Developmental Disabilities in the News: Ruling Could Impact Those ...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A ruling by a federal District Court judge could have statewide
implications for North Carolina residents affected by developmental disabilities.
Judge Louise Flanagan said Thursday that a managed-care organization, Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare (PBH), did not properly alert about 700 residents about significant changes to the services they would receive.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services was listed as a defendant because it oversees PBH and other managed-care organizations.

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Seann William Scott Happy To Play 'Three Dimensional Character' In 'Goon'

Seann William Scott knows what type of character he usually plays. He broke out thanks to the antics of a fast-talking sex maniac, Steve Stifler from the "American Pie" movies, and ended up playing similar characters throughout his career. The Seann William Scott of "Goon," however, is an entirely different monster, a gentle one. Doug [...]

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In Post-Gaddafi Libya, Islamists Are Rising in Influence

Abdel Hakim al-Hassadi seems unperturbed by the fact that someone blew up his car last night. "I was at evening prayer in the mosque when it happened," he says. An unknown assailant threw a grenade under the car, sending it into flames. "I believe it was a message," he adds. "If they wanted to kill me -- they would do it in an open place." Then he offers his guests tea.

In post-Gaddafi Libya, where a weak, fledgling government means little security and a lot of uncertainty, life is still a little dicey. But to al-Hassadi, perhaps the most powerful man in the eastern Libyan city of Darnah, it's all part and parcel of moving forward, past the era of dictatorship and into something freer, and hopefully better. "After decades of destruction, it's impossible to change in a few hours or even a few years," he says. "But now we are free. Even the land has changed -- it's growing new grass again."

Al-Hassadi, 46, was the commander of the Abu Slim Martyrs Brigade, which fought on the eastern front line against forces loyal to the late Muammar Gaddafi during Libya's war last year. It was Darnah's biggest brigade, and al-Hassadi says that most of the local fighters still view him as their leader.

(VIDEO: Libya to Citizens: Give Up Your Guns)

But al-Hassadi also gets a significant chunk of his street credit from the fact that he fought in Afghanistan, on the side of the Taliban, from 1997 to 2002. "I was fighting against the Northern Alliance and Karzai," he says, before adding quickly: "I didn't fight the Americans."

In the new Libya, new types of characters are emerging from the ashes of Gaddafi's decades-long repression to take the reins in a new, yet-to-be-determined kind of society. And in some cases, old stereotypes and predictions seem to be holding true. Liberal elites from the country's larger cities of Tripoli and Benghazi have long cracked jokes about Darnah's repute as a hotbed of extremism. And Salem el-Naas, a manager at the town's only luxury hotel, the Darna Pearl Hotel, laughs heartily when asked whether any tourists ever come to the sun-drenched city on the sea. "Tourists or terrorists?" he chuckles before regaining his composure. "Not yet," he adds more seriously. "But we hope."

Suffice it to say that despite its rolling hillsides of tamarind trees and sleepy, whitewashed apartments, Darnah has a bad rep -- one that al-Hassadi embodies perfectly. When Gaddafi's heir apparent, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, warned at the start of the uprising last year that the east wanted to break off and form an Islamic emirate, most people assumed he was talking about Darnah. The town's residents boast that they sent more men to fight in the insurgency during the Iraq war than any other city in Libya. (Recently, several dozen people held a protest to demand that their captured relatives in Iraq be returned.) And a wall along the azure Mediterranean coast has been graffitied with warm and tolerant slogans like "Yes to Pluralism. No to Extremism" and "No to Qaeda" -- but the words "No to" have been crossed out.

(PHOTOS: Return to Libya: Reflections on a Photographer's Personal Conflict)

The fact that Darnah's most powerful man in the post-Gaddafi era happens to be a former associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the assassinated leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, doesn't do a whole lot to void the stereotype. And it makes some of the country's liberals downright nervous. "I met Zawahiri and Zarqawi. But Sheik Osama [bin Laden] -- well, I was in the same house, but I never met him," al-Hassadi recalls as one of his young sons plays nearby in an Afghan-style pakul hat.

Indeed, al-Hassadi is the kind of community leader and fighter who, in unluckier circumstances 10 years ago, might have wound up at the U.S. prison camp at Guant?namo Bay. But these are different times. The Islamists whom Gaddafi worked hard to keep under lock or underground are among the key architects of a new Libya -- another, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, whom al-Hassadi says he admires and whom the CIA and MI6 allegedly helped extradite to Libya for torture by Gaddafi's regime, is one of the most powerful military leaders in Tripoli. And al-Hassadi will tell you that's not as bad as it might sound. "The West thinks that everyone who has gone to Afghanistan is a terrorist," he says, looking sharply at me: "Have you ever been to Afghanistan?"

What matters now, he says, is that he and the other prominent religious and revolutionary leaders of Darnah are trying to restore stability. "We're trying to build a police service here," he says. And indeed, the residents there say their town is one of the safest in eastern Libya. And after decades of neglect under Gaddafi, they're seeing a revolving procession of top government figures. "In the last two weeks, all the government ministers were here -- even [head of the NTC] Mustafa Abdel-Jalil," says el-Naas at the Darna Pearl Hotel. "They have to visit Darnah because Gaddafi and his family didn't like it, so the new government has to come here to have a better view of the city. They have to correct the old governmental view."

(PHOTOS: Libya Celebrates Liberation)

In streets lined by palms, school is back in session and uniformed boys and girls flock from sidewalks into courtyards. Teachers say they're following a new curriculum. But for all of Darnah's religiosity, the religious-studies portion hasn't changed, only the subject of history, which used to include Gaddafi's propaganda-rich study of the Jamahiriya (his contortion of the Arabic word for republic), says Ruqaya al-Azraiq, an administrator at a girls' secondary school in the town.

To some extent, al-Hassadi concedes, it's true what the outsiders say, that Darnah is a religious place. "People here are very concerned with religion and the Arab world," he says -- that's what drove many of its young men to join the insurgency in Iraq to fight the "injustice" wrought by the Americans, he says. Those who have returned home do want a Libya that is governed by Islamic law, he says. But he argues that some people misunderstand what that means. "Islam is built on values like public service, mercy, freedom of expression and human rights. There is no law in the world that can protect the rights of women and human beings like Islam," he says. "But there have been some mistakes that have given the West the wrong idea."

Darnah marked the heartland of Libya's first armed uprising against Gaddafi in the 1980s and '90s, says Mansour Kikhia, a population geographer at Benghazi University. And Gaddafi's neglect of the area had only served to feed the flames of extremism and revolt, he adds, which in turn spurred a harsher crackdown. "That's what made some of Darnah's youth grow sympathetic towards [the Islamists]," he says. In the end, fear of Darnah's reputation for extremism became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(VIDEO: Why They Protest: Egypt, Libya and Syria)

Al-Hassadi says he went to Afghanistan initially because he, like many other Islamists living under North Africa's dictatorships at the time, was fleeing state repression. "We went to Sudan, to Syria, to Egypt. But they followed us everywhere. Europe was impossible to get into. So you had to go to Afghanistan. It was controlled by the Taliban, so it was the safest place for us."

Al-Hassadi won't say whether he wants to see a Taliban-styled regime in Libya -- exactly what liberals in Tripoli and Benghazi say they fear as they watch the rise of figures like him. But he also says it's too soon to know what Libya's future government will look like. "I'm not for or against the Taliban. Our religion is one of forgiveness and one that gives people their rights. Anyone who steals is punished, and he who kills gets killed -- this is what Islam teaches, and even that [value] is something they teach in America." He smiles.

It's almost time for the noon prayer, and as we are to leave a living room adorned with vases of fake flowers and silver tea trays, al-Hassadi apologizes for not shaking my hand (it's not appropriate). Then he jokes: if we lose his phone number and need to contact him in the future, we can always get it from the CIA. "Italian intelligence, the CIA -- everyone is still watching us," he says with a grin and then shrugs indifferently. They probably are.

MORE: Why Libya Is Becoming More Dangerous After Gaddafi's Fall

View this article on Time.com

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/post-gaddafi-libya-islamists-rising-influence-091000197.html

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Vonne Monai's Beauty, Health & Fitness Guide: BILLY JOEL James

When my mother abandoned me (leaving with her live in boyfriend, Rob),?she left me to care for my retarded half sister?Valerie in?1978.?
Our mother would get Val an apt. (New Brighton) across the hall from she and Rob, and I was left to fend for myself and went to live with my Aunt Johnnye Mae James (Ct).
She would later drive off her boyfriend after cutting him up and threatening him not to tell on her to the people he sought medical attention from.
Val told me she was tired of saving him from her and that she went next door one day and our mother cut him on his head so badly that blood squirted out of it.
One day he didn't return home from work and she tried to get him to return, but he wouldn't.
She was angry at him because he would not sell his house and give her the money from the sale or the rent he collected from his tenants.
She must have had a liking for this particular type of knifing because I recall a time (1971) when she was torturing me and she chopped the top of my head with the knife she just used to scratch up the new guitar she had just given me.
I knew she was indicating to me that she would cut me up like she had the guitar.
She had carved arrows onto the neck of it because she said I would know which direction to turn the pegs to tune it. Which doesn't make sense because to tune it I may have to turn the pegs in either direction and did not need arrows at all.
It was a threat to my life and after she was finished I asked Vikki to check my head to see if I were bleeding.
Oddly enough, I started pulling my hair out in that very spot for about a year.
When people would see the guitar scratched up and ask about it she would lie and say that I had done it and I refuted it, which she did not like.
It was to to keep me from graduating from Port Richmond High School where i had completed a course on The Humanities for college credits.
I was also in the Who' Who of American High School students.
My mother hated my intellect and accused me of being an Intellectual.
She boasted of being a Liberal.
I wound up quitting Hartford High School and my Aunt Johnnye Mae was a best about it and didn't understand that I was not used to the conditions I had to endure in this new school.
My first cousin Lorraine James played this record for me in 1978 and told me that Billy Joel and her oldest brother Larry Jameswere friends (he's a victim and perpetrator too). She said this song is about him.
I don't know if I believe her and because of Larry's violent attacks against me when I was 12 ( in front of my two half sisters and Lorraine who did not come to my aid) I never asked him about it.
Larry was a gifted saxophonist, but attended Medical School at Howard University and was somehow involved in the drugs being smuggled into the country in the coffins of Vietnam Veterans.

Source: http://vonnemonai.blogspot.com/2012/03/billy-joel-james.html

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Successful Internet Marketing Includes Both Email Marketing & Social

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Successful Internet Marketing Includes Both Email Marketing & Social Media ? March 30, 2012 By Rod Moore Leave a Comment · Advertise On Profit Minute Site. Small Business Online Marketing Use To Increase In 2012, AT&T Poll Says ...

Source: http://profitminute.com/small-business-marketing/successful-internet-marketing-includes-both-email-marketing-social-media/

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French nuclear physicist on terror trial

PARIS (AP) ? A former nuclear physicist went on trial in Paris on Thursday on accusations of plotting attacks with the North African wing of Al-Qaida. But his defenders say he only sent some angry emails and fear he may be unfairly linked with a gunman who recently sowed terror in southern France.

Adlene Hicheur, who used to work at Europe's most prestigious particle accelerator, has been in prison for two and a half years awaiting trial. Now that the trial has started, his allies worry the timing couldn't be worse: it comes days after France's biggest terror attacks in years.

Earlier this month, in an apparently unrelated case, police say another young man of Algerian descent, Mohamed Merah, killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in the cities of Toulouse and Montauban and claimed ties to al-Qaida. Merah, 23, was later killed in a shootout with police.

The rampage has shaken the French national psyche, and left Hicheur's lawyers eager to differentiate the two cases.

"I think that there should be no confusion between Mohamed Merah and Adlene Hicheur," said Hicheur's attorney Patrick Baudouin, who described Merah as a "crazy, dangerous criminal," with an arsenal of weapons and who said he received arms training in Pakistan.

"For Adlene Hicheur, there is nothing like that. He has a family, friends, working colleagues, a stable entourage. He has never been in Afghanistan nor in any other such country," he said.

Hicheur, 35, never took a single step toward carrying out a terrorist act, his defenders say. Rather, the accusations against him are based on "some comments via the Internet with somebody he absolutely didn't know, some comments which admittedly are criticizable, which admittedly can seem worrying to some extent, but which were comments that didn't go any further and remained just words," Baudouin said.

Hicheur's brother Halim lamented that after the killings in and around Toulouse in recent weeks, "Some people wanted to raise the specter of the terrorism threat by the Algerian, Muslim nuclear physicist, etc. All the key words you can name."

The Merah case has stirred up such a national fervor that re-election-minded President Nicolas Sarkozy has floated a proposal to make it a crime to repeatedly visit jihadist websites ? in part because French counterrorism officials fear "lone wolf" attacks by militants who self-radicalize online.

And Hicheur's case is all about the Internet.

While laid up with a herniated disk in 2009, Hicheur railed in various e-mails about the need to punish Western governments for the allegedly anti-Muslim wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an order sending the case to trial.

Once a nuclear physicist at Switzerland's celebrated CERN laboratory, he stands accused of conferring with an alleged al-Qaida contact about possible assassination or bombing plots. But his defenders say it was all talk, no action. Hicheur faces charges of "criminal association with a view to plotting terrorist attacks."

His advocates allege the Algerian-born scientist fits French authorities' "profile" for the homegrown terrorist they most worry about: Muslim, young, angry at the West, well-educated, Internet-savvy, and self-radicalized.

Hicheur is very well-educated, integrated into French society and never took any steps to gather weapons, his supporters say. But the threat that he posed seemed even more potent because of his access to a potential security hazard ? the CERN lab. He had no police record.

Merah, by contrast, struggled in school, ran with an ultraconservative Muslim crowd, and amassed a small arsenal. He claimed he stole to drum up money to buy weapons.

Hicheur was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on Oct. 8, 2009, at his parents' home in southeastern France, hours before he was to take a flight to Algeria to work on a real estate purchase, Baudouin said.

Baudouin said French investigators pored over about 35 emails between Hicheur and an alleged contact with Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Some cited possible targets, including a French military barracks in the Alps.

Investigators say Hicheur, under police questioning, admitted that he believed a contact he had in the email correspondence ? a man in Algeria named Mustapha Debchi ? was part of AQIM. A police search of Hicheur's computer also turned up a file folder titled "tempo AQMI" ? for the group's French language acronym.

Debchi allegedly sought to persuade Hicheur to carry out a suicide bombing ? which he refused, responding that it was against Islam, and that he had no intention of dying prematurely, the court documents showed.

CERN adheres to the principle of innocence until guilt is proven and looks forward to Hicheur receiving a fair trail, research facility spokesman James Gillies said Wednesday.

Hicheur was on contract with CERN from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. A postdoctoral researcher, his contract with CERN expired at the end of March 2010, a few months after his arrest, according to institute spokesman Michael David Mitchell.

Hicheur is the only person to face trial in the case.

"I hope today that we'll have a trial that separates the context of the killings in Toulouse and Montauban, (and) that the case of Adlene Hicheur is judged individually," Hicheur's lawyer Baudouin said. "Hicheur mustn't be a scapegoat for a case he has nothing to do with."

___

Catherine Gaschka in Paris and John Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/french-nuclear-physicist-terror-trial-144704536.html

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Proper Protection Against Lawsuit | Job Resource Center

General liability policies give coverage for certain obligations, just like bodily injury. When companies and people are lawfully responsible, however, they are frequently open to many further obligations. Litigation insurance coverage protection is a broad term for the risk control of these obligations. The most common type of such protection is professional liability insurance plan.

Why You Need Professional Liability Insurance plan

Such coverage fills the space between what a policy covers as well as what we?re probably be liable for in the event of an injury or recklessness. In each line of work, specialists are open to cases where they are accountable for injuries. Oftentimes, these situations entail no ill will or direct negligence.

Consider a ordinary scene of a financial advisor with a client suing for harms because apparently unsound advice led to major financial loss. If the financial advisor loses the suit, a general insurance plan would not insure this sort of loss. Professional liability insurance coverage particularly designed to financial consultants, however, would, at least up to the insurance plan maximum.

What is Umbrella Protection?

Business umbrella protection is professional liability insurance policy which provides a general insurance plan with supplementary protection for suits, legal fees and even settlements. Umbrella protection usually involves any type of business liability protection. In other words, a business doesn?t even need to be aware that it?s most likely liable for something. When it occurs, the umbrella insurance policy functions as catch-all.

What is Workers? Insurance?

Workers? insurance is a very specific type of professional liability insurance. The most typical form of worker claim is workers? settlement, which generally takes place because the worker was hurt on the job. This can be a damaging liability for small enterprises because they should pay the damaged worker plus they have to pay off his replacement. This coverage deals with that danger, and in the event it does occur, the insurance policy covers salary and any other advantages owed to the worker.

Business vs. Professional Liability Insurance

The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Often, the term business is used to indicate insurance plans that cover situations where just the business could be liable. The term professional is used to point out insurance policies which cover instances where both business and the person are responsible.

How Much Does Professional Liability Insurance policy Cost?

Cost depends on a wide range of reasons, and it can be quite complicated. This can make it quite hard on the new self-employed person in search of professional liability price information. The first thing to consider is the amount of insurance protection needed, and for numerous fields, this isn?t obvious and requires professional suggestions. The amount of protection will instantly identify the amount of the premiums.

It is sometimes a good idea to figure out required insurance protection through a third party. Once that information is known, the client can use it to shop around the various insurance companies. The Internet has made this a much easier proposition. Using insurance brokers or networks, a person can attach the info in a single time and receive quotes from a wide range of insurance companies in return.

Ria Siaton has long been in the business industry for years and has learned how uncertain businesses are. Because of this, she has seen the desire to express her skills about professional liability insurance and professional liability rates in order to supply advice to professionals out there.

Source: http://blog.job-interview-questions-and-answers.net/585/proper-protection-against-lawsuit/

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Arab summit to back Annan's Syria plan: Iraq minister

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arab-summit-back-annans-syria-plan-iraq-minister-185432489.html

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JMP&A Promotes Nick Palatiello to Vice President of External Affairs ...

You are here: Home / 2011 / JMP&A Promotes Nick Palatiello to Vice President of External Affairs

Reston, Va., March 26, 2012?John M. Palatiello & Associates, Inc. (JMP&A), the association management firm for MAPPS, has promoted Nick Palatiello from Marketing Communications Manager to Vice President for External Affairs. In this new role Nick will oversee the development and implementation of strategies and lead efforts to promote membership of private sector geospatial in MAPPS. He will oversee and manage the day-to-day operations of MAPPS state chapters inPennsylvaniaandColoradoand assist the Executive Director in the development of new chapters. He will serve as Assistant Executive Director for External Affairs in MAPPS.???This promotion will position Nick to expand the communications activities of MAPPS, with our current members, prospective new members, and other targeted audiences with which MAPPS enjoys partner and stakeholder relationships,? said John M. Palatiello, President of John M. Palatiello & Associates and MAPPS Executive Director. ?He brings a valuable combination of enthusiasm and knowledge of messaging and branding that will help grow our organization and those we are honored to manage.???As marketing and communications manager Palatiello developed new initiatives to engage the geospatial community, including the integration of social media tools into web-based marketing, developed a robust network with the geospatial media and guided MAPPS internal and external communications efforts. He has been the liaison the PA-MAPPS, the first state chapter of MAPPS, since the founding in 2007.?Prior to joining JMP&A, Nick served as the athletic marketing and promotions assistant atWoffordCollegeinSpartanburg,South Carolina. In that position, he worked with corporate sponsors, alumni and students in event marketing and management. A 2006 graduate ofElonUniversityinElon,North Carolina, he received his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in communications with an emphasis in corporate communications and minored in political science. He is a member of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).

About MAPPS

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is the only national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in theUnited States. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including Member Firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LIDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing,GPS, andGISdata collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes Associate Member Firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in theUnited Statesand other firms from around the world. Independent Consultant Members are sole proprietors engaged in consulting in or to the geospatial profession, or provides a consulting service of interest to the geospatial profession.

MAPPS provides its 160+ member firms opportunities for networking and developing business-to-business relationships, information sharing, education, public policy advocacy, market growth, and professional development and image enhancement.

For more information on MAPPS, please visit www.MAPPS.org.

About JMP&A?

John M. Palatiello & Associates, Inc. (JMP&A) is a public affairs consulting firm based in theWashington,D.C.area.

Formed in 1987, JMP&A has provided public relations, association management, strategic planning, and management and marketing consulting services to private firms, associations, and government agencies with an emphasis on the architecture and engineering; geospatial, mapping andGIS; information technology; construction; transportation and infrastructure sectors.

Our team of professionals has more than 30 years of combined experience in government relations, government contracting and association management. We have worked with small firms of less than five employees to Fortune 500 corporations.

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Source: http://eijournal.com/2011/jmpa-promotes-nick-palatiello-to-vice-president-of-external-affairs

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Activists: Latest attacks by Syrian troops kill 10

BEIRUT (AP) ? An activist group says Syrian security forces have killed 10 people as the regime pushes to retake areas still under rebel control.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says four people died in Tuesday's attacks in the northwestern Idlib province. The government recently recaptured the provincial capital, also called Idlib, after it was under rebel control for months.

The Observatory also says six people were killed Tuesday in the Damascus suburbs of Zabadani and Douma, the central city of Homs and in the eastern region of Deir el-Zour.

Syria's uprising has become increasingly militarized, with many in the opposition taking up arms in self-defense or to fight the government.

The U.N. says more than 8,000 people have been killed in the yearlong conflict.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian forces fired shells at a central city that has come to symbolize the anti-government uprising Monday, activists said, while the country's Muslim Brotherhood branch said it would work for a democratic state if President Bashar Assad falls.

The announcement by the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was an appeal by the Sunni Muslim group to minorities who fear for their place in a post-Assad Syria.

Since the uprising started last March with protests calling for political reform, it has stoked tensions among Syria's varied religious and ethnic groups.

Many in the opposition are from the country's Sunni majority. Religious minorities ? Christians, Shiites and Alawites, who include Assad ? have largely stuck by the regime, fearing new rulers could threaten their communities.

Speaking to reporters in Turkey, Brotherhood official Ali Bayanouni said the group would not monopolize power.

"The regime now is accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to control Syria alone and of having aims of being the only rulers of Syria in the future," he said Sunday. "We are here today to reassure everyone that we will cooperate with all the other partners in the Syrian opposition to build a new Syria, a free Syria, a democratic Syria, and we will not attempt to the be the only ruling party in Syria."

The group issued a 10-point statement on the future of Syria, calling for a modern, democratic state with equality among all citizens and respect for human rights.

The reassurance came after Islamist parties catapulted to power in Tunisia and Egypt in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings, feeding concerns about religious and secular freedom there.

The movement has had no strong presence inside Syria since 1982, when Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, ordered the military to quell a Brotherhood rebellion in the central city of Hama, sealing off the city in an assault that killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people.

Membership in the group inside Syria is punishable by death, but the group has remained active outside Syria's borders.

Syria's uprising has become increasingly militarized, with many in the opposition arming themselves in self-defense or to attack government troops. The U.N. says more than 8,000 people have been killed in the yearlong conflict.

The U.S., Europe and many Arab countries have condemned violent crackdowns by Assad's security forces and called for him to resign.

International envoy Kofi Annan said Monday that there can be no deadline for ending the Syria crisis, but it can't be allowed to drag on indefinitely.

Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, spoke in Moscow after meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

"I told the parties on the ground: they can't resist the transformational winds that are blowing," he said. "They have to accept that reforms have to come, change has to come, and that is the only way to deal with the situation."

While the U.N. is not discussing military intervention, Annan said it could send teams to monitor an eventual cease-fire.

Moscow supports Annan's mission, but Russia and China have protected Syria from condemnation by the U.N. Security Council.

Turkey, which once had strong ties to Damascus, has now become a tough critic, even allowing opposition groups to organize on its soil.

A Foreign Ministry official said Monday that Turkey was closing its embassy in Damascus because of security concerns. The Turkish ambassador and other diplomats will return to Turkey, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Turkey's consulate in the northern city of Aleppo will remain open, according to a statement posted on the embassy's website late Sunday.

Norway also said Monday it was closing its embassy.

Other countries, including the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have already closed their embassies.

The situation in Syria is set to be a primary topic at an Arab League summit opening in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters Monday he believes Arab leaders will agree on a "doable" solution to end the conflict in Syria in line with Arab League proposals.

"It's not up to other countries to dictate to the Syrians what kind of leaders they have or don't have," he said. "I don't think there will be a call on Bashar to step aside."

A previous effort to stop the violence by sending Arab monitors failed to stop the violence, and opposition leaders accused the Assad regime of using the mission as a stalling tactic.

Syria, whose Arab League membership has been suspended, will not attend the summit.

Assad's forces kept up offensives against opposition areas on Monday, but they faced resistance from armed rebels in some places. Activists said regime forces shelled parts of the central city of Homs and carried out arrests raids elsewhere.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine civilians were killed in Homs out of the day's total death toll of 19. Two of the dead appeared to have been tortured, it said. Both were recently arrested in the southern province of Daraa.

Two rebels were killed in clashes with goverment soldiers, 11 of whom were killed in rebel attacks.

Another group gave much higher casualty figures. The Local Coordination Committees said 59 people were killed across Syria, 33 of them in Homs province. It said government forces appeared to be preparing to retake rebel-held parts of the country's third largest city.

The groups' numbers could not be independently verified.

The Syrian government blames the uprising on armed extremists backed by a foreign conspiracy and cites insurgent attacks to support its case.

The state news agency said on Monday that Syrian troops foiled an attempt by an "armed terrorist group" to sneak into the country from Turkey. It said the troops killed and wounded some of the attackers and seized their weapons.

It also said an armed group blew up a pipeline used to transport gasoline between the central cities of Homs and Hama. The Syrian Oil Ministry is working to repair the pipe, it said.

___

Associated Press writers Lara Jakes in Baghdad and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed reporting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-latest-attacks-syrian-troops-kill-10-091446966.html

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Sub reaches Earth's deepest place

25 March 2012 Last updated at 22:26 ET By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News, Guam

Before he set off for the Mariana trench, James Cameron told the BBC's Rebecca Morelle why he was risking it all to make the dive

Hollywood director James Cameron has returned to the surface after plunging nearly 11km (seven miles) down to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.

He made the solo descent in a submarine called "Deepsea Challenger", taking over two hours to reach the bottom.

He spent more than three hours exploring the ocean floor, before a speedy ascent back to the surface.

His craft was kitted out with cameras and lights so he could film the deep.

This is only the second manned expedition to the ocean's deepest depths - the first took place in 1960.

The earlier descent was made by US Navy Lt Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard.

They spent about 20 minutes on the ocean floor but their landing kicked up silt, meaning their view was obscured.

Before the dive, the Titanic director told the BBC, that making the descent was "the fulfilment of a dream".

He said: "I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction at a time when people were living a science fiction reality.

"People were going to the Moon, and Cousteau was exploring the ocean. And that's what I grew up with, what I valued from my childhood."

Deep ambition

Cameron's last words before his descent were: "Release, release, release."

The Deepsea Challenger was made in Australia.

Cameron spent the last few years working in secret with his team of engineers to design and build the craft, which weighs 11 tonnes and is more than 7m (23ft) long.

He describes it as a "vertical torpedo" that slices through the water allowing him a speedy descent.

The tiny compartment that the filmmaker sits in is made from thick steel, which is able to resist the 1,000 atmosphere of pressure he will experience at full ocean depth.

Rebecca Morelle: "It really is a risky operation". Pictures courtesy of National Geographic.

The rest of the vertical column is made from syntactic foam, giving it enough buoyancy to float back up.

The sub has so many lights and cameras that it is like an underwater TV studio - with Mr Cameron able to direct and film the action from within. He intends to release a documentary.

It also has robotic arms, allowing him to collect samples of rocks and soils, and a team of researchers are working alongside the director to identify any new species. He says that science is key to his mission.

If successful, Mr Cameron's multi-million-dollar expedition, which has been financed by the filmmaker himself, Rolex and National Geographic, is the first manned effort to the deep for half a Century.

In 1960, Don Walsh, a former US navy lieutenant, and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard made the first historic dive in a bathyscaphe called the Trieste.

Don Walsh, who is now in his 80s, joined Mr Cameron and his team of engineers out at sea for the dive.

He said that getting to the deepest ocean was not so much a feat of engineering more one of imagination.

Before the dive, he told the BBC: "He (James Cameron) is a storyteller, and going back after 50 years is a great story.

"I thought it was a made-in-heaven match: his interest as a storyteller, his competence as an engineer, he has access to resources, sponsors and such, and made this all come together.

"It probably couldn't have been easily done by any combination. It's like the stars were in alignment, it all worked out."

Scientific riches

While manned exploration had until now seen a 52-year hiatus, scientists have used two robotic unmanned vehicles to explore the Mariana Trenches: Japan's Kaiko made a dive there in 1995 and the US-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's vessel Nereus explored the deep in 2008.

Other teams, such as Scotland's Oceanlab, have also been dropping simple landers loaded with bait and cameras into the deepest ocean.

While places like the Mariana Trench were once thought to be of little interest, there has been a recent resurgence of scientific interest in the deep.

Scientists are finding life that can resist the colossal pressures, from deep sea fish to shrimp-like scavengers called amphipods, some of which can reach 30cm long (1ft).

They are also trying to understand the role that deep seas trenches play in earthquakes - these cracks in the sea floor are formed at the boundary of two tectonic plates and some believe the push and pull taking place deep underwater could be the cause of major earthquakes, such as the 2011 quake that resulted in such devastation in Japan.

Opening up oceans

James Cameron says he does not want this dive to the deep to be a one-off, and wants to use it as a platform for ocean exploration.

Engineer David Wotherspoon explains how Deepsea Challenger works

His craft may also soon be joined by other manned submersibles vying to reach the ocean's deepest depths.

One of these crafts, the DeepFlight Challenger, belongs to former real estate investor Chris Welsh, and is backed by Virgin's Richard Branson. It is about to begin its water trials.

Its design is based on a plane, and Mr Welsh says he will be "flying" down to the deepest ocean.

Google's Eric Schmidt has helped to finance another sub being built by a US marine technology company called Doer Marine. They want this sub to carry two to three people, and are placing a heavy emphasis on science.

And Triton submarines, a Florida-based submersible company, intends to build a sub with a giant glass sphere at its centrepiece to take tourists down to the deepest ocean for $250,000 a ticket.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-17503395

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Motorola CommandOne Bluetooth Headset ? Motorola Premium ...

Part of the Elite Series, CommandOne(TM) the new MotoSpeak application reads texts into your headset, and you can dicatate a reply with your voice. Listen to streaming music, video, games and navigation through your headset. CrystalTalk dual mic noise cancellation allows you to hear and be heard. Keep your hands free and your calls clear with the CommandOne Bluetooth headset from Motorola?s Elite Series. With an enhanced version of MotoSpeak, CommandOne provides the ultimate hands-free experience to answer your calls and text messages directly from the headset, keeping your hands available for the rest of your busy life. See larger image. The Motorola CommandOne with integrated speech-to-text technology (see larger image). ? See larger image. Key Features CrystalTalk Dual Microphone Technology dramatically reduces everyday background noise and provides amazing audio on both sides of the call. Hear texts and dictate replies with MotoSpeak 2.0 (requires a smartphone with Android

Product Features:

• Bluetooth headset with dual microphone technology for reducing background noise
• Listen and dictate text messages with MotoSpeak application (requires Android 2.2 smartphone)
• Listen to music and navigation with embedded A2DP Bluetooth profile
• Advanced MultiPoint for taking calls from 2 phones; voice controls
• Up to 5 hours of talk time, up to 168 hours (7 days) of standby time

Product Reviews:

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Web Developer and SEO Specialist with 7+ years of experience in open source web development. He is also the moderator of this blog (www.rswebsols.com)

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The Many Benefits of Internet Marketing ? Online Casino

Internet marketing can be either the simplest or one of the hardest ways to make money. People who pick a certain business model and keep working at it usually reach their goals. But if you jump from one marketing technique to another without actually working on it, then you?ll obviously face losses. So if you want to be a smart marketer, then you?ll have to focus on getting results, without worrying about the small things. What follows are some of the best reasons why internet marketing is such a powerful business model. Do not feel alone if you are experiencing doubts and feeling like your new business endeavor is way too much for you. IM business owners and marketers who have successfully taken advantage of http://www.mybinaryscode.com and who have been around the block a few times realize the truth in that statement. But that is why people with the financial means choose the outsourcing route.

There is no reason why you should hastily dismiss anything of possible value to your business. Nothing beats having a solid grasp on the details of outsourcing or anything else prior to using it. We make that cautionary statement only because it will pay to be smart before you even start looking for hired help.

A simple advantage of getting into Internet marketing is that you get to keep your earnings, rather than sharing it with someone. You are allowed a crazy level of control when you market products online. When you work in a ?normal? job you live on pretty much a ?fixed? income and don?t have a lot of control over that. However, when you start off with your own Internet marketing business you?ll realize that with the same amount of hard work, you?ll be earning a lot more. With a 9-5 job, you aren?t doing anything for yourself; instead you are simply letting someone else build a business off of your hard work. When you work in internet marketing, on the other hand, you get to be the boss of your day and make the orders for yourself. There is absolutely no business that comes close to Internet marketing in terms of flexibility that it offers. It can help you reach financial independence and help you learn to be responsible for yourself and your actions. You only answer to yourself, a fact that keeps most internet marketers highly motivated.

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If you are really new, then you have to know the importance of performing background research on any method that you are not familiar with. We know how it feels to be alone and working on this stuff, and so it can feel bewildering at times trying to figure out if something is for real. The thing about this is it is totally understandable for beginners to IM to have this kind of unfortunate luck. It can be frustrating for everybody, but for different reasons, because there are different situations and people can complain about a strategy that is actually good. There are certain behaviors and qualities you need to acquire, and this is definitely one of them.

When you are an Internet marketer it is easy to form new partnerships and take on joint ventures as long as your own products are good. Successful online marketers know how important good partnerships can be. Online marketing has made it a lot easier for the average internet marketer to enjoy growth from partnerships with other businesses. A good example of this is when you want to market a weight loss e-book online you can contact newsletter publishers in the weight loss niche. This would allow you to reach out to your target audience without having to pay anything upfront.

In conclusion, the advantages that we talked about in this article are just a tip of the ice berg. The real fun starts when you actually get into it and understand what it is all about. Perhaps right now you are reeling with the thought that there is more to learn and even more that we did not cover. All right, you have just read about these three approaches used with Wealthy Affiliate, but get ready because there is so much that was left out. Not everything you read will be directly applicable to your business, but it is still a great thing to learn new stuff just because you never know.

But we would always caution that you do not fall into the habit of using your research and learning as a crutch.

Do not forget that you are here for a reason, and that is to take all that information and put it to good use. Start thinking in terms of activities that help you earn or generate profits.

Source: http://www.bstech.edu.pl/casino-online/2012/03/25/the-many-benefits-of-internet-marketing/

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Afghan father tries to cope with shooting rampage

Afghan villagers pray over the grave of one of the sixteen victims killed in a shooting rampage in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, March 24, 2012. Mohammad Wazir has trouble even drinking water now, because it reminds him of the last time he saw his seven-year-old daughter. He had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter insisted on fetching it. Now his daughter Masooma is dead, killed along with 10 other members of his family in a shooting rampage attributed to a U.S. soldier. The soldier faces the death penalty but Wazir and his neighbors say they feel irreparably broken. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

Afghan villagers pray over the grave of one of the sixteen victims killed in a shooting rampage in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, March 24, 2012. Mohammad Wazir has trouble even drinking water now, because it reminds him of the last time he saw his seven-year-old daughter. He had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter insisted on fetching it. Now his daughter Masooma is dead, killed along with 10 other members of his family in a shooting rampage attributed to a U.S. soldier. The soldier faces the death penalty but Wazir and his neighbors say they feel irreparably broken. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

An Afghan boy prays over the grave of one of the sixteen victims killed in a shooting rampage in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, March 24, 2012. Mohammad Wazir has trouble even drinking water now, because it reminds him of the last time he saw his seven-year-old daughter. He had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter insisted on fetching it. Now his daughter Masooma is dead, killed along with 10 other members of his family in a shooting rampage attributed to a U.S. soldier. The soldier faces the death penalty but Wazir and his neighbors say they feel irreparably broken. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

In this Friday, March 16, 2012 photo, Mohammad Wazir, who lost eleven family members in a shooting rampage on Sunday, March 11, 2012 in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, is seen after a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, unseen, at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Wazir has trouble even drinking water now, because it reminds him of the last time he saw his seven-year-old daughter. He had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter insisted on fetching it. Now his daughter Masooma is dead, killed along with 10 other members of his family in a shooting rampage attributed to a U.S. soldier. The soldier faces the death penalty but Wazir and his neighbors say they feel irreparably broken. (AP Photo/Ahmad Jamshid)

FILE - In this Friday, March 16, 2012 file photo, Mohammad Wazir, second right, who lost eleven family members in a shooting rampage on Sunday, March 11, 2012 in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Wazir has trouble even drinking water now, because it reminds him of the last time he saw his seven-year-old daughter. He had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter insisted on fetching it. Now his daughter Masooma is dead, killed along with 10 other members of his family in a shooting rampage attributed to a U.S. soldier. The soldier faces the death penalty but Wazir and his neighbors say they feel irreparably broken. (AP Photo/Ahmad Jamshid, File)

HARMARA, Afghanistan (AP) ? Mohammad Wazir can barely take a sip of water because it reminds him of his 7-year-old daughter, who brought him a glass three days before she was killed with 10 other loved ones in a shooting spree allegedly carried out by a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan.

Wazir said he had asked his wife for a drink but his daughter Masooma brought it instead.

"She said: 'Ask me, daddy. I can bring you water too,'" Wazir recalled. "She was the beauty of my house. She had black magical eyes."

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder and could face a possible death penalty if convicted. But that has done little to ease the pain of those left behind, who are demanding justice as they struggle to rebuild their shattered lives.

While no motive for the killings has been proffered, much of the discussion in the U.S. has focused on what could have caused the soldier to snap and whether the trauma of warfare and multiple deployments is at least partly to blame. Bales, himself a father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, has been confined at the U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Bales also was charged with six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault in the March 11 pre-dawn massacre in Balandi and Alkozai, two southern Afghanistan villages near his base in Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, the birthplace of the Taliban.

The maximum punishment for a premeditated murder conviction is death, dishonorable discharge from the armed forces, reduction to the lowest enlisted grade and total forfeiture of pay and allowances, according to Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The mandatory minimum sentence is life imprisonment with the chance of parole.

The charges offered few details of what happened that night. But the 38-year-old soldier is accused of walking off his base with his 9mm pistol and M-4 rifle, which was outfitted with a grenade launcher, killing four men, four women, two boys and seven girls and burning some of the bodies. The ages of the children were not disclosed.

In the most detailed descriptions of the shootings to date, the charges say Bales shot a young girl in the head, a young boy in the thigh, a man in the neck and a woman in the chest and groin. The documents also say that he "shot at" another girl and boy, but apparently did not hit them.

Afghan officials and villagers have counted 16 dead: 12 in Balandi and four in Alkozai. The U.S. military has charged Bales with 17 murders without explaining the discrepancy.

Wazir ? who also lost his wife, five other children ages 2 to 15, his mother, his brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew ? said he would travel to the U.S. for the trial if given the opportunity but the death penalty for just one man would not be enough. The only child he has left is his 4-year-old son Habib, who was with him in another town when the shootings occurred.

"They took everything from me," he said.

Wazir, who is in his mid-thirties and splits his time tending his grape fields and helping with a family electronics store, was not home in Balandi that night because he had taken his youngest son to the nearby border town of Spin Boldak to have dinner with his cousins. The area is dangerous so Wazir and his son spent the night. As they were getting ready to return home in the morning, Wazir got a phone call.

The caller said Wazir's house had been the target of a U.S. attack and some relatives had been injured, but didn't mention any dead. He rushed home to find hundreds of people gathered outside around some bodies that they were preparing take to Kandahar city for a funeral.

"I didn't know that all of them were members of my family," Wazir recounted as he sat in a friend's courtyard in the nearby market town of Harmara, where he is staying to avoid the ghosts waiting for him at home. As he spoke, he stared down at his hands, focusing on the knife tattoo on his right knuckles.

People tried to pull him into the crowd but he said he needed to check on his family first.

"Then one of my relatives hugged me and said, 'Nobody is there for you to talk to.'"

Still disbelieving, Wazir ran to his house and found the kitchen still filled with smoke, ashes and blood.

"I was crying and I said to my uncle, 'Tell me, is anyone in my family alive?' And my uncle said, 'It is God's will. Pull yourself together and come out.'"

Neighbors told him they had heard the gunshots but were too afraid to leave their homes. When the shooting stopped and they entered his house, they found corpses on fire. Wazir and his fellow villagers buried his family, then Wazir went to the Afghan capital, Kabul, to tell President Hamid Karzai his story.

Afghan officials have made payments to all the families as compensation for the deaths, but Wazir said he's looking for justice, and he's not sure that the Americans are really interested in finding out what happened.

He's suspicious, he explained, because U.S. forces said from the very beginning that only one shooter was involved, even though some accounts suggested multiple attackers. Wazir himself still thinks it is likely others were involved.

"It shows that they are not interested in the truth. At least they should wait for an investigation," Wazir said. "They claim that it is one person who did it, if that is the case they have to prove it."

Wazir says his two elder sons, 15-year-old Asmatullah and 9-year-old Faizullah, were both in school. Asmatullah was more responsible, but Faizullah was the clever one. He thought Faizulla might become a doctor some day.

Then he brought up his 2-year-old daughter, Palwasha, and his eyes brimmed over with tears.

"I can still feel her small hands on my face and feel her pulling my beard," Wazir said as he cried and shivered in the warm air. "Even when I saw her burned body, she still had that beautiful smile."

While Wazir lost the largest number of family members, other villagers also are dealing with the trauma two weeks after the deadly rampage.

Baran Akhon, whose brother Mohammad Dawood was also killed in Balandi, said he's not sure how he is going to support his brother's family. He has brought all of them to live with him in Kandahar city, but he barely makes enough selling cigarettes and other small items from his pushcart to support his own family.

Another man whose wife, cousin, brother and 3-year-old granddaughter were killed in the neighboring village of Alkozai said people there are too scared to sleep alone, so they cram as many people into one house as possible each night. Saeed Jan also complained that U.S. troops continue to patrol the area.

"There is still blood in our houses. It hasn't been removed. And they are moving through our streets again. It's like they are pushing us, just showing that they can," Jan said.

He also says monetary payouts will not suffice.

"Even millions of dollars would not be enough for my brother. First they should give us justice and punish all the people who did this," Akhon said.

___

Vogt reported from Kabul.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-03-24-AS-Afghan-Massacre-Aftermath/id-aa1e2715dcaa4ab9b8be1b14289cb1b0

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Oldest US natural history museum offers rare peek

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The Academy of Natural Sciences has never been one to brag.

Its 225,000 annual visitors may associate the nation's oldest natural history museum solely with dioramas and dinosaurs, but behind the scenes there is groundbreaking research conducted by world-renowned scientists and an enviable collection of some 18 million specimens representing all manner of animal, vegetable and mineral.

In celebration of its bicentennial this year, the museum has finally decided that it's OK to boast a little. For what's believed to be the first time in 200 years, curators will bring the public into the labyrinthine museum's normally off-limits nooks and crannies for daily tours.

"This is a rare opportunity to get a firsthand look at some of the most stunning, and sometimes bizarre, creatures you've ever seen," said Academy president and chief executive officer George Gephart Jr. "We can't wait to open our doors and show off nature's, and the Academy's, wondrous bounty."

The Academy will highlight a different part of its collection starting with minerals in April and ending with fossils in February 2013. Other months will focus on birds, fish, insects, mollusks, amphibians and reptiles, plants and mammals.

"We've done behind-the-scenes tours with school groups, and with donors and members, but not anything like this," said Ned Gilmore, an Academy collections manager.

Depending on the tour, visitors might see drawers filled with exotic colorful birds, cabinets holding polar bear skeletons, jars of preserved snakes, boxes of beautiful shells that when alive can kill a human, a wall of enormous elk skulls, a narwhal tusk and a mounted ? and extinct ? Caribbean Monk Seal.

An accompanying exhibition, "The Academy at 200: The Nature of Discovery," puts dozens of the academy's show-stopping treasures on public display ? many for the first time ? and highlights research that museum scientists are conducting worldwide on hot topics of climate change, biodiversity, water quality and invasive species.

The tours, exhibit and other events in the coming year aim to shift some focus from the museum's storied past to its present and future. As in the natural world, the axiom "adapt or die" applies to the Academy, which like many museums has struggled in the past decade with a shrinking endowment and greater competition for philanthropic dollars.

New initiatives include an affiliation forged last year with Drexel University for collaborative education and research efforts and a popular lecture series on environmental issues and policy. A five-year institutional plan to be completed by June will examine additional ways to keep the museum relevant entering its third century, said Sara Hertz, vice president for strategic initiatives.

Founded in 1812 by a group of naturalists seeking to advance a scholarly view of the world, the museum is like a library of life on earth with holdings of a mind-boggling size and scope. Thousands of birds, bugs, reptiles, fish, mollusks, fossils and plants are meticulously catalogued and stored in jars, shelves and cabinets. Its many historic collections include Thomas Jefferson's fossils, Lewis and Clark's plants, and bird skins from naturalist John James Audubon.

Alongside the preserved skins and skeletons of centuries past, Academy researchers are studying avian flu in Vietnam, testing streams in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale gas drilling region and examining oysters for environmental fallout of the Gulf oil spill. Others are developing pain medicine from cone snail toxin and examining whether biofuels can be developed from the wood-digesting enzymes of ship worms.

As species continue to become extinct, the images and specimens preserved in the Academy's collections will become even more crucial, said Doug Wechsler, head of the museum's Visual Resources for Ornithology (VIREO), the world's most comprehensive collection of bird photographs with 150,000 images and growing.

"There's enough here to keep us busy for a very long time," said malacology collections manager Paul Callomon.

The 20-minute guided tours start April 15 and continue every Thursday through Monday at 11 a.m. They are limited to a maximum of 10 people, ages 8 and up; more tours will be added when demand dictates. Tickets are $7.50 and can only be purchased at the museum on the day of the tour.

___

Online:

Academy of Natural Sciences: http://www.ansp.org

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oldest-us-natural-history-museum-offers-rare-peek-162619484.html

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10 stories from Frank Langella about his famous friends

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/vdvexm3-Ckg/10-stories-from-Frank-Langella-about-his-famous-friends

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BenQ W7000 Gaming Projector Review | The Art of Gaming: Video ...

Hi all!

I was able to sit down last week and test BenQ?s flagship projector, the W7000.? At ~$2500, it is a direct competitor to the Epson 5010.? I?m glad I was able to look at these two projectors soon enough after one another to make a proper comparison.? The W7000 projector throws a super bright and extremely sharp image and also includes features like 3D and frame interpolation.? Input lag has been a topic of concern with many of the newer projector models, read on to find out how this projector measures up in the game room!

If you didn?t already know, I do have a dedicated room for my setup.? This room also happens to be fairly small ~(11?x12?).?? My couch is flat against the opposite wall of my 100? screen and if you are facing the couch, my projector is rack mounted directly to the left, ~6ft off the ground.?? The Epson 5010 was able to match my 6500UB?s placement flexibility and did a top notch job filling my offset screen.? Many other projectors have a tougher time with this and require a bit more tweaking to accomplish this goal, if they are able to manage it at all.

If the Epson 5010 has ?great? placement flexibility, I would rate the BenQ W7000 at ?very good?.? It does include both vertical and horizontal lens shift, both the range and the zoom are not quite as expansive as the Epson 5010?s,but it still does a good job. ? From the same position that the Epson sat, it was a few inches short of reaching the far left side of my screen, and I was unable to make the image large enough to fill it completely.? I think another foot back would have done the trick.

I was really impressed by image quality of the Epson 5010, and I can say with confidence that I consider the W7000 to be a strong competitor.?? They are both great projectors, but there are some major differences between the two.

The BenQ W7000 is noticeably sharper than the Epson 5010. ? It is the sharpest projector I have reviewed so far and one of the sharpest projectors I have ever seen.? It made digital images really pop, which is great for games. ? The extra sharpness, however, can add a grainy look to movies.?? This is not something I necessarily consider to be bad, but it is definitely a matter of preference.? The graininess can be tamed a bit by adjusting sharpness settings.

The W7000 is impressively bright in it?s ?best? mode.? Fully calibrated, the W7000 was easily twice as bright as the Epson 5010.?? There is a tradeoff here though,? the Epson 5010 makes up for its dimmer image with deeper, darker blacks.? I?m a sucker for inky blacks, so my general image quality preference goes to the Epson.? However, the? W7000 had plenty of shadow detail and super bright image that boosted it?s ?wow? factor.

For some reason, enjoyed 3D gaming more on the W7000 than I did on the Epson 5010.? I would need them side by side to tell which was brighter in 3D mode, but I can tell you I thought the W7000 seemed to have a more accurate, cleaner 3D picture.? The Epson did well, but for 3D gaming I give the edge to the W7000.

The W7000?s CFI system also seemed to do a good job.? There were very minimal artifacts and I see it being used in slower paced games where input lag is not an issue.

The BenQ is a single-chip DLP projector, and in the past I have noticed rainbows in other single-chip DLP projectors like the GT750. I was not able to see them at all with the W7000.? I believe this to be a result of its faster color wheel.
Lastly, input lag!?? This time, I?m happy to report that the BenQ W7000 measures a respectable ~35ms. ? For video games at 60Hz refresh rate, this means you are about 2 frames behind. ?? I personally experienced no problems playing on this projector. ? I feel the W7000 throws an image that is fast enough to enjoy gaming, but I could see how it may not be fast enough for those folks who drink, eat and breathe first person shooters.?? Ideally, I?d like to see these numbers more in the < 20ms range, but given the measurements we?ve seen in the past couple reviews, I will gladly accept 35ms and do so with a smile!?

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I was unable to test how input lag changed with CFI enabled or in 3D mode because the projector would not let me enable these features while connected to my laptop for some reason.?? As you can imagine, the numbers should only increase when you enable image processing features.?? 35ms is the best it gets.

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All in all, I am quite impressed with the W7000. ? It?s not perfect, but it?s damn good.?? Of all the projectors I have reviewed so far, I?d say this has the best overall image quality of the ones that I can recommend for a gaming.? I kinda see the W7000 as a heavily tweaked GT750.? It doesn?t boast zero input lag, but for folks looking for a higher end projector that also works for gaming, I highly recommend the W7000.? Way to go BenQ!

Source: http://www.projectorreviews.com/game-projector-blog/review-benq-w7000-projector.html

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Santorum beats Romney in Louisiana

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at the AFP Defending the Dream Conference in Milwaukee, Wis., Saturday, March 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at the AFP Defending the Dream Conference in Milwaukee, Wis., Saturday, March 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks during the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., Saturday March 24, 2012. There's little more than four weeks to go until Pennsylvania's April 24 presidential primary. The conference is the state's largest annual gathering of conservatives. (AP Photo/Jason Minick)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks during the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., Saturday March 24, 2012. There's little more than four weeks to go until Pennsylvania's April 24 presidential primary. The conference is the state's largest annual gathering of conservatives. (AP Photo/Jason Minick)

Republican Presidential candidate, former Sen. Rick Santorum, greets Lee Spangler of Lewisburg, Pa., after speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., Saturday March 24, 2012. There's little more than four weeks to go until the Pennsylvania presidential primary on April 24. The conference is the state's largest annual gathering of conservatives. (AP Photo/Jason Minick)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaks during the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., Saturday March 24, 2012. There's little more than four weeks to go until Pennsylvania's April 24 presidential primary. The conference is the state's largest annual gathering of conservatives. (AP Photo/Jason Minick)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Rick Santorum won the Louisiana Republican presidential primary Saturday, beating front-runner Mitt Romney in yet another conservative Southern state.

Although the victory gives Santorum bragging rights, it does not change the overall dynamics of the race; the former Pennsylvania senator still dramatically lags behind Romney in the hunt for delegates to the GOP's summertime nominating convention.

Even so, Santorum's win underscores a pattern in the drawn-out race.

The under-funded under-dog has tended to win in Bible Belt states that include Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Romney ? a deep-pocketed, highly organized former Massachusetts governor ? has persistently struggled in such heavily conservative regions.

Neither candidate was in the state as Louisiana Republicans weighed in. Nor was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was trailing in Louisiana.

Romney took a rare day off Saturday, with no public events. Santorum spent the day campaigning in Pennsylvania and next-up Wisconsin, which votes April 3 and represents one of his last chances to beat Romney in a Midwestern state.

"Stand for your principles. Don't compromise. Don't sell America short," Santorum implored voters in Milwaukee, telling them that he expected their state to be "the turning point in this race."

In an unmistakable jab at Romney, Santorum added: "Don't make the mistake that Republicans made in 1976. Don't nominate the moderate. When you do, we lose." It was a reference to Ronald Reagan losing the 1976 Republican nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford, and Democrat Jimmy Carter winning the White House.

Early exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks showed that Santorum's win in Louisiana was one of his strongest performances to date among conservatives, working class voters and those calling the economy their top issue. And he continued his dominance among white evangelical voters and those looking for a candidate who shares their religious beliefs.

As in previous Southern states, Romney's best showing came among those voters with annual incomes above $100,000 and those who prioritized a candidate's ability to defeat President Barack Obama in November.

The bad economy was the top issue for Louisiana voters. Most were gloomy about prospects for a recovery, saying they felt the economy was getting worse instead of better. While some national surveys suggest Americans are feeling optimistic about economic improvement, just one in eight Republican primary voters said they thought a recovery was under way.

Santorum badly needed a rebound after a decisive Illinois loss to Romney earlier in the week that moved party stalwarts to rally around the front-runner. Many urged Santorum and Gingrich to drop out of the race.

Both refused, and campaigned aggressively in Louisiana in hopes that a victory there would justify them staying in despite Republican worries that the long nomination fight could hurt the party's chances against Obama. The Democratic incumbent faces no serious primary challenge and his re-election campaign already is well under way.

Romney barely campaigned in Louisiana, though his allies spent on TV ads there. Instead, Romney was looking past the results and toward the general election.

"I want the vote of the people of Louisiana so we can consolidate our lead," Romney said Friday while campaigning in Shreveport. He told supporters his campaign wants to focus on "raising the money and building the team to defeat someone that needs to be out of office in 2012, and that's Barack Obama."

Romney is far ahead in the delegate count and on pace to reach the necessary 1,144 delegates before the party's convention in August.

After the Illinois primary March 20, Romney had 563 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally. Santorum had 263, while Gingrich trailed with 135. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 50.

The Louisiana exit poll found that in a hypothetical choice between just the two top contenders, Santorum's lead over Romney tops 20 percentage points, suggesting the former senator would pick up votes from Gingrich's and Paul's current supporters.

Earlier Saturday, Santorum said he wanted to debate Romney without their trailing competitors on stage.

"This race has clearly gotten down to two candidates that can win the nomination," Santorum told reporters in Milwaukee. "I'd love to have a one-on-one debate."

In the run-up to Louisiana's voting, Santorum found himself on the defensive after suggesting he'd prefer a second term for Obama over a Romney presidency. Santorum was all but forced to walk back those comments, saying less than 24 hours before Louisiana polls opened that "over my dead body would I vote for Barack Obama."

Romney also faced trouble last week when a top aide compared the switch from a primary to a general election campaign to an Etch A Sketch toy, suggesting earlier campaign positions could be easily wiped away.

But most Louisiana voters said they weren't concerned with the comment, with only about one in five in exit polls calling this week's Etch A Sketch controversy an important factor in their vote.

Louisiana has complicated delegate rules: Even though there were 20 delegates at stake Saturday, they are awarded proportionally to the candidates who receive more than 25 percent of the vote.

Most states divide all the available delegates among the candidates who meet the minimum threshold. Louisiana's system is strictly proportional, with any leftover delegates designated as uncommitted, meaning they will be fought for at the state convention.

The next key fight comes April 3 in Wisconsin. Romney's campaign is airing TV ads in the state, and his super PAC allies have plowed more than $2 million into TV advertising there.

Also voting April 3 are Maryland and the District of Columbia. There are 95 delegates combined at stake in the three contests.

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Elliott reported from Milwaukee. Associated Press writer Marc Levy in Camp Hill, Pa., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-03-24-GOP%20Campaign/id-f19f8f8a975d4934a3ab690f78edc175

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