really tries to change things in the kingdom, such as the PJD's promised anti-corruption drive ? which might even target palace cronies.
Even with activists agitating against the vote and a middle class disillusioned with the process, Morocco's traditional voting machine will still be functioning on Friday.
In rural areas, notables will gather up peasants and bring them to polling stations and instruct them whom to vote for, while in the slums around the big cities, local power brokers will deliver the votes of the poor.
The traditional voting system could also buoy a coalition of eight pro-palace parties that could form the next government and ensure the king has a friendly prime minister carrying out his wishes.
But many see the status quo as dangerous for Morocco with an economy creaking from the amount of money the government has pumped into raising salaries and subsidies to keep people calm amid the Arab world turmoil.
"The palace must understand that it cannot continue like this, to guarantee the continuation of the monarchy it has to understand that it is no longer an authoritarian system, but a democratic one, there is no longer a choice," warned Bara of the PJD.
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Health Tip: Don't Take Too Many NSAIDs (HealthDay)
(HealthDay News) -- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been around for years and are frequently the medication of choice to relieve pain and inflammation.
But taking too many of this type of drug, which includes aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen, can lead to potential complications, including stomach bleeding or ulcer.
The American Gastroenterological Association says reasons for potential NSAID overdose include:
- Taking a subsequent dose too soon after taking the initial one.
- Taking more of the medication at one time than is recommended.
- Taking a higher dose over a 24-hour period than is recommended.
- Taking more than one NSAID-containing medication at a time
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Scorsese gets 3D right, adding depth to "Hugo" (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Just when moviegoers were ready to give up on the 3D revival as a gimmick used primarily to justify higher ticket prices, master director Martin Scorsese comes along with "Hugo" to show how it should be done.
His brilliant family film employs 3D imaginatively, evocatively and judiciously, using it to add depth, both literal and metaphorical, enriching the story he is telling.
"Hugo," based on "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," a Caldecott Medal-winning, 2007 children's novel by Brian Selznick, is in many ways a love letter to the movies and film preservation, the latter a long-standing cause advocated by Scorsese.
Although it chronicles the adventures of Hugo (Asa Butterfield), an orphaned boy who lives in a Paris train station in the 1930s, the film is really about the power of movies to transform lives, allow escape and encompass our dreams.
Hugo is the son of a clock and machine repairman (Jude Law), who died, but not before imparting his love of both movies and all things mechanical to his son. Hugo now lives deep in the upper reaches of a Paris train station, where he secretly keeps its clocks running, attempts in his spare time to fix a metal, life-like looking automaton his father once rescued from a museum, and tries to avoid the clutches of the station's overzealous police inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen, in a highly amusing turn).
He is befriended by Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), a bookworm who longs for the sort of mystery and adventure in real life that she encounters in the pages of books. Hugo also begins apprenticing for her guardian (Ben Kingsley), an embittered old toy seller and repairman who has a small shop in the station.
The identity of this old man and his link to Hugo's father are at the heart of the story. Like any great children's tale, there are adult secrets to be learned, a mysterious key that will literally unlock the automaton as well as the identities of and connections between various characters, and perilous adventures aplenty.
Along the way, Scorsese pays tribute to trailblazing filmmakers and performers such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and, above all -- and without giving away too much -- French silent film pioneer Georges M?lies (1902's "A Trip to the Moon").
While "Hugo" works splendidly as family fare, offering an involving tale, thrills (the police inspector's fearsome dog racing straight at you via 3D) and humor, it is ardent cinephiles who will want to see the movie repeatedly as there are likely new film references, homages and allusions to be gleaned from every viewing.
Here's just one: Look for Scorsese himself in a cameo playing, appropriately, a photographer in the early 1900s who's taking a portrait of a famous filmmaker. In casting himself as both a historian and an artist, Scorsese perfectly sums up the duality of the vision that he brings to such vivid life in "Hugo."
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Syria blasts Israel; most other Arabs moderate (AP)
VIENNA ? Syria accused Israel of posing a "grave and serious threat" through its undeclared atomic arsenal Monday, at a session between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors meant to narrow differences on creating a Mideast nuclear weapon-free zone, officials said.
Aside from Iran, which is boycotting the meeting, Syria is Israel's bitterest Mideast rival, and Syrian delegate Bassam al-Sabbagh voiced rhetoric similar to standard Arab criticism of Israel. But officials reporting on the closed meeting said that except for Syria and Lebanon, its lockstep ally, other Arab nations speaking at the meeting were lower-key than usual in chastising the Jewish state for refusing to open its nuclear program to U.N. perusal.
Israel did not speak at the morning session. But one of the officials ? who asked for anonymity to report on the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting ? said the atmosphere was "much less confrontational, much less hostile" than at other IAEA gatherings focused on the Middle East, which traditionally see Muslim nations speaking with one strongly critical voice about Israel's nuclear capabilities.
Wide chasms separate the two sides. Israel says peace must be established in the Mideast before talks on a nuclear weapons-free zone can be concretely discussed. The Arabs say the two topics are independent.
In toning down their comments, most Mideast participants at the 97-nation meeting appeared to be heeding an appeal by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. In opening remarks made available to reporters, Amano urged Mideast nations to focus on "fresh thinking," adding he hoped they would be able to move "beyond simply restating long-established positions."
Officials and participants warned against high expectations at the gathering, which is hearing presentations on already established nuclear-free zones elsewhere as a way of stimulating discussion on the Middle East and is not meant to reach any decisions.
A decision last year by the 189 members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty to convene a U.N.-sponsored conference on establishing a Middle East nuclear-free zone in 2012 was an incentive for most of the region's Muslim nations to meet this year with Israel for the exploratory Vienna talks.
Arab countries and Iran are aware of the potential of using the 2012 U.N. conference as a platform to pressure Israel to fulfill their long-standing demands: joining the Nonproliferation Treaty, acknowledging that it has nuclear weapons and allowing IAEA inspectors to probe their atomic activities.
Israel is unlikely to do any of that. It remains unclear whether it will even attend the 2012 talks and is at the Vienna meeting only under the stipulation that it remain a nonbinding give-and-take on the issue of nuclear free zones in general.
The official said that early discussions Monday touched on a main point of division between Israel and the Arabs ? whether the Jewish state needs to join the treaty as a prerequisite to creation of such a zone.
He said that presenters for Argentina and South Africa, talking about their own regional zones, suggested that based on the experience of their own regions treaty membership was not needed to begin talks.
Israel is commonly considered to be the only Middle East nation with atomic weapons ? and its secretive nuclear program has long been a heated subject with Arab neighbors.
The Arabs have urged Israel to open up to international inspection. Israel in turn says that Iran is the greatest threat to the region through its refusal to heed U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding it stop activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons and suspected research and development of such capabilities. Tehran denies any interest in such arms.
____
George Jahn can be reached at: http//twitter.com/georgejahn
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India leapfrog South Africa to second spot in test rankings (Reuters)
REUTERS ? South Africa have surrendered their second position in the test rankings to India following their drawn home series against Australia.
Australia's thrilling two-wicket victory in the Johannesburg test on Monday not only levelled the series 1-1 but also cost South Africa one ratings point.
It was enough for India to grab the second spot with 117 points, one more than South Africa, the International Cricket Council said in a statement.
India are 2-0 up against seventh placed West Indies in the ongoing three-match home series.
England remain at top with 125 points, having reached there in August after blanking India 4-0 in a home series.
Australia (105) were fourth, having gained one point from their drawn series.
(Writing by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi, editing by Pritha Sarkar. To comment on this story: email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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Lindsay Price, Curtis Stone welcome baby boy
Lindsay Price and Curtis Stone have something to be extra thankful for this holiday season: their son Hudson, who they welcomed a couple weeks ago.
"Lindsay had a baby boy Nov. 6 named Hudson," the actress' rep tells Us Weekly. "He's doing great and Lindsay and Curtis are thrilled and over the moon with him."
Stone expressed his excitement via Twitter Monday, telling his followers: "Lindsay and I are so excited to welcome our sweet little baby boy into the world. It feels so great to be a dad!"
PHOTOS: Star moms and their kids
The "Beverly Hills, 90210" alum began dating the Australian chef in 2009 and announced their pregnancy in June. The baby boy is the first child for Price, 34, and the "Top Chef Masters" host, 36.
PHOTOS: Beverly Hills, 90210 stars, then and now
In early October, Price was feted by pals at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. The baby shower was hosted by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Price's longtime BFF from their days on the ABC soap "All My Children."
HOTOS: Curtis and other sexy Aussies
Other guests included Price's mother, as well as "Ugly Betty's" Rebecca Romijn, "White Collar's" Tiffani Thiessen, "Drop Dead Diva's" Jaime Ray Newman and "My Future Boyfriend's" Sara Rue.
Copyright 2011 Us Weekly
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45407259/ns/today-entertainment/
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World's first night-blooming orchid discovered
A "nocturnal" orchid that blooms only under the cover of darkness has been discovered on a tropical island in the South Pacific ? a first for the orchid world, scientists say.
The new night-flowering species, Bulbophyllum nocturnum, was described by researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England, and the Center for Biodiversity Naturalis in the Netherlands.
Dutch researcher Ed de Vogel collected specimens of the mysterious plant from a logging site while conducting fieldwork in New Britain, a large, volcanic island that is part of Papua New Guinea.
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However, the plant's surprising nighttime habits weren't discovered until much later.
De Vogel and his colleagues cultivated the plants back in the Netherlands, and the orchids appeared to thrive in their new greenhouse home. Soon, one plant produced buds.
The researchers had established the orchids belonged to a particularly rare and bizarre group of the genus Bulbophyllum, and eagerly awaited the strange showing that would surely come when the plant bloomed.
However, much to the researchers' disappointment, the buds withered and died without opening.
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Perplexed, de Vogel took a plant home with him one evening. Two hours before midnight, a bud began to open, revealing an exotic bloom as yet unknown to science.
Subsequent observations revealed that the other orchids bloomed at 10 p.m. and, the next morning, about 12 hours later, the flowers withered and died.
Other plant species bloom at night ? the aptly named corpse flower, whose massive bloom stinks of rotting flesh, typically begins its malodorous display around midnight. Yet once opened, the plant stays that way for about a day.
In addition, other plant species, such as the queen of the night cactus (Selenicereus grandiflorus) and the midnight horror tree (Oroxylum indicum) open in the dark and close shortly before or after sunrise.
However, the newly identified Bulbophyllum nocturnum is the only orchid known to open at night and close when daylight returns.
It's not clear why the plant flowers in the dark, and researchers say more investigation is needed. However, the scientists said it could be that midge flies that forage at night pollinate the orchids.
The discovery is published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.
Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.??
? 2011 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45394895/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Chris Brown Takes It 'All Back' At 2011 AMAs
Breezy performs a pair of F.A.M.E. tunes, also including 'Say It With Me.'
By James Dinh
Chris Brown performs at the AMAs
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images
Chris Brown knows how to put on a dance-tastic performance. And that's exactly what the pop&B entertainer did at the 2011 American Music Awards on Sunday (November 20).
Donning a white T-shirt and jeans, Brown began his performance with his slow jam "All Back" alongside his band. With just a microphone stand in tow, the singer twirled around the stage and displayed some rather raw and emotional vocals. While it may have appeared to be a rather basic set, Breezy's performance turned high-tech when the tune came to a close and the stage turned black.
Breezy continued his performance set with another F.A.M.E. tune, "Say It With Me." Keeping in sync with a computer-generated backdrop, the singer mirrored some Michael Jackson-esque moves with his four background dancers. As a spotlight followed the singer, CB pulled out an over-the-top choreographed sequence, full of backflips and spins that echoed similar backdrop technology used during Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)" performance at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards.
Unfortunately for Brown, shortly after the performance, he lost his Soul/R&B Album nomination to ex-girlfriend Rihanna.
Even though Brown didn't debut new material during his AMA set, Team Breezy can expect a batch of new tracks from the R&B singer when his new album, Fortune, drops next spring.
Did you like Breezy's performance? Sound off in the comments section!
Related Videos Related Photos Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1674724/chris-brown-amas.jhtml
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Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Report: Bee Gees singer fighting liver cancer
Following a couple of health scares this year, Robin Gibb is in the fight of his life.
The Bee Gees star has reportedly been diagnosed with liver cancer, according to the Daily Mail ? a condition he became aware of several months ago.
MORE: Bee Gee Robin Gibb Back Home After Health Scare
The 61-year-old "Stayin' Alive" singer, who has become noticeably thinner in recent months, has had to cancel several appearances recently due to issues with severe abdominal pain.
Most recently, Gibb was rushed to the hospital Tuesday, following an emergency call from his home. He was released later that day.
News of Gibb's diagnosis comes on the heels of another hospitalization in October, due to severe abdominal pain.
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And sadly, the ailing musician's health issues are nothing new.
MORE: Bee Gee Robin Gibb Hospitalized in England
Back in August 2010, Gibb had emergency gastro-intestinal surgery. Then in April, he was hospitalized again after falling ill with severe abdominal pain, causing him to cancel a scheduled tour of Brazil.
PHOTOS: British Invasion ? 2011 Edition!
After Gibb pulled out of several appearances recently, Bee Gee fans originally feared he was suffering from the same condition that caused the untimely death of his twin brother and former band mate, Maurice, who died of a heart attack in 2003 during surgery for a twisted intestine.
No official statement has been released yet regarding Gibb's current health condition on his website, but we will keep you posted.
? 2011 E! Entertainment Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45384093/ns/today-entertainment/
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Egypt: Police, protesters in bloody clash
CAIRO?? Clashes erupted between protesters and police in Cairo and two other Egyptian cities, killing two people and wounding hundreds in the biggest security challenge yet for the country's ruling generals days before scheduled elections.
In scenes reminiscent of the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak from three decades of power in February, hundreds of youths chanted "The people want to topple the regime" on Saturday as they rushed towards riot police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas.
Protesters broke chunks of cement from pavements and hurled them at police in clashes in which police lost control of Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square twice in the day.
A blaze broke out around midnight at the huge Mogamma state administration building overlooking Tahrir.
As police fired round after round of tear gas at protesters near the interior ministry, closer to Tahrir protesters laid sheets of metal to block roads into the square.
"They unleashed 20 trucks to forcefully disperse a few dozen peaceful protesters this morning," Salah Saeed said as he handed out vinegar-doused napkins to protect protesters against the tear gas.
"Now thousands of Egyptians are protesting in Tahrir. We don't need the corrupt interior ministry or the military council," he said.
Staggered voting is due to begin on Nov. 28 but could be disrupted if violence spreads.
'Violence breeds violence'
Witnesses said the clashes began when riot police dismantled a small tent camp set up to commemorate the hundreds of protesters killed in the uprising and attacked around 200 peaceful demonstrators who had camped in the square overnight in an attempt to restart a long-term sit-in there.
"Violence breeds violence," said Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, an engineer who joined in the protest after a call went out on Twitter urging people to come to Tahrir to defend against the police attacks. "We are tired of this and we are not leaving the square."
One 23-year-old protester died from a gunshot, said Health Ministry official Mohammed el-Sherbeni. At least 676 people were injured, he said.
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Crowds swarmed an armored police truck, rocking it back and forth and setting it ablaze.
After nightfall, protesters swarmed back into the square in the thousands, setting tires ablaze in the street and filling the area with an acrid, black smoke screen. Police appeared to retreat to surrounding areas, leaving protesters free to retake and barricade themselves inside the square. The air was still thick with stinging tear gas.
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf urged the protesters to clear the square.
"What is happening in Tahrir is very dangerous and threatens the course of the nation and the revolution," the Cabinet warned in a statement.
Video: Vehicle set on fire, police spray rubber bullets in Egypt (on this page)Saturday's confrontation was one of the few since the uprising to involve police forces, which have largely stayed in the background while the military takes charge of security. There was no military presence in and around the square on Saturday.
The black-clad police were a hated symbol of Mubarak's regime.
"The people want to topple the regime," shouted enraged crowds, reviving the chant from the early days of the uprising. Crowds also screamed: "Riot police are thugs and thieves" and "Down with the Marshal," referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's military ruler.
Some of the wounded had blood streaming down their faces and many had to be carried out of the square by fellow protesters to waiting ambulances.
Human rights activists accused police of using excessive force.
One prominent activist, Malek Mostafa, lost his right eye from a rubber bullet, said Ghada Shahbender, a member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
'A crime'
At least four protesters were injured in the eyes as a result of what Shahbender said were orders to target protesters' heads.
"It is a crime," she said. "They were shooting rubber bullets directly at the heads. ... I heard an officer ordering his soldiers to aim for the head."
A videojournalist for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm, Ahmed Abdel-Fatah, was also hit in the eye by a rubber bullet and was undergoing surgery.
Police arrested 18 people, state TV reported, describing the protesters as rioters.
Protests were also held Saturday in the Red Sea port city of Suez, where a crowd of thousands attacked a police station, with some hurling firebombs at the building, said protester Ahmed Khafagi.
In Alexandria, hundreds of people threw stones at the main security headquarters, said protester Ahmed Abdel-Qader. He said it felt like the revolution was starting all over again.
"We only managed to bring down the head of the regime. The rest of the tree is still standing," he said.
A day earlier, tens of thousands of Islamists and young activists had massed in Tahrir Square to protest Egypt's ruling military council, which took control of the country after Mubarak's ouster and has been harshly criticized for its oversight of the bumpy transition period.
Friday's crowd, the largest in months, was mobilized by the Muslim Brotherhood and focused its anger on a document drafted by the military that spells out guiding principles for a new constitution.
Under those guidelines, the military and its budget would be shielded from civilian oversight. An early version of it also said the military would appoint 80 members of the 100-person constitutional committee ? a move that would vastly diminish the new parliament's role.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45369813/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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