Three ways to make college more affordable - The Term Sheet ...

FORTUNE ? While Americans are paying down most of their debt these days, student debt remains a huge burden. Some are even questioning if it has become too easy to take out an education loan.

Outstanding loan balances for the third quarter of 2012 grew to $956 billion, a 4.6% jump from the previous quarter, according to a report released this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Meanwhile, total consumer debt, which, unlike student debt, can be discharged in bankruptcy, fell during the same period.

Nearly all student loans are made directly by the government. Some lawmakers argue that the government doesn't ask enough questions to determine a borrower's ability to repay an education loan. The government demands no collateral and has no underwriting requirements, as Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee noted in July. "What we're really doing is piling up debt down the road the same students are going to have to pay off," Corker said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, as reported by?The Wall Street Journal.?

MORE:?Where's the stimulus, Obama?

In a way, it all plays out like a vicious cycle. Governments make student loans widely available. And the increase availability of loans, in turn, gives universities an incentive to spend more. Increased spending certainly doesn't help steady tuition rates.

Student loans are a problem, but it would be short-sighted to tighten lending standards on one of the few means by which young people can move up in the world. The crash of the U.S. housing market proved that banks issued mortgages all too easily without sufficient credit checks and such. And, as home prices plummeted, many Americans learned that owning a home was more of a hindrance than a path to prosperity. College, however, is still worth it; those with a degree earn more, as many studies have shown.

So rather than ask why it's so easy to take out student loans, the more relevant question to ask is what are U.S. universities doing to reduce costs? Rising costs have outpaced inflation. Over the past decade, average annual tuition for a year of community college has increased by 40% to $3,122, according to the College Board. At four-year public universities, the cost has risen by 68% to $7,692 a year during the same period.

Universities must change the way they do business. As a starting point, here are three ways campuses can make higher education more affordable.

Take the classroom online

Technology has altered countless industries. It has made everything from music to health care devices more affordable and easier to access. The business of education has been slower to catch on, but calls to make college more affordable might soon change that.

One way to teach more students without necessarily having to build more classrooms or hire more faculty is by offering more courses online, says Jeff Selingo, who makes the point in his forthcoming book, College Unbound.? This doesn't mean days spent in the classroom will disappear. Students would still have face-to-face time with their professors, but they'll also learn online.

A growing number of universities currently offer so-called "hybrid" courses, such as the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Here's how it could work: Say a calculus class meets three days a week. Instead of spending all those days in a classroom, students would listen to lectures or take quizzes online for two of those days. The third day would be spent in the classroom with a professor, who would lead discussions and take questions.

This way, on days students aren't in class, the professor would spend it teaching other students. "If a university can serve more students with the same number of instructors, it can actually reduce costs,"?Selingo says.

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Admittedly, most professors probably won't like the idea, since it would leave them with less time to write books, conduct research, and attend conferences -- all things that contribute to a university's prestige. Then again, how students fare in the years after graduation also influence a college's reputation.

Transfer credits made easy

Many students end up paying more for their degree than they have to. They take far more credits than required to earn a bachelor's degree, partly because colleges often refuse to accept credits from other institutions. To save students from having to retake similar courses, universities should make transferring credits easier.

President Obama touted the idea during his re-election campaign in his promise to cut college tuition by half over the next decade. He has proposed a grant program which would reward universities for coming up with new ideas to cut costs -- one of which could include making it easier to transfer credits from a more affordable community college toward a university degree. The president, however, will need Congress to approve such a plan.

Cut administration costs

U.S. universities have far too many administrators. Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at major U.S. universities rose by 39%, while the number of employees who teach and do research rose by only 18%, according to a report by the Goldwater Institute. Spending on administration per student increased by 61% during the same period, while spending on instruction per student rose only 39%.

MORE:?The fiscal cliff and private equity

To be sure, students pay only a small part of administration costs, the institute notes in a report. Much of it comes from private gifts, fees, and funds from the federal and state governments.

Wherever the funds come from, it's hard not to wonder why the millions spent on administrator salaries aren't going toward scholarships or lowering tuition.

Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/29/college-affordability-student-loans/

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Body language, not facial expressions, broadcasts what's happening to us

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? If you think that you can judge by examining someone's facial expressions if he has just hit the jackpot in the lottery or lost everything in the stock market -- think again. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at New York University and Princeton University have discovered that -- despite what leading theoretical models and conventional wisdom might indicate -- it just doesn't work that way.

Rather, they found that body language provides a better cue in trying to judge whether an observed subject has undergone strong positive or negative experiences.

In a study published this week in the journal Science, the researchers present data showing that viewers in test groups were baffled when shown photographs of people who were undergoing real-life, highly intense positive and negative experiences. When the viewers were asked to judge the emotional valences of the faces they were shown (that is, the positivity or negativity of the faces), their guesses fell within the realm of chance.

The study was led by Dr. Hillel Aviezer of the Psychology Department of the Hebrew University, together with Dr. Yaacov Trope of New York University and Dr. Alexander Todorov of Princeton University.

In setting out to test the perception of highly intense faces, the researchers presented test groups with photos of dozens of highly intense facial expressions in a variety of real-life emotional situations. For example, in one study they compared emotional expressions of professional tennis players winning or losing a point. These pictures are ideal because the stakes in such games are extremely high from an economic and prestige perspective.

To pinpoint how people recognize such images, Aviezer and his colleagues showed different versions of the pictures to three groups of participants: 1) the full picture with the face and body; 2) the body with the face removed; and 3) the face with the body removed. Remarkably, participants could easily tell apart the losers from winners when they rated the full picture or the body alone, but they were at chance level when rating the face alone.

Ironically, the participants who viewed the full image (face and body) were convinced that it was the face that revealed the emotional impact, not the body. The authors named this effect "illusory valence," reflecting the fact that participants said they saw clear valence (that is, either positive or negative emotion) in what was objectively a non-diagnostic face.

In an additional study, Aviezer and his collaborators asked viewers to examine a more broad range of real-life intense faces. These included intense positive situations, such as joy (seeing one's house after a lavish makeover), pleasure (experiencing an orgasm), and victory (winning a critical tennis point), as well as negative situations, such as grief (reacting at a funeral), pain (undergoing a nipple/naval piercing), and defeat (losing a critical tennis point).

Again, viewers were unable to tell apart the faces occurring in positive vs. negative situations. To further demonstrate how ambiguous these intense faces are, the researchers "planted" faces on bodies expressing positive or negative emotion. Sure enough, the emotional valence of the same face on different bodies was determined by the body, flipping from positive to negative depending on the body with which they appeared.

"These results show that when emotions become extremely intense, the difference between positive and negative facial expression blurs," says Aviezer. "The findings, challenge classic behavioral models in neuroscience, social psychology and economics, in which the distinct poles of positive and negative valence do not converge."

Aviezer adds: "From a practical-clinical perspective, the results may help researchers understand how body/face expressions interact during emotional situations. For example, individuals with autism may fail to recognize facial expressions, but perhaps if trained to process important body cues, their performance may significantly improve."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. H. Aviezer, Y. Trope, A. Todorov. Body Cues, Not Facial Expressions, Discriminate Between Intense Positive and Negative Emotions. Science, 2012; 338 (6111): 1225 DOI: 10.1126/science.1224313

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/_r_SJnvVGq4/121129143314.htm

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Bonds, Clemens deserve Hall vote

There are 37 players on the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot. And, over the coming weeks, we will consider all of their candidacies in turn. ?But there are two players making their debut on the ballot who tower above all of the others, and nothing useful can be said about the Hall of Fame class of 2013 without first considering those two.?So let?s talk about Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Bonds and Clemens are two players who, in a just world, would be unanimous selections for induction but who, for reasons discussed earlier today, will almost certainly not make the Hall. ?Let?s first walk through their obvious baseball qualifications for the Hall ? and bear with me, because I will assume in this first part that the performance enhancing drug issues don?t exist ? and then deal with those pesky objections so many have to their candidacy.

The Baseball Bonafides

While it?s always hard to compare players between eras, it is not hyperbole to say that Bonds and Clemens would be finalists in a contest to name the greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher who ever lived. We all think we know how great they were because their careers just wound up five years ago, but even the most dedicated baseball fan can be shocked to take a look back over their stat sheets to see just how thoroughly they dominated their era.

I won?t go into hardcore statistics with you, but let?s just see where Barry Bonds resides on the leader board in various categories:

• He?s the all-time home run king;
• He?s the all-time walk king and the all-time intentional walk king
• Third all-time in runs scored;
• Third all-time in wins above replacement (WAR);
• Sixth all-time in on-base percentage;
• Sixth all-time in slugging percentage;
• Fourth all-time in OPS (on-base plus slugging) and Third all-time in adjusted OPS (which weights for era and ballpark);
• Second all-time in extra base hits;
• Fourth all-time in total bases;
• Fourth all-time in RBI;
• Second all-time in total times on base; and
• He?s the single-season record holder for home runs and base-on-balls (actually he holds the top three seasons in base-on-balls)

In addition, he has the record for most MVP awards (seven) and probably deserved to win the MVP a couple more times, most notably 1991. And he wasn?t all bat, either. He holds the all-time record for putouts by a left fielder, won eight Gold Gloves and stole 514 bases.

How about Roger Clemens?

• Third all-time in strikeouts (4,672)
• Ninth all-time in wins (354), but third among pitchers who didn?t spend the bulk of their career in the deadball era;
• Sixteenth all-time in innings pitched, but ninth among non-deadballers;
• Seventh all-time in games started;
• Third all-time in WAR for pitchers;
• Tenth all-time in adjusted ERA+ (which is analogous to OPS+ in that it weights for era); and
• First in several other complex era-adjusting statistics such as runs saved, win probability and the like.

Like Bonds and his MVPs, Clemens has seven Cy Young Awards and arguments for more. He also has one MVP award of his own.

When you look merely at their production and their dominance, the number of hitters better than Barry Bonds and the number of pitchers better than Roger Clemens in all of baseball history can be counted on one hand. Comparing Bonds and Clemens to people like Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Walter Johnson is not just not hyperbole. It?s absolutely necessary, for their like has rarely if ever been seen in the game of baseball. ?Put simply, they are immortals.

But their baseball exploits are not the end of the story, obviously.

Bonds, Clemens and Performance Enhancing Drugs

While Clemens and (to some extent ) Bonds continue to either deny or play down their use of PEDs, and while the criminal prosecutions against them were either misguided, unsuccessful or both, it is simply obtuse to believe that they weren?t significant PED users. Bonds? use was painstakingly documented in the 2007 book ?Game of Shadows.? Clemens? use is far less clear cut, but just because the Justice Department couldn?t convict him of lying about it under oath doesn?t mean that we have to assume he never did it. For our purposes here, let?s make the exceedingly safe assumption that he did.

Bonds and Clemens use of PEDs will, for many, disqualify them from Hall of Fame consideration out of hand. ?The reason they won?t get 75% of the vote and induction on this year?s ballot is because far, far more than 25% of the Hall of Fame electorate believes that anyone who used PEDs should not be in the Hall of Fame, full stop. Many if not most fans feel this way too, as do no small amount of current and former major leaguers.

But should this be so? Absolutely not. And to explain why, I will take on the arguments commonly made against their induction one-by-one:

Argument: Bonds and Clemens may have amazing stats, but those stats were bogus due to their PED use.

Response: Sure, to some extent their statistics were inflated. But by how much? When did Bonds start using? When did Clemens start using? If, as is almost universally agreed-upon, it was during the middle-to-late years of their career, how were they so dominant early on as well? Bonds won three MVP awards before the ?Game of Shadows? authors believed he began using. Clemens had an MVP, three Cy Young Awards and was generally considered the best pitcher in the game before his chief accuser, former trainer Brian McNamee, claims he began using PEDs. If you stopped their careers the day before they picked up their first syringes, they?d be first-ballot Hall of Famers.

But even taking their whole careers in, it is lunacy to suggest that, inflated or not, Bonds and Clemens weren?t vastly superior to their competition. Hundreds if not thousands of major leaguers took PEDs during the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s. Many of them, by the way, were pitchers who faced Bonds and hitters who faced Clemens. But that aside, no one matched Bonds? and Clemens? performance. It?s obvious why: the E in PEDs stands for ?enhancing,? not ?creating,? and thus one cannot ignore the fact that Bonds and Clemens were unique and historic talents who, even if the final tallies on their stat sheets should be somewhat discounted, clearly would have been among the all-time greats without the juice.

Argument: You can?t just discount their stats. Bonds and Clemens cheated, cheating is wrong, and thus they should be excluded.

Response: Cheating is wrong, no question. But Hall of Fame voting is not a rule-enforcement mechanism or a court of law. That?s the job of the Joint Drug Program agreed upon between the league and the union. If someone breaks the drug rules and gets caught and gets punished, it?s up to the league to punish them, not baseball writers who comprise the electorate.

But that little technicality aside, the Hall of Fame has long welcomed cheaters with open arms, and no current rule says that a cheater, be he a drug cheater or otherwise, can?t be allowed in (I?ll get to the issue of character in a minute). Gaylord Perry threw a spitball. Don Sutton and Whitey Ford (and probably almost every other pitcher in history) scuffed or cut balls. Scores of batters corked their bats. The 1951 Giants won the pennant after rigging up an elaborate, electric sign-stealing mechanism. John McGraw, both as a player and a manager, invented and carried out more ways to break rules than anyone in history, ranging from umpire distracting and cutting the corners on bases and tripping or obstructing opposing runners. Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes in an effort to maim opposing players who would dare try to tag him out. While we single out the 1919 White Sox as a unique stain on the game, many players ? including Hall of Famers ? fixed baseball games prior to the Black Sox scandal.

While many have attempted to argue that using PEDs is different in kind than all of those other examples ? examples which are often laughed off as quirky or colorful ? the fact is that there are PED users in the Hall of Fame already. Only, instead of steroids, they used?amphetamines or ?greenies? as they were called. Players who have either admitted to or have been credibly accused of taking such things include?Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt,?Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. And this leaves out all of the drug and/or alcohol users who took things which hindered their performance, which also impacted the competitive nature of the game, albeit adversely to their team?s interests. And it also assumes that there are no steroid users already in the Hall of Fame, which I do not believe is a reasonable assumption.

The common thread here: all of these examples of baseball cheating involved players breaking rules in an effort to gain some sort of edge on the competition. Rule breaking that, in turn, put the competition in the unenviable position of having to decide if they too should break the rules to keep up.

The point here isn?t that two wrongs make a right. The point is that the Hall of Fame has never cared about wrongs in the first place. ?Why it should start caring about them now is beyond me.

Argument: The Hall of Fame ballot has a character clause on it, and even if the past cheaters were let in, voters are nonetheless obligated to abide by the character clause now and keep Bonds and Clemens out.

Response: ?Yes, the Hall of Fame ballot has a character clause. It reads like this:

?Voting shall be based upon the player?s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.?

It should be noted, though, that this clause was not invented to keep bad seeds out. It was invented to let good eggs in, even if they weren?t quite up to Hall of Fame standards otherwise. It was designed to be a bonus, not a detriment. Specifically, as Bill James argued in his seminal book ?Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame,??the clause was written by baseball commissioner?Kennesaw Mountain Landis in an effort to get a player named?Eddie Grant inducted into the Hall on the basis of his heroism in World War I (Grant was killed?in action in Lorraine, France). ?The attempt to get Grant inducted never worked ? he just wasn?t a good enough player ? but the clause stuck.

It stuck despite the fact that character ? like cheating ? has never been true criteria for Hall of Fame induction. The Hall is filled with racists, segregationists, cheaters, drug users, criminals both convicted and merely accused, and depending on how you view Tom Yawkey?s treatment of former Red Sox trainer Donald J. Fitzpatrick, an argument can be made that an enabler of sexual abuse has a plaque in Cooperstown as well. Heck, as Joe Posnanski noted a few years ago, way back in the 1930s a guy who murdered his wife and children got a couple of Hall of Fame votes.

But the point here isn?t exactly the same ?well, other bad seeds are in the Hall? point mentioned above. ?It?s more about how irrelevant the clause is to one?s prowess or fame as a baseball player and, more to the point, how ill-equipped baseball writers are at judging a player?s character. ?Indeed, the presence of all of those bad seeds shows how ill-equipped they are. The clause was always there, yet those guys got the votes. It?s possible this was the case because all of the writers?accidentally forgot to apply?the voting rules. It?s far more likely, however, that the writers, in their wisdom, realized that they were in no position to look into the hearts of men and judge their moral worth. ?It?s something that some writers are now starting to realize about the PED crowd. ?It?s something they all should do.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, I hope we can all agree that there is no baseball reason whatsoever to keep Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out of the Hall of Fame. Their baseball accomplishments ? both those which can be measured by statistics and those which cannot ? are so far beyond sufficient for induction that it?s almost laughable to list them. ?To oppose their candidacy, then, one must make a moral or ethical case based on their drug use and the voter?s opinion of their character. And that case will almost certainly be made from a great distance and with?imperfect?information.

You may feel comfortable doing such a thing. ?I do not. ?And I believe that any Hall of Fame that does not include two of the best players to ever swing a bat or throw a ball, no matter what their flaws, is an utter joke.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/28/the-case-for-barry-bonds-and-roger-clemens-induction-to-the-hall-of-fame/related

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North Korea joke slips over China's Great Firewall

FILE - In this July 25, 2012 file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency and distributed in Tokyo by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his wife Ri Sol Ju, waves to the crowd as they inspect the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground in Pyongyang, North Korea. The online version of China's Communist Party newspaper has hailed a report by The Onion naming Kim as the "Sexiest Man Alive" - not realizing it is satire. The People's Daily on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 ran a 55-page photo spread on its website in a tribute to the round-faced leader, under the headline "North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012." (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service, File)

FILE - In this July 25, 2012 file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency and distributed in Tokyo by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his wife Ri Sol Ju, waves to the crowd as they inspect the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground in Pyongyang, North Korea. The online version of China's Communist Party newspaper has hailed a report by The Onion naming Kim as the "Sexiest Man Alive" - not realizing it is satire. The People's Daily on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 ran a 55-page photo spread on its website in a tribute to the round-faced leader, under the headline "North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012." (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service, File)

BEIJING (AP) ? How did a spoof article about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un being the sexiest man alive end up as a real news item in China? Turns out it was a case of telephone, or Chinese whispers, in the digital age.

Hong Kong media picked up the piece by U.S. satirical website The Onion a week ago while explaining to readers in Chinese that it was a farce. But from there, it jumped over the Great Firewall and landed into the official, irony-free Chinese media.

When Hong Kong's Phoenix TV website, ifeng.com, ran its story on its fashion channel on Nov. 21, the story's second paragraph clearly stated: "The Onion is a satirical news organization."

But, when state-run Yangtse.com picked up the Phoenix piece a few hours later, it had morphed into straight news. The piece never mentioned that the original was a joke, instead plucking comical reader comments attached to the Phoenix story and running those.

"A man with so much fat on the face, and the double chin, and the excessively white skin. And they call him the sexiest. They do deserve the name Onion. I can't help but shed sad tears."

The editor cited for the story, Yang Fang, could not immediately be reached ? and two employees who answered the phone at the Nanjing media outlet said Wednesday they weren't even sure if Yang still worked there.

Five days after the Yangste piece, Beijing's Guangming Daily website took the story for a spin, cutting it back and citing Yangtse.com as its source. The Guangming piece was still live Wednesday and the story's editor told The Associated Press that she had not realized it was a joke until the AP called.

The editor, Wang Miaomiao, said she wasn't worried about the gaffe.

"Even if it was satire, the report itself was true. The content is not made up. Also, we have to go through a procedure to take something down from the website," Wang said. "In addition, it is not a fabricated report, and it does not jeopardize society."

The story next made it to the flagship paper of the Communist Party, the People's Daily, on Tuesday. An editor at the People's Daily website who refused to give his name said the story was picked up from the Guangming Daily site, running on three channels in Chinese and English.

Upon realizing it was a spoof, the People's Daily decided to take down their versions on Wednesday. But not before The Onion updated their original piece with a link to the People's Daily and a shout-out: "For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc."

"Exemplary reportage, comrades," The Onion wrote.

It is not the first time China's heavily censored media have fallen for a fictional report by the just-for-laughs The Onion.

In 2002, the Beijing Evening News, one of the capital's biggest tabloids at the time, published as news the fictional account that the U.S. Congress wanted a new building and that it might leave Washington. The Onion article was a spoof of the way sports teams threaten to leave cities in order to get new stadiums.

Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Danwei.com, a firm that researches Chinese media and Internet, said that one of the peculiarities of the Chinese news business is that stories can be freely shared by any other media outlet in their entirety, or edited, as long as the original source is credited somewhere on the page.

"It does mean that stuff gets circulated a lot more widely because you don't have intellectual property restrictions on articles that you would in the U.S. for example," he said. "So when you mix that up with this culture of no fact-checking and not really having a news editor whose main job is seeking truth, then what you get is The Onion being taken seriously in the People's Daily."

___

Associated Press researchers Zhao Liang and Yu Bing contributed to this report.

Follow Alexa Olesen on Twitter at twitter.com/alobeijing

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-28-China-Onion-Kim/id-e62ac5f401e74e3fb982e0cec1fc10a6

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Fitness Expert Karen Mones Featured on CBS on Health and ...

Karen Mones was recently featured as the focus of the TV show, ?Health and Wellness Today?. The show was seen on NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX network affiliates around the country.

Houston, TX ? November 28, 2012 ? Karen Mones, Co-Owner of Adventure Boot Camp, the largest and longest running boot camp in Houston, was recently featured as an expert guest on the TV show ?Health and Wellness Today.? The show was seen on NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX network affiliates around the country.? The show was filmed in Orlando, FL and was hosted by noted fitness and personal development coach John Spencer Ellis.

?Health and Wellness Today? features segments featuring some of the best health and fitness experts from across the United States.? Karen was a recent featured expert, discussing how, through Adventure Boot Camp, she is helping people jump-start their fitness program and realize their fitness goals while having fun.

Karen (along with Stacy Agee) started Adventure Boot Camp in Houston?to reach more people with?their passion for fitness.?They wanted to bring?a fitness program to the Houston area that would be fun and give women real results.?The combination of Karen and Stacy?s?professional background, fitness and formal education, sports conditioning, athletic background?and practical experience are what drive the workouts to be different and unique.? And they have shared this with all their trainers who bring the same variety to their workouts.

Stacy says, ?We like our classes to feel like you are getting personal training.? We will know everyone?s name and we will make sure everyone gets the attention they need.?? This close environment along with the varied workouts (so you never get bored), makes Adventure Boot Camp Houston?s favorite workout group.?As Karen puts it, ?We are a fun exercise adventure that will add years and friends to your life.?

?Health and Wellness Today? was produced by Emmy Award winning director and producer, Nick Nanton, Esq. and Emmy Nominated Producer, JW Dicks, Esq., Co-Founders of America?s PremierExperts? and The Dicks and Nanton Celebrity Branding Agency?.

Learn more about Karen and Adventure Boot Camp at http://www.houstonareabootcamp.com/

Source: http://www.pressnewsroom.com/index.php/2012/11/28/fitness-expert-karen-mones-featured-on-cbs-on-health-and-wellness-today/

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Levees protect New Orleans, but annual bill is costly

By Cain Burdeau, The Associated Press

In the busy and under-staffed offices of New Orleans' flood-control leaders, there's an uneasy feeling about what lies ahead.

By the time the next hurricane season starts in June of 2013, the city will take control of much of a revamped protection system of gates, walls and armored levees that the Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $12 billion building. The corps has about $1 billion worth of work left.?

Engineers consider it a Rolls Royce of flood protection ? comparable to systems in seaside European cities such as St. Petersburg, Venice, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Whether the infrastructure can hold is less in question than whether New Orleans can be trusted with the keys.?

The Army Corps estimates it will take $38 million a year to pay for upkeep, maintenance and operational costs after it's turned over to local officials.?

Local flood-control chief Robert Turner said he has questions about where that money will come from. At current funding levels, the region will run out of money to properly operate the high-powered system within a decade unless a new revenue source is found.?

"There's a price to pay for resiliency," the levee engineer said from his office at the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. "We can't let pieces of this system die away. We can't be parochial about it."?

On Nov. 6, New Orleans voters were faced with one of their first challenges on flood protection when they voted on renewal of a critical levee tax. The tax levy was approved, meaning millions of dollars should be available annually for levee maintenance.?

Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California, said the region must find additional money to keep the system working properly. "If you try to operate it and maintain it on a shoestring, then it won't provide the protection that people deserve."?

Many locals remain uneasy, even though Turner's agency is a welcome replacement for local levee boards that were previously derided.?

"It's scary," said C. Ray Bergeron, owner of Fleur De Lis Car Care, a service station in the Lakeview neighborhood where water rose to rooftops after levees collapsed during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Before Katrina, Bergeron said the local levee boards were complacent. "They told everybody everything was fine, 'Oh yeah, it's fine. Let's go have martinis and lunch.'"?

After Katrina, the locally run levee boards that oversaw the area's defenses were vilified, and quickly replaced by the regional levee district run by Turner.?

Congressional investigations found the old Orleans Levee Board more interested in managing a casino license and two marinas than looking after levees. Inspections were ceremonial, millions of dollars were spent on a fountain and overpasses rather than on levee protection. And there was confusion over who was responsible for managing the fragmented levee system, U.S. Senate investigations revealed.?

Still, experts generally agree the old levee board's failings did not cause the levees to collapse during Katrina. Poor levee designs by the corps and the sheer strength of Katrina get the lion's share of the blame.?

Since the Flood Control Act of 1936, the Army Corps has given local or state authorities oversight of water-control projects, whether earthen levees in the Midwest or beach walls in New England.?

"That's been the eternal problem with flood-protection systems," said Thomas Wolff, an engineer at Michigan State University. "You build something very good and then give it to local interests who are not as well-funded."?

New Orleans is an unusual case because the area is inheriting the nation's first-of-its-kind urban flood control system.?

"We've given a very expensive system to a place that may not be able to afford it over the long term," said Leonard Shabman, an Arlington, Va.-based water resources expert. Letting the Army Corps run it isn't much of a solution either, he added. "It's not like the corps' budget is flush."?

The nation has spent lavishly on fixing the system in the seven years since Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and left 1,800 people dead.?

"It is better than what the Dutch have for the types of storms we have," said Carlton Dufrechou, a member of the board of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, which monitors local environmental issues.?

Ensuring it remains that way could be tricky. The biggest headaches are several mega-projects with lots of moving parts, all needing constant upkeep. The corps is building them across major waterways that lead into New Orleans.?

Take for instance the 1.8-mile-long, 26-foot-high surge barrier southeast of the French Quarter that blocks water coming up from the Gulf of Mexico across lakes and into the city's canals. Water from this direction doomed the Lower 9th Ward and threatened to flood the French Quarter. Maintaining this giant wall alone will cost $4 million or more a year.?

"You have to get out there and do exercises, do the preventive maintenance, change out equipment over time on a particular schedule," Turner said, enumerating the challenges. "There are a lot of cases where a single thing goes wrong and that can create a failure, a complete failure where you can't close the system."?

There is a mounting list of to-dos.?

Already, lightning has knocked out chunks of wall. Grass hasn't grown well on several new stretches of levee. Louisiana State University grass experts have been called in to help seed them.?

There are recurring problems with vibrations and shuddering on a new floodgate at Bayou Dupre in St. Bernard Parish. The corps has plans to overhaul the structure in the spring before handing it over to local control. And there will be the inevitable sinking of levees and structures, as always happens in south Louisiana's naturally soft soils. Over time, levees will have to be raised.?

Col. Ed Fleming, the New Orleans corps commander, said his outfit will work to ensure the transition to local control is smooth.?

"This happens with corps civil projects all over the country. That's the way it works in Iraq, Afghanistan," he said. "We have authority to build, but we have no authority to do operations and maintenance."?

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? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/27/15482726-levees-protect-new-orleans-but-annual-bill-is-crushing?lite

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Microsoft Sets The Record Straight, Says The Windows Phone 7.8 Update Is Coming In Q1 2013

Windows Phone 8 has made its fair share of headlines lately but there hasn?t been has much official chatter about Windows Phone 7.8, the update intended to bridge the feature gap between older and newer Windows Phones. Well, consider that quiet streak broken ? Microsoft confirmed today the the 7.8 update would begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2013, with devices running the revamped build poised to launch soon.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6R9OX7bos6k/

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New Libyan foreign minister wins integrity appeal

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's proposed foreign minister was cleared to take office by an Integrity Commission on Tuesday after some members of parliament questioned how close the former ambassador to the United States had been to ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Ali Aujali was among eight of the 27 ministers nominated by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan who were referred to the commission, which studies the backgrounds of public officials, after protests outside congress over the make up of the cabinet.

Congress only elected Zeidan prime minister last month after his predecessor lost a confidence vote over his choice of ministers - reflecting the fractious politics in a country previously run with an eccentric system of personal rule.

The eight ministers were invited to appeal their cases, and Aujali won his, according to a statement on the Facebook page of the Integrity Commission, which is made up of legal experts appointed by the previous ruling assembly.

"After deliberation and based on reasons outlined in the application of the national standards of integrity in favour of Mr. Aujali, unless new evidence shows a need for revision of this resolution. The prime minister has been notified of the decision," the statement read.

In a separate statement, the Integrity Commission also cleared Agriculture Minister Ahmed Al-Ourfi and Social Affairs Minister Kamla al-Mazini who were also under investigation, clearing three out of the eight questioned ministerial nominees.

Aujali was Libya's ambassador to the United States during the war that toppled Gaddafi in August 2011. A telegram presented to the commission as part of his appeal showed he had defected on March 22 - a month after the uprising began.

Integrity Commission spokesman Nasser Bilnur said Aujali was now able to take up his position as foreign Minister.

"Ali Aujali can immediately take up his duties as foreign minister of Libya and receive his files from his deputy," he said.

(Reporting By Ali Shuaib; additional reporting by Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Writing By Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Editing by Alison Williams and Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-foreign-minister-wins-integrity-appeal-182831765.html

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Video: Rise In Volatility Ahead?

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

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/49970674/

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One Direction Wish They Were 'Cool Enough' To Work With Jay-Z

'I don't know how to talk to him, though,' Liam Payne laments to MTV News about his hip-hop idol.
By Christina Garibaldi

One Direction
Photo: NBC Universal/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697785/one-direction-jay-z-collab.jhtml

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GWAR's Oderus Urungus Joins Cancer Bats Onstage for Cover of ...

Liz Ramanand, Loudwire

It still doesn?t seem real that Beastie Boys member Adam ?MCA? Yauch passed away earlier this year. As a part of one of modern music?s most definitive group, the man was an innovator of the highest order. There has been countless tributes paid to MCA since his death, and the latest homage was delivered with style by GWAR front-thing Oderus Urungus and current tourmates Cancer Bats, as they came together for a performance of the Beastie Boys classic ?Sabotage.?

GWAR and Cancer Bats are currently on the road with Devildriver and Legacy of Disorder on the ?Fate or Chaos? tour. We were lucky enough to see the tour?ourselves in New York, along with scoring a video interview with Oderus Urungus in the flesh. Tonight (Nov. 26), the ?Fate or Chaos? tour comes to an end in Millvale, Pa., but on Nov. 24 in Toronto, Oderus Urungus made a special appearance during Cancer Bats? set to perform ?Sabotage,? a song the band has been performing throughout the string of dates.

Along with a solid showing by the members of Cancer Bats, the voice of Oderus Urungus fit the song perfectly has he projected his trademark slimy yell. Believe us when we say the cover deserves an A+. Additionally, Sum 41 have been performing part of ?Sabotage? during their ?Does This Look Infected?? 10th Anniversary tour, which also deserves a mention due to its awesomeness.

Check out both memorial covers of ?Sabotage? in the videos below.

R.I.P. Adam ?MCA? Yauch.

GWAR?s Oderus Urungus + Cancer Bats Perform ?Sabotage?

Sum 41 Perform Part of ?Sabotage?

Watch GWAR's First Ever Interview with New Guitarist Pustulus Maximus

Source: http://loudwire.com/gwar-oderus-urungus-cancer-bats-cover-beastie-boys-sabotage/

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Chris Brown Fans Stand By Singer After Twitter Feud

Many fans want people to 'leave chris brown alone,' as one commenter urged after Breezy's war of words with Jenny Johnson.
By Jocelyn Vena

Chris Brown
Photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697921/chris-brown-twitter-feud-jenny-johnson.jhtml

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Egypt's president stands by his decrees

Egyptians carry the body of Gaber Salah, who was who was killed in clashes with security forces, inside a mosque for funeral prayers in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Thousands marched through Tahrir square, the birthplace of last year's uprising that toppled authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, for the funeral procession of Salah. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

Egyptians carry the body of Gaber Salah, who was who was killed in clashes with security forces, inside a mosque for funeral prayers in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Thousands marched through Tahrir square, the birthplace of last year's uprising that toppled authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, for the funeral procession of Salah. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

Egyptian protesters gather in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. President Mohammed Morsi edicts, which were announced on Thursday, place him above oversight of any kind, including that of the courts. The move has thrown Egypt's already troubled transition to democracy into further turmoil, sparking angry protests across the country to demand the decrees be immediately rescinded. The banner in Arabic, top center, reads, "members of the Muslim Brotherhood are not allowed." (AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa)

An Egyptian wounded in recent disturbances watches the funeral procession of Gaber Salah, who was who was killed in clashes with security forces, on Mohammed Mahmoud street in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Thousands marched through Tahrir square, the birthplace of last year's uprising that toppled authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, for the funeral procession of Salah whose likeness is seen in the background. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

An Egyptian protester runs during clashes with security forces near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. President Mohammed Morsi's edicts, which were announced on Thursday, place him above oversight of any kind, including that of the courts. The move has thrown Egypt's already troubled transition to democracy into further turmoil, sparking angry protests across the country to demand the decrees be immediately rescinded. (AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa)

Egyptian protesters clash with security forces, not pictured, near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. President Mohammed Morsi edicts, which were announced on Thursday, place him above oversight of any kind, including that of the courts. The move has thrown Egypt's already troubled transition to democracy into further turmoil, sparking angry protests across the country to demand the decrees be immediately rescinded. (AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi told the country's top judges Monday that he did not infringe on their authority when he seized near absolute powers, setting the stage for a prolonged showdown on the eve of mass protests planned by both supporters and opponents of the Islamist leader.

The uncompromising stance came during a meeting between Morsi and members of the Supreme Judiciary Council in a bid to resolve a four-day crisis that has plunged the country into a new round of turmoil with clashes between the two sides that have left one protester dead and hundreds wounded.

The judiciary, the main target of Morsi's edicts, also has pushed back, calling the decrees a power grab and an "assault" on the branch's independence. Judges and prosecutors stayed away from many courts in Cairo and other cities on Sunday and Monday.

A spokesman said Morsi told the judges that he acted within his right as the nation's sole source of legislation when he issued decrees putting himself above judicial oversight. The president also extended the same immunity to two bodies dominated by his Islamist allies ? a panel drafting a new constitution and parliament's mostly toothless upper chamber.

The spokesman, Yasser Ali, also told reporters that Morsi assured the judges that the decrees did not in any way "infringe" on the judiciary.

Ali's comments signaled Morsi's resolve not to back down or compromise on the constitutional amendments he announced last week, raising the likelihood of more violence as both sides planned competing rallies in Cairo on Tuesday.

Opposition activists have denounced Morsi's decrees as a blatant power grab, and refused to enter a dialogue with the presidency before the edicts are rescinded. The president has vigorously defended the new powers, saying they are a necessary temporary measure to implement badly needed reforms and protect Egypt's transition to democracy after last year's ouster of his predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi says her wants to retain the new powers until the new constitution is adopted in a nationwide referendum and parliamentary elections are held, a time line that stretches to the middle of next year.

Many members of the judiciary were appointed under Mubarak, drawing allegations, even by some of Morsi's critics, that they are trying to perpetuate the regime's corrupt practices. But opponents are angry that the decrees leave Morsi without any check on his power.

Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who became Egypt's first freely elected president in June, was quoted by Ali as telling his prime minister and security chiefs earlier Monday that his decrees were designed to "end the transitional period as soon as possible."

His comments appeared to run contrary to a prediction made earlier Monday by Justice Minister Ahmed Mekki that a resolution of the crisis was imminent. Mekki, who has been mediating between the judiciary and the presidency to try to defuse the crisis, did not give any details.

The dispute is the latest crisis to roil the Arab world's most populous nation, which has faced mass protests, a rise in crime and economic woes since the initial euphoria following the popular uprising that ousted Mubarak after nearly 30 years of autocratic rule.

Morsi's decrees were motivated in part by a court ruling in June that dissolved the parliament's more powerful lower chamber known as the People's Assembly, which was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Islamists.

The verdict meant that legislative authority first fell in the hands of the then-ruling military, but Morsi grabbed it in August after he ordered the retirement of the army's two top generals.

Morsi's decrees, which were announced Thursday, saved the constitutional panel and the upper chamber from a fate similar to that of the People's Assembly because several courts looking into the legal basis of their creation were scheduled to issue verdicts to disband them.

Ayman al-Sayyad, a member of Morsi's 17-member advisory council, said the presidential aides asked the president in meetings over the weekend to negotiate a way out of the crisis and enter dialogue with all political forces to iron out differences over the nation's new constitution.

Secular and Christian politicians have withdrawn from the 100-seat panel tasked with drafting the charter to protest what they call the hijacking of the process by Morsi's Islamist allies. They fear the Islamists would produce a draft that infringes on the rights of liberals, women and the minority Christians.

The president, al-Sayyad added, would shortly take decisions that would spare the nation a "possible sea of blood." He did not elaborate.

The dispute over the decrees, the latest in the country's bumpy transition to democracy, has taken a toll on the nation's already ailing economy. Egypt's benchmark stock index dropped more than 9.5 percentage points on Sunday, the first day of trading since Morsi's announcement. It fell again Monday during early trading but recovered to close up by 2.6 percentage points.

It has also played out in urban street protests across the country, including in the capital, Cairo, and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.

Thousands gathered in Damanhoor for the funeral procession of 15-year-old Islam Abdel-Maksoud, who was killed Sunday when a group of anti-Morsi protesters tried to storm the local offices of the political arm of the president's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political group.

The Health Ministry said Monday that 444 people also have been wounded nationwide, including 49 who remain hospitalized, since the clashes erupted on Friday, according to a statement carried by the official news agency MENA.

Morsi's office said in a statement that he had ordered the country's top prosecutor to investigate the teenager's death, along with that of another young man shot in Cairo last week during demonstrations to mark the anniversary of deadly protests last year that called for an end to the then-ruling military.

Up to 10,000 people marched through Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the uprising against Mubarak, for the funeral procession of 16-year-old Gaber Salah, who succumbed to his head wounds on Sunday. Salah was wounded in clashes with police in the capital during protests against the Brotherhood earlier last week, before the decrees were issued.

Mourners marched with the Salah's body laid in a coffin wrapped in Egypt's red, white and black flag from Tahrir to a cemetery east of the city. Already images of Salah have appeared on Tahrir's walls. Underneath the mages were the words: "Your blood will spark a new revolution."

Salah was a member of April 6, one of the key right groups behind the anti-Mubarak uprising. He was also a founder of a Facebook group called "Against the Muslim Brotherhood."

Also on Monday, Human Rights Watch said that Morsi's decrees undermined the rule of law in Egypt and appeared to give him the power to issue emergency-style measures at any time for vague reasons. In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in thinly veiled criticism that the separation of powers was a fundamental principle of any democratic constitution.

Morsi, added spokesman Steffen Seibert, has a "great responsibility" to lead Egypt to a "democratically ordered political system" that rests on that principle.

___

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael, in Cairo, and Robert H. Reid in Berlin contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-11-26-Egypt/id-3f0f9d033eec4d7c9f21f68c527188ec

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Prof finds racial profiling in ads for data site

6 hrs.

Adam Tanner , Reuters

Dr. Latisha Smith, an expert in decompression sicknesses afflicting deep sea divers, has cleared criminal background checks throughout her medical career. Yet someone searching the Web for the Washington state physician might well come across an Internet ad suggesting she may have an arrest record.

"Latisha Smith, arrested?" reads one such advertisement.

Another says: "Latisha Smith Truth... Check Latisha Smith's Arrests."

Instantcheckmate.com, which labels itself the "Internet's leading authority on background checks," placed both ads. A statistical analysis of the company's advertising has found it has disproportionately used ad copy including the word "arrested" for black-identifying names, even when a person has no arrest record.

Latanya Sweeney is a Harvard University professor of government with a doctorate in computer science. After learning that her own name had popped up in an "arrested?" ad when a colleague was searching for one of her academic publications, she ran more than 120,000 searches for names primarily given to either black or white children, testing ads delivered for 2,400 real names 50 times each. (The author of this story is a Harvard University fellow collaborating with Sweeney on a book about the business of personal data.)

Ebony Jefferson, for example, often turns up an instantcheckmate.com ad reading: "Ebony Jefferson, arrested?" but an ad triggered by a search for Emily Jefferson would read: "We found Emily Jefferson." Searches for randomly chosen black-identifying names such as Deshawn Williams, Latisha Smith or Latanya Smith often produced the "arrested?" headline or ad text with the word "arrest," whereas other less ethnic-sounding first names matched with the same surnames typically did not.

"As an African-American, I'm used to profiling like that," said Smith. "I think it's horrendous that they get away with it."

Instantcheckmate.com declined to comment. The company's founder and managing partner, Kristian Kibak, did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls over a period of several months, and other employees referred calls to management. Company officials also declined to comment when visited twice at their call center in Las Vegas. Former employees said they had signed nondisclosure agreements that barred them from speaking openly about Instant Checkmate.

Instantcheckmate.com is one of many data brokers that use and sell data for a variety of purposes. The field is attracting growing attention, both from government and consumers concerned about possible abuse. Rapid advances in technology have opened up all sorts of opportunities for commercialization of data.

Anyone can set up shop and sell arrest records as long as they stay clear of U.S. legal limitations such as using the information to determine creditworthiness, insurance or job suitability.

Companies that compete with instantcheckmate.com include intelius.com and mylife.com. An examination of Internet advertising starting last March as well as Sweeney's study did not find any rival companies advertising background searches on individual names along racial lines.

Who can be trusted??
In its own marketing, Instantcheckmate.com sums up its mission like this: "Parents will no longer need to wonder about whether their neighbors, friends, home day care providers, a former spouse's new love interest or preschool providers can be trusted to care for their children responsibly."

According to preliminary findings of Sweeney's research, searches of names assigned primarily to black babies, such as Tyrone, Darnell, Ebony and Latisha, generated "arrest" in the instantcheckmate.com ad copy between 75 percent and 96 percent of the time. Names assigned at birth primarily to whites, such as Geoffrey, Brett, Kristen and Anne, led to more neutral copy, with the word "arrest" appearing between zero and 9 percent of the time.

A few names fell outside of these patterns: Brad, a name predominantly given to white babies, produced an ad with the word "arrest" 62 percent to 65 percent of the time. Sweeney found that ads appear regardless of whether the name has an arrest record attached to it.

Blacks make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 28 percent of the arrests listed on the FBI's most recent annual crime statistics.

Internet advertising based on millions of name pairs has only existed in recent years, so targeting ads along racial lines raises new legal questions. Experts say the Federal Trade Commission, which this year assessed an $800,000 penalty against personal data site Spokeo.com for different reasons (related to the use of data for job-vetting purposes), would be the institution best placed to review Instant Checkmate's practices.

The FTC enforces regulations against unfair or deceptive business practices. A deceptive claim that would be more likely to get people to purchase a product than they would otherwise would be a typical reason the FTC might act against a company, said one FTC official who did not want to be identified. For example, authorities could take action against a firm that makes misleading claims suggesting a product such as records exist when they do not.

"It's disturbing," Julie Brill, an FTC commissioner, said of Instant Checkmate's advertising. "I don't know if it's illegal ... It's something that we'd need to study to see if any enforcement action is needed."

Instant Checkmate's Kibak, who is in his late 20s, works out of a San Diego office near the Pacific Ocean. The son of a California biology professor, he did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails seeking comment about his business.

"We would consider the answers to most of your questions trade secrets and therefore would not be comfortable disclosing that information," Joey Rocco, Kibak's partner according to the firm's Nevada state registration, said in an email.

Instant Checkmate LLC maintains its official corporate headquarters at an address in an industrial zone across the highway from the Las Vegas strip. At the back of a long parking lot, the company shares a warehouse building with an auto repair shop. At one end, a large roll-up garage-style door opens to the company's call center. Workers face a gray cinder-block wall, their backs to the entrance. Staff declined to answer questions.

Data firms proliferate?
Sweeney's analysis found that some instantcheckmate.com ads hint at arrest records when the firm's database has no record of any arrest for that name, as is the case with her own name. In other cases, such as that of Latisha Smith, the company does have arrest records for some people by that name, although not for the doctor of hypobaric medicine in Washington state.

Laura Beatty, an Internet Marketing Inc expert in helping companies achieve prominent placement in Web searches, said instantcheckmate.com appeared to choose its ads based on combinations of thousands of different first and last names and then segment them based on the first names.

"There does look like there is some definite profiling going on here," she said. "In the searches that I looked at, it seemed like the more Midwestern- and WASP-sounding the name was, the less likely it was to have either any advertisement at all or to have something that was more geared around the arrest or criminal background."

Internet firms selling criminal records and personal data to the public have proliferated in recent years, as low-cost computing enables even modest operations to maintain large databases on millions of Americans. Such sites sell access to users for a one-time fee???$29.95 in the case of instantcheckmate.com???or via monthly subscription plans.

Instant Checkmate, first registered in Nevada in 2010, said in a recent press release posted online that the firm had attracted more than 570,000 customers since its start and counted more than 200,000 subscribers.

According to alexa.com, an Amazon.Com Inc site analyzing website traffic, instantcheckmate.com has ranged roughly between the 500th and 600th most visited U.S. site in recent weeks, making it an increasingly major player in this area.

The company is able to target its ads on an individual name basis through a program called Google AdWords. Instantcheckmate.com and others companies like it use Google AdWords to bid to place small text advertisements alongside search results on major websites triggered by the names in their data base. Such ads typically cost a company far less than a dollar, sometimes just a few pennies, each time they're clicked.

Google says it does not control what names appear in AdWords. "Advertisers select all of their keywords, and ads are triggered when someone searches for that name. We don't have any role in the advertiser's selection of unique proper names," said a Google spokesman.

Some in Congress have raised concerns about developments in the use of personal data. In October, Sen. John Rockefeller IV, a Democrat from West Virginia and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, opened a probe into leading data brokers. "Collecting, storing and selling information about Americans raises all types of questions that require careful scrutiny," he said.

(Adam Tanner is a Reuters correspondent currently on a 2012-13 fellowship at Harvard University?s Department of Government.)

(Editing by Claudia Parsons and Prudence Crowther)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at:?http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/prof-finds-racial-profiling-ads-personal-data-site-1C7206888

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Source Claims Justin Bieber Will Only Listen To Selena Gomez For ...

A new source has spoken out about Justin Bieber and his girlfriend Selena Gomez, and revealed that Selena is the only one that Justin will listen to for career advice ? and that reportedly upsets his team! The source revealed, via Fox News:

Justin is completely in love with her, crazy over her, but she?s the only one he listens to, and that?s not good. He does whatever Selena tells him to do. It gets so bad that his management calls Selena when they really want Justin to do something, and they ask her to ask him to do it, then he does. She?s got his heart and ear. They don?t want to see them back together and they don?t want all the back and forth between them. It?s not a good look to have him publicly begging and pining for her. His team has to stay in her good graces to get through to him, and it?s child games.

We think Justin is totally making his own business decisions, but as with any relationship it doesn?t surprise us if he does run what he?s up to by Selena! We highly doubt that Selena would be giving him any bad career advice if she does in fact get into detailed conversations with him about where his career is headed. However, we have a feeling these two try to keep career out of the conversation during the limited time they get to spend together!

Related News ?

Source: http://www.disneydreaming.com/2012/11/24/source-claims-justin-bieber-will-only-listen-to-selena-gomez-for-career-advice/

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REAL ESTATE: Christmas lights on Chatham Place : Real Estate

Posted on | November 24, 2012 | Comments

I?ll never forget my first Christmas in California.

As the family boarded the plane to leave behind the white Christmases we?ve known in the Midwest, I couldn?t help but think it would be a bit bleak without that nip in the air, a blanket of snow, the bustle along Michigan Avenue and the jingle of carriage bells.

Christmas Star card hauled out for the holidays

I was taken by storm, and total surprise.

From the palm tree lined drives along Highway 111 in Palm Springs to the Mission Inn in Riverside, I was captivated by the spirit and beauty of it all: We watched a rainbow form over the San Bernardino Mountains after a rain storm, heard carolers decked in Old English clothes sing, ?Noel,? and watched rabbits elude coyotes in a maze of Joshua Trees that were dusted with snow.

Now in Riverside, I can?t wait to take in The Mission Inn and see the lights go up on Chapman Place, a one-block enclave of homes that go all out for Christmas ? and have since the 1950s.

It?s a neighborhood I picked to kick off a string of stories aimed at getting to the heart of a neighborhood ? mostly, because I know that when it comes to real estate, there?s far more at stake than price.

Schools. Closeness to work. The view. Strong suits. Oddities. Quirks. The sense of community and place.

If you were the Realtor what would you tell the potential buyers? What do you look for, like or want to change?

A quote that fits the place: ?Love the moment, and the energy will spread beyond all boundaries.?

The first installation of ?On the Street Where You Live,? entitled, ?Christmas Comes to Chapman,? will appear in Sunday?s print business section of The Press-Enterprise. It?s online, now.

If you?ve got an idea for a story about your house, or your neighborhood that makes it special, helps leverage a deal or is a stand-out, please contact me at dgruszecki@pe.com

Share your comments on this blog; or send a note to Twitter @debinpalsprngs.com

?

Written by: dgruszecki on November 24, 2012.
Last revised by: dgruszecki on November 23, 2012.

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Source: http://blog.pe.com/real-estate/2012/11/24/real-estate-christmas-lights-on-chatham-place/

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Copywriting for the Non-English-Speaking Audience

The power of the Internet lies in its global pervasiveness. It is practically everywhere. People of all languages access the Net from all over the globe. Just think of it as an infinite vastness for your business and marketing possibilities. Your marketing potential is directly proportional to the number of people who can understand your [...]

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Written on November 23rd, 2012
Read more articles on Copywriting.

The power of the Internet lies in its global pervasiveness. It is practically everywhere. People of all languages access the Net from all over the globe. Just think of it as an infinite vastness for your business and marketing possibilities. Your marketing potential is directly proportional to the number of people who can understand your message.

Keep the following points in your mind while writing the copy for a non-English-speaking audience:

==> SHORTER SENTENCES AVOID COMPLICATED WORDS USE LOCAL EXAMPLES BLEND IN THE LOCAL CULTURE COLLECT INFORMATION

Written on November 23rd, 2012
Read more articles on Copywriting.

Source: http://www.copywritinghelp.net/copywriting/copywriting-for-the-non-english-speaking-audience-4/

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Observatory: For Dogs Learning Words, Size Matters

Toddlers just learning to speak associate words with shape, not size or texture. Anything shaped like a telephone, for instance, might be called ?phone.?

Sally Smith

Gable, a 5-year-old Border collie, understands more than 40 words.

But a new study suggests that dogs tend to associate words with size rather than shape.

This difference makes it ?very doubtful that there is a single mammalian feature in word learning,? said Emile van der Zee, a psychologist at the University of Lincoln in England and the first author of the study, which appears in the journal PLoS One. ?This study may help us understand why humans are more special when it comes to learning language.?

The researchers worked with Gable, a 5-year-old Border collie with an understanding of more than 40 words. The dog was shown a horseshoe-shaped object that the scientists called a ?dax.?

After some training, the dog began to identify other objects of similar size with the same name. After taking the object home for about a month, Gable also began to associate the word with other objects of similar texture, but never objects that were simply of similar shape.

The smell of the objects were kept neutral, but the results may differ if scent is incorporated, Dr. van der Zee said.

?That would be something that we would like to do in our future research,? he said, adding that he would like to repeat the study with other mammals, including pigs and primates.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/science/for-dogs-learning-words-size-matters.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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DC on pace for fewer than 100 homicides in 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The crack epidemic that began in the 1980s ushered in a wave of bloodletting in the nation's capital and a death toll that ticked upward daily. Dead bodies, sometimes several in a night, had homicide detectives hustling between crime scenes and earned Washington unwelcome monikers such as the nation's "murder capital." At the time, some feared the murder rate might ascend to more frightening heights.

But after approaching nearly 500 slayings a year in the early 1990s, the annual rate has gradually declined to the point that the city is now on the verge of a once-unthinkable milestone. The number of 2012 killings in the District of Columbia stands at 78 and is on pace to finish lower than 100 for the first time since 1963, police records show.

"It strikes me probably daily as I ride around the city, or sometimes when I'm sitting at home at night, and it's 10 o'clock and my phone's not ringing. Or I get up in the morning, and I go, 'Oh my gosh, I've slept five hours," said Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who joined the department amid violent 1991 street riots. "It strikes me quite often how different things are now."

The drop reflects a downward trend in violent crime nationwide and is in line with declining homicides in other big cities. Though killings have risen in Chicago, New York City officials say homicides dropped to 515 last year from 2,262 in 1990. Houston police reported 198 homicides last year, down from 457 in 1985, while Los Angeles ended last year with fewer than 300 after reporting 1,092 in 1992. Across the country, violent crime reported by police to the FBI fell by 3.8 percent last year from 2010.

Though D.C. is hardly crime-free today, and crime in some categories is even up, the homicide decline is especially notable in a place where grizzly acts of violence ? sometimes not far from the U.S. Capitol ? embodied the worst of the crack scourge.

The number of homicides in this city of more than 600,000 residents averaged about 457 between 1989 and 1994, a staggering rate that attracted unwanted attention. "A war zone? No, Washington, D.C.," was the sub-headline of a 1992 People magazine story, while The Economist in 1995 called it "the violence capital of America." Tony Patterson, a longtime homicide detective, recalled one eight-hour shift when every detective on his squad landed a homicide investigation. Drive-by shootings with multiple victims were common, as were witnesses who'd see something ? but say nothing.

The 1990 arrest of then-Mayor Marion Barry for smoking crack cocaine fed a perception that the city where the nation's laws were made was, itself, lawless.

"If you asked people what would happen first, there'll be a thousand murders in D.C. in a year or there'll be less than a hundred, I think virtually everybody would have said there would be 1,000," said John Roman, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Urban Institute.

Everyone agrees there's no single cause for the trend.

One overarching factor is the city's continued gentrification ? the 2011 median household income of $63,124 is higher than all but four states, census figures show. Whole city blocks have been refashioned, drug dens razed, a Major League Baseball stadium built in place of urban blight, high-rise public housing replaced by less-dense garden style apartments. Though the poverty rate has risen, the growing wealth has pushed impoverished communities farther away from the city center. Some crime has also migrated to neighboring Prince George's County, Md., though homicides are down there too.

"There are just more physical places in Washington, D.C., that are affluent and safe than there used to be," Roman said.

Law enforcement techniques and medical care have advanced at the same time. Improved technology helps officers pinpoint gunfire, even before a 911 call, and share information faster. A police unit dedicated to seizing illegal firearms was re-established and prosecutors, benefiting from the city's strict gun laws, routinely ask that defendants arrested on weapons charges be held without bond ? in part, to head off possible retaliation. Stronger community relationships mean detectives have developed better sources on the street and witness cooperation, police say.

And better medical care, honed through lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, means patients who were once stabilized at the scene are more likely to be taken directly to the hospital, where they have access to improved blood transfusion processes.

"The advances in the way we practice nowadays, I think, probably helps today's trauma patient more so than 20 years ago," said Anthony Shiflett, an acute care trauma surgeon at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

Still, homicides are but one gauge of a city's safety and an imperfect one too. Crime in other categories has also risen this year from the previous year, including robberies and assaults with a dangerous weapon. There have been headline-making violent crimes in 2012, including the beating and robbery of a man returning home from a Washington Nationals game, the slaying of a taxi driver whose body was found inside his burning cab and, most recently, the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old inside a subway station after a robbery.

U.S. Attorney Ron Machen, whose office prosecutes homicides, said that while witness cooperation has improved, retaliatory violence remains enough of a concern that he preaches against it during regular school visits.

"We always say, 'You're not going to remember what the argument was about five days from now, let alone five years from now. But you pick up that gun and shoot somebody, if you don't kill them, now they're going to be coming after you,'" he said.

The department doesn't track non-fatal shootings, but the number of aggravated assaults reported to the FBI ? which would encompass such crimes ? dropped from 8,655 in 1992 to 2,949 last year. The toll taken by violence is apparent each Tuesday at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, where wheelchair-bound survivors gather for support sessions.

"I'm still frightened to a degree to come outside ? day, night, it really don't matter," said Jordon Cook, 31, who was hit by stray gunfire at age 15. "I'm probably going to have to deal with this until the day I die."

The homicide drop is good news for violence-weary residents such as John Harper, who said his street in the historically violent Anacostia neighborhood feels far safer than it did 10 years ago. Still, a fatal shooting last July on his block returned his thoughts to the night in 1999 when his own son was killed in an alley.

"I didn't even want to look over there because it just takes me right back to that day," he said, adding, "A lot of it is starting to come to an end, that behavior is starting to just leave this city ?hopefully for good. I know not all of it, but a lot of it."

Lanier, the police chief, said that in a city visited by millions of tourists annually, a continued downward trend might help alter a lingering perception of the city as a haven for violence.

"It really is about a vibrant, safe city. I want people to not only be safe but to feel safe," she said.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dc-pace-fewer-100-homicides-2012-094716815.html

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