Duck boat sunk in World War II found in Italian lake

The amphibious vehicle sank in Lake Garda, killing 23 US soldiers just days before the end of the fighting in Europe. But the boat, and the remains of the soldiers, were lost until this week.

By Nick Squires,?Correspondent / December 13, 2012

More than 70 years after it sank in a lake in northern Italy causing the loss of 24 American soldiers? lives, a US amphibious vehicle has been found lying on the lake bed.

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Amateur historians had been searching for months for the relic ? a six-wheel, two-ton amphibious DUKW vehicle that sank during a storm on Lake Garda on the night of April 30, 1945 ? but were only able to confirm their find on Monday.

The DUKW, pronounced ?duck,? was carrying supplies and ammunition to an American military camp near the town of Torbole, at the northern tip of the lake, but sank as a result of gale force winds that were battering the area that night.

The truck was carrying 24 US soldiers aged between 18 and 25 from the 10th Mountain Division, only one of whom survived the accident. The men who died were from the division's 605th Field Artillery Battalion, as well as a driver from the Quartermaster Corps.

Days before armistice

The sinking happened just days before the end of fighting in Europe and the armistice with the Germans, on May 8, 1945.

?It was the biggest disaster to happen in modern times on Lake Garda,? said Mauro Fusato, the leader of the team that found the DUKW.?

The wreck of the vehicle was found with sonar lying at a depth of 905 feet ? one reason why it had not been located before.

?On Sunday, the sonar gave us an initial image, but it wasn?t clear enough to be able to say for sure that it was the DUKW,? Mr. Fusato told Ansa, an Italian news agency.

?On Monday, though, we used a remote-controlled camera and we saw it. It is intact and sitting upright.?

The next step is to try to identify any human remains that may still be lying around the wreck, as well as military equipment, insignia, and personal possessions. ?There are lots of objects around it, which could be the skeletons or remains of the soldiers who drowned,? said Fusato.

Any operation to recover them would be highly complex and technically challenging, however. The wreck lies too deep for divers, and there are old fishing nets and other debris on the lake bed that could snag underwater subs. Ultimately it will be up to the US government to decide whether to proceed with a recovery, the researchers said, adding that they had informed American diplomats of the discovery.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/rQsrhMDJNcs/Duck-boat-sunk-in-World-War-II-found-in-Italian-lake

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Les Miserables Video Movie Review

Updated Dec 21 2012 - 1:10pm ? Posted Dec 21 2012 - 12:51pm by Shannon Vestal ? 0 comments

See More: Movies, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables, Video Movie Reviews

In Les Mis?rables, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and more stars belt out their emotions in 1800s France, but do you have to love singing to enjoy this musical, set for a Christmas Day release? Watch our video review to find out.

Watch, Pass, or Rent Video Movie Review: Les Mis?rables originally posted on PopSugar View Transcript Transcript

Source: http://www.buzzsugar.com/Les-Miserables-Video-Movie-Review-26349948

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Deep emotions run beneath Russia's adoption ban

You usually can judge Vladimir Putin?s dislike of a reporter's question by the intensity of his expression. Such was the case this week at his annual news conference, when he greeted with a hard scowl the subject of pending Russian legislation that would ban Americans from adopting orphaned children. Mr. Putin unleashed invective on the fact that consular representatives aren?t allowed to visit adopted Russian children in the United States.

?I believe that is unacceptable. Do you think this is normal? How can it be normal when you are humiliated? Do you like it? Are you a sadomasochist or something? They shouldn?t humiliate our country,? he told reporters in Moscow.

As is often the case in Russia, there is the issue of what is going on versus what is really going on. And as is often the case in Russia, it?s complicated.

Recommended: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

There is very little doubt as to the goal of the legislation, which passed its third and final reading in the lower house of parliament Friday and must still be signed by Putin. The bill is named after Dima Yakovlev, the toddler who died of heat stroke in 2007 after his adopted father forgot him in a locked car in Virginia for nine hours. The father, Miles Harrison, was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Dima, whose adopted name was Chase. His acquittal in 2008 sparked banner newspaper headlines, incendiary TV news reports, and howls of outrage in Russia.

Lawmakers in the State Duma made it clear that today's legislation is a direct response to the US ?Magnitsky Act,? a law designed to sanction a particular group of Russian officials connected to the death of a whistle-blowing lawyer in a Moscow prison.

Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now

In other words, a law designed to punish people tied to a lawyer?s prison death has been answered with a law to prevent people from adopting orphaned children, many of whom have have developmental or other disabilities and will otherwise end up living much of their lives in orphanages that often resemble state mental hospitals of a bygone era.

Adoption is a searingly emotional issue for Russians, and one easily manipulated by the Kremlin. The institution of adoption is relatively uncommon in Russia, for cultural and other reasons. And judging by headlines in the Moscow tabloids, and the rhetoric of some state lawmakers, you?d think that Americans adopt Russian children to eat them.

Bolstering those who are suspicious of adoption is a smattering of abuse cases in Russian orphanages that have seized the public attention. In one notorious case, a nurse in a southern Russian children?s home was accused of taping pacifiers to the mouths of children to keep them from crying. And cases like that of Dima and of Artyem Savelyev, whose adoptive American mother sent the then-7-year-old boy home to Russia with a "to whom it may concern" note of rejection in 2010, give Russians fair reason for pause over foreign adoptions.

But for many Russians, the adoption of children by foreigners is a polite way of saying ?foreigners are purchasing our children for export.? Some 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by Americans in the past two decades, and Russia trails only China and Ethiopia in popularity for Americans seeking to adopt foreign children, according to the US State Department.

Many also see it as ironic that Russia is being sanctioned for human rights violations by a country whose policies over the past decade have seared ?Guantanamo? into the English language lexicon ? an irony that Putin, who like many Russians has a nose for hypocrisy, clearly relished in pointing out.

?Not only are those prisoners detained without charge, they walk around shackled, like in the Middle Ages. They?ve legalized torture in their own country. Can you imagine if we had anything like this here? They would have eaten us alive a long time ago,? he said.

But regardless of the moralities involved, the fact of the matter is that there will be clear winners and losers from this ordeal.

The winners will be the middlemen, the orphanage directors, the bureaucrats, and the administrators all of whose signatures or stamps, essential to the adoption process, can yield a lucrative stream under-the-table revenues ? revenues from well-meaning, would-be foreign parents with the means to pay thousands of dollars for the right to adopt a Russian orphan.

And the losers will be orphaned children who remain institutionalized. That was the point of US Ambassador Michael McFaul?s statement released Friday after the Duma vote: ?The welfare of children is simply too important to be linked to others issues in our bilateral relationship.?

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a man not known for pulling his punches when it comes to US policy, has voiced his doubts, suggesting that more moderate voices might stop the bill's passage. Perhaps Putin, having made his point with his press conference performance and with the performance of the malleable State Duma, will relax his rhetoric and soften the bill to open the door to foreign adoptions again, thus portraying himself as doing the best for the children.

Mike Eckel reported from Moscow for five years.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/deep-emotions-run-beneath-russias-adoption-ban-183659760.html

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Woman Reunited With Her Dog After 16 Months (VIDEO)

Holidays bring families back together, but some reunions are especially sweet. Christine Johnson shared how she was reunited her dog Marshall, a Shetland sheepdog, with HuffPost Live host Mike Sacks on Wednesday.

Marshall disappeared about 16 months ago when Christine let him out to take care of business, and she searched for him with the help of friends and family, but in vain. However, on Christmas Day, they were reunited thanks to a stranger turning Marshall in to the pound.

"It's very had to believe," Johnson told HuffPost Live. "It's something that I had prayed for over and over again, many days and many nights... to see him again, it's like a miracle. It really is."

Watch the Full Segment on HuffPost Live.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/reunited-with--dog-after-16-months-video_n_2348032.html

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Magnetism Confirmed to Control the Flow of Heat

A validation of a long-predicted quantum effect points the way to tiny, highly efficient heat engines or information carried by heat exchanges instead of electrical ones

By Edwin Cartlidge and Nature magazine

Electricity can run between two superconductors even through electrically insulating barriers (yellow). Now researchers have found that a magnetic field (curved arrows) can switch the amount of heat that flows from a hot side (red) to a cold one (blue). Image: Nature magazine

The strange world of quantum mechanics just got a little stranger with the discovery that a magnetic field can control the flow of heat from one body to another. First predicted nearly 50 years ago, the effect might some day form the basis of a new generation of electronic devices that use heat rather than charge as the information carrier.

The research stems from the work of physicist Brian Josephson, who in 1962 predicted that electrons could 'tunnel' between two superconductors separated by a thin layer of insulator ? a process forbidden in classical physics. The Josephson junction was subsequently built and used to make superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), which are now sold commercially as ultra-sensitive magnetometers.

In the latest work, Francesco Giazotto and Mar?a Jos? Mart?nez-P?rez at the NEST nanoscience institute in Pisa, Italy, measured the devices? thermal behavior ? that is, how the electrons inside them transfer heat. The duo heated one end of a SQUID several micrometers long and monitored the temperature of an electrode connected to it. A SQUID consists of two y-shaped pieces of superconductor joined together to form a loop, but with two thin pieces of insulating material sandwiched in between (see figure); as the researchers varied the magnetic field passing through the loop, the amount of heat flowing through the device also changed. The effect was in line with a theory put forward by Kazumi Maki and Allan Griffin in 1965.

The device worked by partly reversing the heat transfer, so that some would flow from the colder body to the warmer one. ?This is completely unintuitive,? says Giazotto. ?People are used to thinking of heat as disorder, so how can you impose quantum order on it? Amazingly, a device with Josephson junctions can do that.?

Legal violation
This apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics ? which states that heat will always flow from a hotter to a colder body ? is, in fact, perfectly legal, says Giazotto, because only part of the total heat flow is subject to the phase variation. When you also take into account the heat transferred by single electrons, as occurs inside normal metals, the net flow is still from the hot to the cold end.

Like its electrical counterpart, this variation in the heat flow can be explained in terms of the superconductors? 'phase' ? the position of the peaks and troughs of the wavefunction that describes the superconducting electron pairs in the SQUID?s loop. The greatest heat flow occurs when the peaks inside one half of the loop line up with peaks in the other half, whereas the flow is at a minimum when peaks meet troughs. The magnetic field shifts those phases relative to each other, thus modifying the heat flow.

Teun Klapwijk of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands describes Giazotto and Mart?nez-P?rez's research as ?cute? but ?not very surprising?. He also doubts that it will have significant practical applications. ?The only possible area would be solid-state refrigeration, which would replace cryogenic liquids,? he says.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=e51c033a68972f6e1ba1141d20de145f

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Boehner pulls 'Plan B' in major 'fiscal cliff' setback

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks to the media about the fiscal cliff at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.??In a stinging setback for Republican House Speaker John Boehner, a lack of support from inside his own party for his ?fiscal cliff? fall-back plan forced him late Thursday to cancel a much-trumpeted vote on the measure.

?The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,? Boehner said in a written statement released after an emergency meeting of House Republicans.

The measure, dubbed ?Plan B,? would have let Bush-era tax cuts expire on income above $1 million annually, while extending them for everyone else. It appeared that Boehner faced a rebellion from conservatives opposed to any tax hike, while House Democrats starved the bill of their support, making passage impossible.

Boehner?s dramatic defeat cast fresh doubt on efforts to avert the ?fiscal cliff? and spare Americans across-the-board income tax hikes come Jan. 1. Those increases, coupled with deep automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect the same day, could plunge the fragile economy into a new recession. Talks between the speaker and President Barack Obama were at a stalemate, according to aides on both sides.

After the cancellation of the vote, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced on Twitter the House "has concluded legislative business for the week. The House will return after the Christmas holiday when needed."

Boehner?s ?Plan B? had aimed to shift any blame for going over the "fiscal cliff" to Obama and Senate Democrats led by Harry Reid. Polls show a narrow majority of Americans say they would hold the GOP responsible if a deal is not reached to avert the "cliff."

?Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff,? the speaker said. He pointed to House passage of Republican bills that would stop all of the tax increases and replace the automatic cuts. ?The Senate must now act.?

White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement Thursday night that Obama's "main priority is to ensure that taxes don?t go up on 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses in just a few short days. The president will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy."

The vote had initially been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. But House Republican leaders? vote counting showed up coming up short. Rather than suffer a defeat in a floor vote, they pulled the bill.

Earlier, the White House had pressed Boehner to stick with negotiations with Obama and threatened to veto ?Plan B,? which top Senate Democrats mocked as ?dead on arrival? in the upper chamber.

?Instead of taking the opportunity that was presented to them to continue to negotiate what could be a very helpful, large deal for the American people, the Republicans in the House have decided to run down an alley that has no exit while we all watch,? Carney told reporters.

He also indicated that communications, even at the staff level, were on hold.

President Barack Obama waves to the media as he walks from Marine One to the Oval Office of the White House (Carolyn??One early sign of trouble for Boehner came in a too-narrow-for-comfort vote victory on the second part of his plan, which would have replaced the automatic cuts in defense and domestic spending?the so-called ?sequester??with a Republican alternative. That measure passed by a 215-209 margin.

Before that, lawmakers had defeated a Democratic attempt to derail the process by a 179-243 margin.

The ?Plan B? push had pitted Boehner against conservative groups like the anti-tax Club for Growth and Heritage Action?which warned lawmakers the results would go on their permanent records.

But even a victory for Boehner would have been mostly symbolic.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered the ?fiscal cliff? equivalent to Monty Python?s ?dead parrot? sketch, dismissing "Plan B" as a ?pointless political stunt,? declaring that Boehner?s efforts were ?non-starters in the Senate? and insisting that ?House Republicans know that the bill has no future.?

?If they don?t know it now, tell them what I said,? Reid said. ?It?s time for Republicans to get serious? about negotiating with Obama. (Anyone still think the parrot is just resting? No. 2 Senate Democrat Dick Durbin bluntly declared ?Plan B? to be ?dead on arrival.?)

Reid also announced that the Senate would be back at work on Dec. 27. (Earlier, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said representatives would not leave town immediately after the "Plan B" vote.)

Boehner shrugged off Reid?s comments.

?After today, Senate Democrats and the White House are going to have to act on this measure,? he told reporters. ?And if Senate Democrats and the White House refuse to act, they?ll be responsible for the largest tax hike in American history.?

Boehner had declared himself ?hopeful? that he and Obama can reach a broader deal and insisted he was ?not convinced at all that when the bill passes the House today it will die in the Senate.?

The White House, which had already leveled a veto threat, blasted ?Plan B? in a blog post as ?nothing more than a dangerous diversion? that scraps funding for services like Meals on Wheels, which reaches some 1.7 million elderly people, as well as child care programs and initiatives that help homeowners prevent foreclosure.

Some analysts had noted that Obama and Boehner were just a few billion dollars apart and that ?Plan B? could turn out to the be the legislative vehicle for any final compromise deal.

?We will have to be here the 27th no matter what happens,? Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said. ?If there?s no agreement we have to be here to try and hammer out something. If there is an agreement it?ll take several days to write it up?our poor staffs will have to be doing it during the holiday?and then vote on it the 27th.?

Democrats argued that Obama?s latest offer to Boehner included a sizable concession. The president said Monday that he?d accept rates going up on household income above $400,000, rather than $250,000, the number he cited throughout his reelection campaign.

Obama's new proposal also calls for raising $1.2 trillion in new tax revenues on individual income?down from $1.4 trillion in his previous proposal and $1.6 trillion in his opening gambit?coupled with about $1 trillion in spending cuts. The president?s proposal includes about $130 billion saved by adopting lower cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security, something liberal Democrats oppose.

Republicans charged that the president was relying on dodgy math by including interest that won?t have to be paid on the national debt thanks to the savings?even though Boehner has embraced that accounting maneuver in the past.

Early in the day, Boehner himself had rejected charges that ?Plan B? showed that he feared he would be unable to rally enough Republicans behind a more comprehensive deal.

?Listen, the president knows that I?ve been able to keep my word on every agreement we?ve ever made,? he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/house-republicans-pushing-doomed-fiscal-cliff-plan-b-004700686--politics.html

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Holiday meal food truck to visit church Thursday

RIDGEFIELD ? A Holiday Meal Food Truck Event will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Ridgefield Crystal Lake Presbyterian Church, 8505 Church St.

For information, call 815-459-1132.

? Northwest Herald

There are 45 hours, 8 minutes remaining to comment on this story.

Source: http://nwherald.com/2012/12/17/holiday-meal-food-truck-to-visit-church-thursday/aktt8xa/

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Human hands evolved so we could punch each other

Forget toolmaking, think fisticuffs. Did evolution shape our hands not for dexterity but to form fists so we could punch other people? That idea emerges from a new study, although it runs counter to conventional wisdom.

About the same time as we stopped hanging from trees and started walking upright, our hands become short and square, with opposable thumbs. These anatomical changes are thought to have evolved for tool manipulation, but David Carrier at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has an alternative explanation.

He says there are several possible hand shapes that would have allowed greater dexterity, making it less clear why we ended up with the hands we have. But only one hand shape lets us make a fist with a thumb as buttress.

Among primates' hands, ours is unique for its ability to form a fist with the thumb outside the fingers. The fingers of other primates' hands are too long to curl into their palms, and their thumbs are too short to reach across the fingers. So when apes fight, they are far more likely to wrestle or hold their opponent down while others stomp on him, says Carrier.

To test the importance of fists, Carrier and his colleagues recruited 10 athletes and measured how hard they could hit a punching bag using a normal fist, a fist with the thumb stuck out, and with an open palm.

The athletes could generate more than twice the force with a normal fist as with the thumb-stuck-out fist, because of thumb's buttressing role. There was no difference in the force they could generate with a normal fist and with an open palm, but Carrier says it's possible that a fist concentrates the force into a smaller area and so does more damage.

Cause or effect?

Mary Marzke of Arizona State University in Tempe says the study is interesting, but it far from proves that the ability to make a strong fist was the main driver behind the evolution of our hands' shape. It is more likely that it was a useful side effect of a whole suite of modifications.

She points out that apes strike with the heel of their hand when knocking fruit out of trees. Carrier's study didn't assess the force that the heel of the hand generates, but if it turns out to be as good as a fist, it becomes less clear that our hands evolved so as to be perfect for fist-making, Marzke says.

But if the hypothesis is true, Carrier thinks it could explain another mystery. It has long been unclear why high levels of testosterone cause men's ring fingers to be longer than their index fingers. He says the finger-length ratio makes sense if it generates a better fist. This would make dominant males even better fighters.

Journal reference: Journal of Experimental Biology, doi:10.1242/jeb.075713

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PFT: Carroll says Harbaugh tries to work the refs

ESPN has announced that Rob Parker will be allowed to return to the air after a 30-day suspension for questioning whether Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is authentically black because, among other things, Griffin has a white fiancee.

Marcia Keegan, a Vice President of Production for ESPN, released a statement announcing the duration of Parker?s suspension and vowing that ESPN will take greater care in the way its debates on the show Parker appears on, First Take, are presented going forward.

?ESPN has decided to suspend Rob Parker for 30 days for his comments made on last Thursday?s episode of First Take,? Keegan said. ?Our review of the preparation for the show and the re-air has established that mistakes both in judgment and communication were made. As a direct result, clearly inappropriate content was aired and then re-aired without editing. Both were errors on our part. To address this, we have enhanced the editorial oversight of the show and have taken appropriate disciplinary measures with the personnel responsible for these failures. We will continue to discuss important issues in sports on First Take, including race. Debate is an integral part of sports and we will continue to engage in it on First Take. However, we believe what we have learned here and the steps we have taken will help us do all that better.?

ESPN did not specify what the ?appropriate disciplinary measures? were for people other than Parker, or who ?the personnel responsible? were other than Parker. But Parker?s suspension is, frankly, ridiculous when compared to other discipline that ESPN has handed out to other employees.

Most notably, a 30-day suspension is the same punishment ESPN gave SportsCenter anchor Max Bretos for asking an NBA analyst this question about Jeremy Lin: ?If there?s a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game??

That may have been an unfortunate choice of words, but no one seriously believed that Bretos was attempting to use a racial slur in that question. People who know Bretos, including his Asian-American SportsCenter co-anchor Michael Kim, insisted that Bretos (whose wife is Asian) is a good man who has far too much respect for his audience and the athletes he covers to dream of using a racial slur on the air.

Parker, on the other hand, is widely known as a provocateur who would rather engage in personal attacks than honest debate. Before ESPN hired Parker, he had twice been disciplined by his previous employer, the Detroit News: Once for asking former Lions coach Rod Marinelli an insensitive question about his daughter?s marriage to the Lions? then-defensive coordinator, and once for erroneously reporting that then-Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins (now Griffin?s backup on the Redskins) had assaulted someone on campus.

Think about what ESPN is doing by giving Parker and Bretos equivalent punishments. ESPN is saying that opposing interracial marriage is no worse than making an unfortunate slip of the tongue. ESPN is saying that Parker, who worked his way up to a job at ESPN by doing everything the wrong way in journalism, deserves no more punishment for a blatantly racist statement than Bretos, who worked his way up to a job at ESPN by being a consummate professional, deserves for an innocent mistake. (It?s also worth noting that when Bretos was alerted to the fact that some people were offended by his word choice, he profusely apologized. When people told Parker on Twitter that they were offended by his racist comments about Griffin, Parker told those people they were ?uneducated? and ?silly.?)

None of that matters to ESPN, however, because First Take gets pretty good ratings on weekday mornings, and the show garners attention by putting panelists on the air to make outrageous statements. ESPN covets those ratings enough that it?s willing to do anything for them. Even put a panelist on the air who will attack a black man for falling in love with a white woman.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/12/20/pete-carroll-says-harbaugh-wants-help-from-the-officials/related/

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Starbucks Twitter Campaign Hijacked

? 1998 - 2011 by KB Networks, Inc.

All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Programming by Cliff Murphy, Kevin Sorensen, Brad Hoover - System Design and Administration by Cliff Murphy

Site design and front-end production by mike kane.

Source: http://www.hardocp.com/news/2012/12/18/starbucks_twitter_campaign_hijacked/

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Facebook's Annual Revenues By Year - Business Insider

Join Facebook, LinkedIn, Trip Advisor and Disney at?IGNITION West?in March 2013 in San Francisco! Get market insight on mobile games, apps, devices, content and commerce. Register now.

In a note to investors, Topeka Capital Markets analyst Victor Anthony predicts Facebook's annual revenue will reach $12 billion in 2016. He thinks Facebook will book about $5 billion in sales this year, and add ?about $1.5 billion each year after than in revenues.

Anthony's refreshingly thorough note breaks Facebook's revenue down by ad product, of which there are at least 12:

Display ads: More than 80 percent of Facebook's sales, currently.

Payments: Mostly from games. Anthony believes Facebook is making "a big push" to develop non-Zynga games on Facebook.

Sponsored Stories: The first social ad unit on Facebook.

Sponsored Search Results: FB is using this ad unit "as a testing ground for launching a search engine."

Facebook Exchange: Will take "a meaningful portion" of the $2 billion real-time bidding market.

Offers:?"This ad unit is extremely viral because when a user claims an offer it is broadcasted?to their friends."

Gifts: "In 2014, we estimate that FB could?generate approximately $800mm in incremental revenues" from the new gifting service.

Promoted Posts: Will benefit from Facebook's restricted distribution of posts from brand pages.

Mobile App Installs Ads:?FB gets?"between $0.50-$3.00 each time a user clicks?(not downloads) an app.

Custom Audience Ads: No charge per se, but better targeting.

Suggested Posts: A social ad unit that's still in testing.

Logout Page Ads:?Ford, Microsoft, Samsung, Netflix, P&G, Subway and others have bought these ads, which can cost $700K. "FB once told Clickz that 37M people log-out each day, mostly from public computers," Anthony says.

Disclosure: The author owns Facebook stock.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-annual-revenues-by-year-2012-12

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Sell, lease or bury: Toronto considering all options ... - Financial Press

---

Toronto?s budget committee broadened the list of possible options for the crumbling Gardiner Expressway, recommending that city staff report back on the possibility of selling, leasing or burying the critical artery.

The terms of study, still to be approved by city council, also apply to its less controversial neighbour the Don Valley Parkway and stem from an idea floated by downtown Councillor Adam Vaughan, who says the city should look at selling the roads as a way to finance escalating repair costs.

He believes Toronto could make $3-to $4-billion on each highway, in turn giving a private firm the ability to impose tolls. Depending on how the deal is structured, Mr. Vaughan believes the city would either have a windfall of sale proceeds, or a share of tolls to put into transit expansion.

The Gardiner has emerged as the most controversial issue of the 2013 budget. On Friday, another chunk of concrete peeled off the underbelly of the highway, near Rees Street and onto Lake Shore Boulevard. No one was injured.

It?s going to be a safe roadway

Amid revelations that an eastern stretch has just six good years left, councillors will grapple in the new year with a plan to spend $505-million over the next 10 years on Gardiner repairs. The cost has raised the idea of dismantling some of it again, but an environmental assessment looking into that possibility would have to be restarted.

?I want to assure Torontonians we are going to fix whatever needs to be fixed on the Gardiner and I don?t view it as good money after bad,? said Budget Chief Mike Del Grande. ?It?s going to be a safe roadway.?

But its future will be a hotly debated item once city staff report back on the various options in May. Councillor James Pasternak, the budget committee member who urged that the leasing option be considered, cast the sale of the Gardiner and the DVP as a ?risky game.?

?If those were off-loaded to private hands, it could strangle opportunities, decision making for the city for generations,? he said.

Councillor Peter Milczyn also rejected a sale, but said a lease is worth exploring. Councillor John Parker suggested looking at the tunnel option, which he said was only intended to apply to the Gardiner. Councillor Doug Ford, budget committee vice chairman, has long said the city should enlist the private sector to build a tunnelled alternative to the Gardiner, which could be tolled, while keeping the existing structure free.

?I?m in favour of exploring. What is the cost of tunnelling, what is the cost of putting a double decker, a triple decker like they have in New York? Let?s find out the cost,? said Mr. Ford, who congratulated Mr. Vaughan for having ?taken a page out of my playbook? when it comes to public-private partnerships.

Mr. Vaughan, for his part, expressed skepticism about burying the Gardiner, saying the money would be better spent on transit, and not exclusively on building a new road.

The budget committee also endorsed the budget chief?s recommendation to tweak the property tax hike in 2013 to 2% from 1.95% and ?meet people part of the way.? That would generate about $1.15-million, which the committee earmarked for student nutrition programs, the cash-strapped Toronto Botanical Gardens, lawn bowling clubs, community grants and local arts groups in North York and the east end. The rising value of property in Toronto combined with a policy at the city to reduce commercial property tax rates means that the average house will see a 2.51% tax jump. Mr. Del Grande hoped his proposal would satisfy his colleagues.

?If at the end of the day council wants to blow $5, $10, $20, $50-million, that?s them,? said the budget chief. ?I can tell you guaranteed ? guaranteed ? for sure they won?t have me anymore as the budget chair. I have no interest at all under that scenario.?

National Post

Article source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/18/gardiner-expressway-toronto/

Source: http://financialpress.com/2012/12/18/sell-lease-or-bury-toronto-considering-all-options-for-crumbling-gardiner-expressway/

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Flexing fingers for micro-robotics: Scientists create a powerful, microscale actuator

Dec. 17, 2012 ? Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an elegant and powerful new microscale actuator that can flex like a tiny beckoning finger. Based on an oxide material that expands and contracts dramatically in response to a small temperature variation, the actuators are smaller than the width of a human hair and are promising for microfluidics, drug delivery, and artificial muscles.

"We believe our microactuator is more efficient and powerful than any current microscale actuation technology, including human muscle cells," says Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley scientist Junqiao Wu. "What's more, it uses this very interesting material -- vanadium dioxide -- and tells us more about the fundamental materials science of phase transitions."

Wu is corresponding author of a paper appearing in Nano Letters this month that reports these findings, titled "Giant-Amplitude, High-Work Density Microactuators with Phase Transition Activated Nanolayer Bimorphs." As often happens in science, Wu and his colleagues arrived at the microactuator idea by accident, while studying a different problem.

Vanadium dioxide is a textbook example of a strongly correlated material, meaning the behavior of each electron is inextricably tied to its neighboring electrons. The resulting exotic electronic behaviors have made vanadium dioxide an object of scientific scrutiny for decades, much of it focused on an unusual pair of phase transitions.

When heated past 67 degrees Celsius, vanadium dioxide transforms from an insulator to a metal, accompanied by a structural phase transition that shrinks the material in one dimension while expanding in the other two. For decades, researchers have debated whether one of these phase transitions drives the other or if they are separate phenomena that coincidentally occur at the same temperature.

Wu shed light on this question in earlier work published in Physical Review Letters, in which he and his colleagues isolated the two phase transitions in single-crystal nanowires of vanadium dioxide and demonstrated that they are separable and can be driven independently. The team ran into difficulty with the experiments, however, when the nanowires broke away from their electrode contacts during the structural phase transition.

"At the transition, a 100-micron long wire shrinks by about 1 micron, which can easily break the contact," says Wu, who has a dual appointment as a professor in UC Berkeley's department of Materials Sciences and Engineering. "So we started to ask the question: this is bad, but can we make a good thing out of it? And actuation is the natural application."

To take advantage of the shrinkage, the researchers fabricated a free-standing strip of vanadium dioxide with a chromium metal layer on top. When the strip is heated via a small electrical current or a flash of laser light, the vanadium dioxide contracts and the whole strip bends like a finger.

"The displacement of our microactuator is huge," says Wu, "tens of microns for an actuator length on the same order of magnitude -- much bigger than you can get with a piezoelectric device -- and simultaneously with very large force. I am very optimistic that this technology will become competitive to piezoelectric technology, and may even replace it."

Piezoelectric actuators are the industry-standard for mechanical actuation on micro scales, but they're complicated to grow, need large voltages for small displacements, and typically involve toxic materials such as lead. "But our device is very simple, the material is non-toxic, and the displacement is much bigger at a much lower driving voltage," says Wu. "You can see it move with an optical microscope! And it works equally well in water, making it suitable for biological and microfluidic applications."

The researchers envision using the microactuators as tiny pumps for drug delivery or as mechanical muscles in micro-scale robots. In those applications, the actuator's exceptionally high work density -- the power it can deliver per unit volume -- offers a great advantage. Ounce for ounce, the vanadium-dioxide actuators deliver a force three orders of magnitude greater than human muscle. Wu and his colleagues are already partnering with the Berkeley Sensing and Actuation Center to integrate their actuators into devices for applications such as radiation-detection robots for hazardous environments.

The team's next goal is to create a torsion actuator, which is a much more challenging prospect. Wu explains: "Torsion actuators typically involve a complicated design of gears, shafts and/or belts, and so miniaturization is a challenge. But here we see that with just a layer of thin-film we could also make a very simple torsional actuator."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

---

Journal References:

1. Kai Liu, Chun Cheng, Zhenting Cheng, Kevin Wang, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, Junqiao Wu. Giant-Amplitude, High-Work Density Microactuators with Phase Transition Activated Nanolayer Bimorphs. Nano Letters, 2012; 12 (12): 6302 DOI: 10.1021/nl303405g
2. Zhensheng Tao, Tzong-Ru Han, Subhendra Mahanti, Phillip Duxbury, Fei Yuan, Chong-Yu Ruan, Kevin Wang, Junqiao Wu. Decoupling of Structural and Electronic Phase Transitions in VO_{2}. Physical Review Letters, 2012; 109 (16) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.166406

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

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/exTuB6Njwac/121217091554.htm

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Hotels promote Mayan prophecy and apocalyptic packages

4 hrs.

Rob Lovitt , NBC News contributor

In the hotel business, there?s nothing like a big event to fire up the promotional marketing machine: Think Christmas, New Year?s Eve or the Super Bowl.

The end of the world and life as we know it? Sure, why not? After all, if you?re on the cusp of the Apocalypse, you might as well party like there?s no tomorrow.

At least that appears to be the case in the waning days of the so-called Long Count in the Mayan calendar, a 5,125-year cycle set to end on Dec. 21. Doomsday, it seems, is the ideal time to celebrate a last-hurrah, pull-out-the-stops and drain-the-bank-account vacation.

The reality, of course, is that reports of the world?s impending death are greatly exaggerated, or at least prone to misinterpretation.

?Despite popular beliefs that the end of the Maya calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, coincides with the end of the world, the Maya people actually view the event as a new beginning, the awakening of a period for self-reflection, rejuvenation and reconnection with nature,? said Laila Medina, spa director of Sandos Hotels & Resorts, which operates several resorts along Mexico?s Riviera Maya.

In other words, life will go on; you?ll still be able to get room service on Dec. 22, and, sorry to say, you?ll still have to pay your January credit card bill. Nevertheless, if you?re seeking a bed for the ?end of the world,? here are some options:

Sandos Caracol Eco Resort & Spa: This all-inclusive resort on the outskirts of Playa del Carmen will celebrate the big day with Mayan ceremonies, ?meet and greet? sessions with indigenous residents from Coba and a special Mayan breakfast on Dec. 22 (presumably subject to change if the unthinkable happens). Rates start at $220 per night.

Rosewood Mayakoba: Just up the road, this recently renovated resort is offering two Mayan-inspired packages: The 5-day Rosewood Rebirth package includes lectures, guided tours of Coba and other historic sites and a New Beginning?s Eve party on the beach for $6,400 per couple. Those with money to burn ? you can?t take it with you, right? ? can opt for the Ultimate New Beginning package, which augments the above with helicopter transfers and other high-end amenities for a mere $79,000 per couple.

The Curtis: Proving that doomsday doesn?t suffer from geographic limitations, Denver?s Curtis hotel offers a Party Like There?s No To-Maya package on the big day. For $12,021, you and two dozen of your friends get the entire 15 floor (26 rooms), a private party and apocalypse-worthy amenities, including freeze-dried foods, gas masks and water-purification tablets. A morning-after brunch is also included for survivors.

Palomar: Travelers who want to explore Mayan culture without going to Mexico may want to head to Philadelphia where the Palomar hotel is offering a special Local Arts package in conjunction with the Penn Museum. The deal includes accommodations, free parking and two VIP tickets to the museum?s Maya 2012: Lords of Time exhibit, which explores the culture?s time-driven universe through sculptures, artifacts and interactive experiences. Rates start at $239 per night.

The Waverton Hotel: End times or new beginning, this Chicago-area hotel offers families a fun way to count down the clock with its very own Mayan-themed indoor waterpark. Its End of the Mayan Calendar package includes lodging and waterpark access for four, plus Mayan-themed foods, games and craft activities. Rooms on Dec. 21 are $99 with a special 50-percent discount if you stay a second night.

Assuming, of course, you?re still around.

Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/hotels-promote-mayan-prophecy-apocalyptic-packages-1C7562531

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Texans clinch AFC South with 29-17 win over Colts

Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson (80) runs into the end zone for a touchdown after catching a pass against the Indianapolis Colts in the first quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson (80) runs into the end zone for a touchdown after catching a pass against the Indianapolis Colts in the first quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Houston Texans inside linebacker Tim Dobbins (52) recovers a fumble by Indianapolis Colts Mewelde Moore at the goal line as Texans' Danieal Manning (38) gestures in the second quarter of an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)

Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt (99) salutes the crowd after making a tackle in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. The Texans won 29-17. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt (99) celebrates after defeating the Indianapolis Colts in an NFL football game on Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. The Texans defeated the Colts 29-17. (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)

Houston Texans coach Gary Kubiak, center, is doused by Chris Myers (55) as Arian Foster (23) reacts during the fourth quarter of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Houston. The Texans defeated the Colts 29-17. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Brett Coomer) MANDATORY CREDIT

HOUSTON (AP) ? The Houston Texans won the AFC South on Sunday and immediately shifted their focus to the future.

"We have bigger goals," Andre Johnson said after Houston's 29-17 win over the Colts. "What we're focused on now is winning and getting home-field advantage throughout the playoffs."

The Texans host Minnesota next week and finish the regular season at Indianapolis, and will have home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs if they win out.

Houston was happy to put last Monday night's ugly 42-14 loss to New England behind them with Sunday's victory.

"A lot of people were wondering how we were going to respond," Johnson said. "I think a lot of people doubted us after what happened last week. We (felt) like we had to show people what we were really about."

Johnson gained 151 yards receiving and a touchdown, Bryan Braman had a special teams score on a blocked punt, and Shayne Graham kicked five field goals.

The Texans (12-2) grabbed their first AFC South title last season after the Colts nosedived without injured quarterback Peyton Manning. Manning is gone to Denver and rookie Andrew Luck couldn't do much against the inspired Houston defense.

The Colts (9-5) had won three straight games and needed a win to clinch a playoff berth a year after going 2-14 in 2011. Before that, they took the division seven times since Houston entered the league in 2002.

"It was a tough loss for us in that we came here with one idea and that was to win the division, and we're not going to win the division ? they did it," Indianapolis interim coach Bruce Arians said.

Thanks in great part to three sacks from Watt, Houston bounced back six days after the loss to New England on national television.

"I'm enjoying myself," Watt said. "I've said all along that if you're not trying to be the greatest, you're wasting your time."

Luck threw for 186 yards with two touchdowns in the return to his hometown. He had led the Colts to a rookie-record six wins on drives in the fourth quarter or overtime this season, and he got the Colts within six points late in the third quarter.

"We came here to win, not put up a respectable showing," Luck said. "We'll move on to next week and hopefully get better."

Houston's defense shut Luck down after he made it close, and the Texans used Arian Foster to eat up the clock. Foster ran for a season-high 165 yards to leave him with 1,313 yards rushing, giving him his third straight year with at least 1,200.

"It's not really that we bounced back," Foster said. "It's that we played the football that we know we're capable of playing. We feel we're a team that if we play how we know we can ... it's going to be hard for us to get beat."

Watt increased his AFC-leading sack total to 19? ? the NFL record for a season is 22? ? and finished with 10 tackles. He also forced a fumble for the third straight game.

"I don't even know the stats," Houston coach Gary Kubiak said. "But it seemed like every time I looked up, he was making a play."

Luck was sacked five times playing behind a makeshift offensive line missing center Samson Satele (ankle) and right tackle Winston Justice (biceps).

Johnson, who has 11,008 yards receiving in his career, scored on a 3-yard reception to make it 10-0 in the first quarter. The Texans didn't score a touchdown on offense after that, but were helped by Braman's special teams effort.

Braman blocked his second punt of the season, recovered it and returned it 8 yards for his first career touchdown to make it 20-3 just before halftime.

Vick Ballard had 60 yards rushing on a Colts drive that ended with an 8-yard touchdown reception by Dwayne Allen to cut Houston's lead to 23-17 in the third quarter. Ballard finished with a career-high 105 yards rushing.

Houston couldn't do anything on its next drive and punted. But Indy sputtered, and interim coach Bruce Arians even drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a punt, giving Houston the ball at the Colts 39.

Graham added a 46-yard field goal to push the lead to 26-17 and made his fifth field goal with about a minute left.

Rookie T.Y. Hilton and Luck connected on a 61-yard touchdown pass just before halftime.

Watt's forced fumble on Mewelde Moore on the Houston 1 was recovered by Tim Dobbins early in the second quarter, robbing the Colts of points. And the Colts stalled inside the red zone again and had to settle for Adam Vinatieri's 26-yard field goal to cut Houston's lead to 10-3.

The Texans had set the tone as they got to Luck early, sacking him twice on the Colts' second drive. Antonio Smith got to him first, and Watt put a move on backup tackle Jeff Linkenbach and took him down for a 15-yard loss.

On offense, Johnson was dominant. He put Houston up 10-0 when he waltzed into the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown reception. Johnson kept things going earlier in the drive when he caught a pass, lost it and then grabbed it again just before it touched the ground for a 10-yard gain on third-and-9.

NOTES: Luck needs 74 yards to break Cam Newton's rookie yards passing record of 4,051 yards. ... Dobbins has recovered four fumbles this season, a franchise record. ... Braman's two blocked punts this season are a single-season franchise record.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-12-17-FBN-Colts-Texans-Folo/id-14f476f33ece45bc90ce254d2e1b5435

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US Magnitsky Law draws Kremlin ire ? but many Russians support it

The new law, enacted in the US last week to target Russians involved in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, has infuriated the Kremlin, which sees it as a 'purely political, unfriendly act.'

By Fred Weir,?Correspondent / December 17, 2012

A demonstrator holds a poster reading "Add Putin to 'Magnitsky List'" during an anti-government rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday. The Magnitsky List, a piece of US legislation signed into law on Friday, targets Russian officials involved in the 2009 death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

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Russia's State Duma will take up a stern new bill Tuesday, the Dima Yakovlev List, aimed at punishing US officials who are implicated in human rights violations against Russians, including adoptive children who die at the hands of American parents and others allegedly abused by the US justice system.

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The Duma bill appears to be pure retaliation for the Magnitsky List, targeted against Russian officials involved in the 2009 prison death of Russian anti-corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, which was signed into law by President Obama on Friday.

The Yakovlev List, named after one of about 15 Russian children to die at the hands of their adoptive US parents in the past two decades, will levy tough economic and visa sanctions against American officials perceived to be involved in mistreatment of Russians.

While most Americans seem likely to ignore the Yakovlev List, a recent poll suggests that a plurality of Russians may be delighted to see their own officials squirm under the pressure of the Magnitsky Act. A late November survey by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found that 39 percent of Russians fully or mostly agree with the import of the US law, while just 14 percent reacted negatively toward it. Another 48 percent of Russians said they were undecided.

"This suggests that as much as people may dislike the idea of the US interfering in our internal affairs, they hate their own officials more," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal.

"Apparently much of the public would be happy to see corrupt Russian officials punished, however and by whomever....? What we see at work here is growing public anger against [the bureaucracy]. It may not show up as street protests, but it's a very real factor," she adds.

This cold war-style legislative tit-for-tat is erupting at what might have been a positive moment in US-Russia relations. After nearly four decades of hexing ties between Moscow and Washington, the much-resented Jackson-Vanik amendment was abolished by the US Senate in early December, and along with it the humiliating requirement that Russia obtain annual certification of its human rights record in order to enjoy normal trade relations with the US.

But senators replaced Jackson-Vanik with the Magnitsky List, which more narrowly targets Russian officials implicated in Mr. Magnitsky's case and other alleged human rights violators. The reaction of official Russia last week was white hot. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the Magnitsky List amounts to "open meddling in our internal affairs and is a blind and dangerous position." President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV viewers last week that the US law was a "purely political, unfriendly act."

"The [Magnitsky List] is a crazy precedent, because a legislative body has taken over the functions of a court," says Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the Duma's international affairs commission, which was responsible for drafting the retaliatory Yakovlev List.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/nrAoB1vx1B4/US-Magnitsky-Law-draws-Kremlin-ire-but-many-Russians-support-it

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Ex-chancellor Schroeder's wife entering German politics

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's wife said she is entering German politics and wants to win a regional state assembly seat next month to fight for pay equality but insisted she has no higher political aspirations.

Coming out of the shadows of her husband, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, Doris Schroeder-Koepf told Der Spiegel news magazine that she also wanted to focus on improving the integration of foreigners in her state of Lower Saxony.

"One chancellor in the family is enough," Schroeder-Koepf, 49, said in the interview published on Sunday when asked if U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served as a role model.

The wife of former President Bill Clinton was first elected as a senator from New York state in 2000, just before he left the White House at the end of his second and final term.

"I do know what it means to be chancellor," said Schroeder-Koepf, who was a journalist before marrying Schroeder in 1997.

"From a physical point of view I just couldn't do it. You need to be more robust than I am. These marathon meetings through the night, never getting enough sleep, the trips across so many time zones. I'm just not built for that."

Schroeder-Koepf, a soft-spoken woman who largely avoided the public spotlight until now while raising their children, is a state assembly candidate for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the January 20 election in Lower Saxony.

She said the SPD candidate for state premier, Hanover Mayor Stephan Weil, had asked her to run for a state assembly seat. She also said her husband, 68, was taking over more of the parenting duties now.

Schroeder-Koepf said she wants to fight for gender equality.

"There can't be a pay gap between men and women anymore," she said. "It's absurd that there's a 25 percent pay gap. That must be changed in wage talks and by political leaders. Equal pay for equal work. It's so obvious and needs to happen."

Schroeder-Koepf, who worked for Bild newspaper and Focus magazine before becoming Schroeder's fourth wife, also confirmed a rumor that she advised Schroeder to shorten the title of his economic reform program to "Agenda 2010", a series of measures credited with boosting Germany's competitiveness from 2003.

"I read it in advance, like a lot of his speeches," she said. "It had a very complicated title that went on for a couple of lines, very bureaucratic. I urged Gerd and his team to use a snappier title. It ended up that I had to come up with a title."

(Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-chancellor-schroeders-wife-entering-german-politics-151936785.html

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Novated lease online | Car Finance, Loans & Leasing Blog - Roche ...

A novated lease is a great way to go about financing your next car. If your employer has the ability to offer salary packaging to you then you should look at a novated lease for your next car purchase. By financing through salary sacrifice you will be making car repayments from your pre-tax income, thereby providing you with tax benefits. Not only can your repayments be made from your pre-tax income but also all operating costs including fuel, servicing, tyres, registration and insurance.

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To find out more about a novated lease contacted a Roche Finance representative on 1300 887 967. Alternatively you may wish to use our novated lease calculator to determine which term and residual is best suited to your budget, needs and circumstances.

Source: http://h3sean.typepad.com/blog/2012/12/novated-lease-online-car-finance-loans-leasing-blog-roche-finance.html

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) ? While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior ? outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting ? than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

__

AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/experts-no-between-aspergers-violence-014413244.html

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No Comments - Dr Leslie's Blog, Excuse Free Blog, Women, Weight ...

People kill People and guns are an easily accessible and horrible method. Those who threaten and bully politicians into not effecting meaningful gun control have the blood of the 20 innocent children on their hands.

However, the bigger issue is the state of our National Mental Care. We as individuals, families, communities, states, and as nation must come together to prevent these terrible tragedies. People kill people because the most fundamental part of human anatomy is their brain. And there is no Second Amendment creating a roadblock to change.

People kill People because they have chemical imbalances in the brain. People kill People because they FEEL no one is listening. Feelings come from the brain. The processing of one?s feelings, intellectual capacity and coping strategies all lie within each individual?s unique brain. People kill people because they have endured horrible abuse affecting their ability to see themselves and others clearly. Finally, people kill people because their brain is missing the ability to feel empathy and pain.

If are brains are the epicenter of our thoughts and actions then why do we continue to IGNORE the need for better MENTAL Health Care. If our brain differentiates from all other species allowing us the power of choice and decision making then why is it not at the very top of our list of priority?s in our Health Care System, Federal, State, City and School budgets.

I live in the State of California and at one time was employed with our state Regional Center Program for the Developmentally Disabled. Every state has some form of a Regional Center program however, like the state of California they have cut all funding for those with Asperger?s that included mental health and behavioral health care. Asperger?s and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are commonly diagnosed together these are two of the conditions that Adam Lanza, the killer of TWENTY is thought to have suffered from.

Asperger?s is a Pervasive Development Disorder attributed to brain function. The result is a life long need for behavioral training and assistance. Patients with Asperger?s often lack empathy for others and misread social cues. Communication and speech is taken literal. So what may seem humorous to the average person is not to the Asperger?s person. Clients with Asperger?s need ?wrap around? services a term referring the need for a variety of mental health and behavioral training in the home and/or school, cognitive behavioral therapy, speech therapy, a rule out for medication that assists with compulsive and repetitive behaviors, as well as for depression associated with an inability to connect with others thereby, remaining socially isolated.

Many companies and employers offer limited mental health benefits such as three EAP, Employment Assessment Program Sessions. This is not enough time to effectively diagnose the problem and create coping strategies. Three sessions in effect is just enough time to do a simple mental status exam and to learn the underlying issues regarding the problem the person came in for. The psychotherapist is left spending more time with the bearucracy of the Health Care Company then with the client. The client is then told by the insurance company they will have to put up the money to pay for their treatment with minimal reimbursement. In addition, the cost of psychotropic medications is staggering.

In almost all of the mass killing episodes, experts have come forward and said that if there was effective screening, most of these killers could have been identified and dealt with before the horrific crimes occurred.

It?s a dog chasing its tail. If people could afford to pay for their treatment up front they wouldn?t need to pay into their healthcare plans for mental health. People are barely able to feed their families and with the economic down turn already five years old, they have no where to turn. Many counseling centers offering sliding scale fees use inexperienced Interns with Supervision that has become less about each of their clients but more about managing their case load.

Qualified Mental Health Workers which include psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, childcare workers, social workers, billers, human resource workers, crisis intervention teams also known as psychiatric evaluation teams who assist families in their homes, hospitals and state funded centers CANNOT afford to live doing the jobs they have spent their time, money, energy, education, student loans (debt) and passion to achieve. I KNOW first hand. I am still paying my student loan in which the interest is being charged interest with no end in sight.

Insurance companies and the state and federal government do not think Mental Health Care is important. Let?s say you make $70. per client. By the time you are done with medical billing, overhead?rent, parking (because you can?t stay at a meter all day), therapeutic supplies, insurance, continuing education, taxes and the like the psychotherapist is actually earning ten to fifteen dollars an hour. A psychotherapist could earn the same as a cashier at Rite-Aid without the emotional stress of caring for their clients.

Most Mental Health Care workers are working two to three jobs and this is long before the recession. They have a full-time day job because they need health insurance benefits for themselves and their families and a steady paycheck. They then go to a second job of seeing clients evenings and weekends so that they can afford to live. Many can no longer afford to see clients with Mental Health benefits because of the cost to them. Insurance clients are turned away at an astounding rate.

Mental Health facilities such as Board and Cares, Locked Hospitals, and Clinics are filthy. Staff is mistreated, not just by the mentally ill that they serve, which they can understand but, also by the administrations they serve. They are, as I once was, expected to stay ungodly hours to finish crushing amounts of paperwork, take on others job responsibilities that are not their own while also treating the client, assisting the clients family, running support groups, running groups to keep the clients engaged, setting up outside referrals, visiting those referrals to insure the client is okay and helping the referral handle the client so that the client stays properly placed. DOES THIS SOUND SANE TO YOU!

Families with those who have mental illness are beside themselves. Most people have a difficult enough time navigating themselves let alone someone else whose brain they are not equipped to manage. After years of exasperation in trying to cope with someone mentally ill, many families give up, leaving the mentally ill person on their own. Unfortunately, ours is a country that looks down upon conditions of the brain and as a result, more too often, conditions go undiagnosed and untreated

And this is just the tip of the current mental health system which alongside with the pervasive attitude that if you seek help you are mentally ill too, leaves us with a culture that will continue to see the type of horrific crime as happened on Friday, until we wake-up and understand that we may not be able to keep all the guns off the street, but we can keep the high risk mentally ill person off the street an away from guns.

I implore you to write your city council members, write legislators, lobbyists, mayors, governors, legislators, senators and the President. Remember Twenty Children are dead.

Godbless, all of those whose lives were lost, their families, friends and community. May their cries for help not be in vein.

Posted by Dr. Leslie Seppinni on December 16, 2012

Source: http://excusefree.com/blog/?p=593

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