Apple is likely to launch a 7.85-inch iPad prior to the fourth quarter of 2012 in addition to a new iPad...
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/z7sUtCB3hZI/story01.htm
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/biggest-food-trends-2011_n_1126458.html
Ugh.
Last week on Fox Business's Follow the Money, show host Eric Bolling spoke with the conservative Media Research Center's Dan Gainor about the new Muppets movie.
Here's what Gainor had to say about The Muppets' oil baron villain character Tex Richman:
"It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message."
"They've been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry. They hate corporate America. And so you'll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was Cars 2, which was another kids' movie, the George Clooney movie Syriana, There Will Be Blood, all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don't want to tell that story."
More from Gainor:
"This is what they're teaching our kids. You wonder why we've got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they've been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff."
"Whether it was Captain Planet or Nickelodeon's Big Green Help, or The Day After Tomorrow, the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they're teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they're telling kids is what they told you in the movie The Matrix: that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth."
Look Gainor, if U weren't a fan of The Day After Tomorrow, then fine?but leave our Muppets out of this, please! The movie was absolutely adorable and good hearted!
Get over it!
[Image via WENN.]
Tags: al gore, captain planet, cars 2, conservative, dan gainor, eric bolling, follow the money, fox business, george clooney, liberal, oil, syriana, tex richman, the day after tomorrow, the muppets
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(Reuters) ? Evangelist Billy Graham, who is battling pneumonia for the second time this year, was showing improvement at a North Carolina hospital on Sunday but no date has been set for his discharge, the hospital said.
The 93-year-old Graham, who entered the hospital on Wednesday, is undergoing physical therapy and walking in a private corridor outside his room, Mission Hospital of Asheville, North Carolina, said in a statement.
"Doctors are encouraged by Mr. Graham's significant clinical progress but have not yet set a date for discharge," the statement said.
He was visited over the weekend by his son, Franklin Graham, his daughters Gigi Graham and Anne Graham Lotz and other family members, the hospital said.
Graham, a preacher of Christian gospel to millions of followers worldwide and a spiritual advisor to several U.S. presidents, was treated in May for a previous bout of pneumonia.
His wife, Ruth, died in June 2007.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; editing by David Bailey)
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Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, and Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, embrace after a meeting at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. U.S. Secretary of State Clinton and opposition leader Suu Kyi, two of the world's most recognizable female leaders, pledged Friday to work together to bring democracy to Suu Kyi's long isolated and repressive nation. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following a meeting at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Soe Than Win, Pool)
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? In a striking display of solidarity and sisterhood between two of the world's most recognizable women, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi vowed on Friday to work together to promote democratic reforms in Suu Kyi's long-isolated and authoritarian homeland.
Wrapping up a historic three-day visit to Myanmar, the first by a secretary of state to the Southeast Asian nation in more than 50 years, Clinton and Suu Kyi held hands on the porch of the lakeside home where the Nobel peace laureate spent much of the past two decades under house arrest. Clinton thanked her for her "steadfast and very clear leadership."
Suu Kyi has welcomed Clinton's visit and tentatively embraced reforms enacted by Myanmar's new civilian government. She thanked the secretary and U.S. President Barack Obama for their "careful and calibrated" engagement that has seen the United States take some modest steps to improve ties.
"If we move forward together I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy," Suu Kyi said, referring to her opposition National League for Democracy party, the government, the United States and other countries, including Myanmar's giant neighbor China. "We are not on that road yet, but we hope to get there as soon as possible with the help and understanding of our friends."
"We are happy with the way in which the United States is engaging with us," she added. "It is through engagement that we hope to promote the process of democratization. Because of this engagement, I think our way ahead will be clearer and we will be able to trust that the process of democratization will go forward."
As she did in the capital of Naypyidaw on Thursday, Clinton said more significant incentives will be offered, but only if the government releases all political prisoners, ends brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities, respects the rule of law and improves human rights conditions.
"We are prepared to go further if reforms maintain momentum," Clinton said. "But history teaches us to be cautious. We know that there have been serious setbacks and grave disappointments over the past decades."
Clinton's meetings with Suu Kyi were the highlight of the U.S. secretary of state's visit to the long-isolated country also known as Burma and forcefully underscored a U.S. challenge to Myanmar's leaders.
In addition to the modest incentives Clinton announced Thursday for the government, she said Friday that the U.S. would spend about $1.2 million for preliminary projects aimed at helping the people of Myanmar. The money will go to microcredit and health care initiatives and assistance to land-mine victims, particularly in rural areas.
Suu Kyi, whose party won 1990 elections that were ignored by the then-military junta but now plans to run in upcoming parliamentary elections, endorsed that approach and called for the immediate release of all political prisoners and cease-fires to end the ethnic conflicts..
Suu Kyi, a heroine for pro-democracy advocates around the world, said Clinton's visit represented "a historical moment for both our countries."
With U.S. assistance and pressure on the government, which is still backed by the military, she said she believed change was on the horizon for Myanmar.
The meeting was the second in as many days for the pair who bonded deeply at a three-hour, one-on-one dinner in Yangon on Thursday, according to U.S. officials. One senior official said the dinner marked the beginning of what appeared to be a "very warm friendship" between the former first lady, New York senator and presidential hopeful and Suu Kyi, who plans to re-enter the political arena in upcoming parliamentary elections.
"We have been inspired by her fearlessness in the face of intimidation and her serenity through decades of isolation, but most of all through her devotion to her country and to the freedom and dignity of her fellow citizens," Clinton told reporters after the meeting Suu Kyi.
Clinton said the two had discussed the "ups and downs and slings and arrows of political participation" at dinner and that Suu Kyi would be an "excellent member" of Myanmar's parliament but declined to discuss any electoral advice she may have given here.
___
Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.
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ATHENS, Greece ? The setting was familiar: White banners daubed with red-and-black anti-austerity slogans, crowds shouting outside Parliament, fists clenched.
But as 20,000 Greeks marched Thursday in central Athens against government cutbacks, one key element of most Greek protests was lacking ? violence.
Apart from one thrown petrol bomb and a smashed car, calm reigned at two separate protests in the capital during the first general strike under Greece's new technocratic coalition government.
Riots during strikes have almost become the norm in the country that kicked off Europe's massive debt crisis. Greece is crippled by debt, facing record unemployment and heading into a fourth year of recession. Most of its people are outraged over repeated pay and pension cuts and tax hikes.
Greece's fellow eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund demanded the austerity program in return for rescue loans that have shielded the country from bankruptcy since May 2010.
In the last general strike in October, more than 100 police and demonstrators were injured in two days of riots, 20 people were arrested and one man died of heart failure after protesters were tear-gassed
"You can't explain it rationally," police spokesman Athanassios Kokalakis said of Thursday's peaceful marches. "We would like to believe that everyone understands the extent of their social and historic responsibility during these hard times the country is going through."
Most of Thursday's protesters were Communist-linked unionists, who seldom seek violent confrontation with police. And a relatively small turnout at the other demonstration, held by the country's two biggest labor unions, left-wing parties and anarchists, would deter rioters who use large crowds to dodge police retribution.
But the simplest explanation may be that anarchists ? often spoiling for a fight with police ? were not in the mood for trouble, while riot control squads kept a low profile.
"Usually, street violence is used by some to lead others on," said Ilias Vrettakos, deputy leader of the main civil servants' ADEDY union.
Vrettakos also said Greeks have been cowed by arguments that the only alternative to austerity is bankruptcy, and suggested that workers who have suffered repeated pay cuts may be loath to lose another day's wages to go on strike.
"They are creating a situation that can no longer be tolerated, can no longer be endured. Unfortunately, people are in a state somewhere between poverty and despair," said ADEDY general secretary Ilias Iliopoulos.
Even more cutbacks lie in store.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has assured the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF he will conclude a massive new bailout deal for Greece and impose tough cost-cutting measures needed.
Backed by the country's main Socialist and conservative parties, Papademos now heads negotiations for the new debt deal in which Greece will get euro130 billion ($174 billion) in more rescue loans and support for banks. The deal also includes a voluntary 50 percent write-down of debt held by private holders of Greek bonds.
On Tuesday, Greece finally won approval of a euro8 billion ($10.7 billion) loan to help it stay solvent.
In return for the EU-IMF lifeline, new austerity measures impose job suspensions and pay cuts in the public sector and an emergency property tax that will leave households without power if they don't pay.
Iliopolous said Greeks are stressed beyond belief.
"The measures are supposed to improve the country's financial situation, but the country is getting deeper into debt, unemployment is rising, and the recession ? unprecedented in recent times ? is worse than anywhere else in Europe," he said. "People are falling apart."
___
Elena Becatoros, Derek Gatopoulos and Theodora Tongas in Athens, and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed.
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Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike.
This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal behaviour.
Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009 - days before a quake.
They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake forecasting.
Continue reading the main storyEnd Quote Rachel Grant The Open UniversityWhen you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way?
The team's findings are published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. In this paper, they describe a mechanism whereby stressed rocks in the Earth's crust release charged particles that react with the groundwater.
Animals that live in or near groundwater are highly sensitive to any changes in its chemistry, so they might sense this days before the rocks finally "slip" and cause a quake.
The team, led by Friedemann Freund from Nasa and Rachel Grant from the UK's Open University hope their hypothesis will inspire biologists and geologists to work together, to find out exactly how animals might help us recognise some of the elusive signs of an imminent earthquake.
Strange behaviourThe L'Aquila toads are not the first example of strange animal behaviour before a major seismic event. There have been reports throughout history of reptiles, amphibians and fish behaving in unusual ways just before an earthquake struck.
Continue reading the main storyIn 1975, in Haicheng, China, for example, many people spotted snakes emerging from their burrows a month before the city was hit by a large earthquake.
This was particularly odd, because it occurred during the winter. The snakes were in the middle of their annual hibernation, and with temperatures well below freezing, venturing outside was suicide for the cold-blooded reptiles.
But each of these cases - of waking reptiles, fleeing amphibians or deep-sea fish rising to the surface - has been an individual anecdote. And major earthquakes are so rare that the events surrounding them are almost impossible to study in detail.
This is where the case of the L'Aquila toads was different.
Toad exodusMs Grant, a biologist from the Open University, was monitoring the toad colony as part of her PhD project.
"It was very dramatic," she recalled. "It went from 96 toads to almost zero over three days."
Ms Grant published her observations in the Journal of Zoology.
"After that, I was contacted by Nasa," she told BBC Nature.
Scientists at the US space agency had been studying the chemical changes that occur when rocks are under extreme stress. They wondered if these changes were linked to the mass exodus of the toads.
Their laboratory-based tests have now revealed, not only that these changes could be connected, but that the Earth's crust could directly affect the chemistry of the pond that the toads were living and breeding in at the time.
Nasa geophysicist Friedemann Freund showed that, when rocks were under very high levels of stress - for example by the "gargantuan tectonic forces" just before an earthquake, they release charged particles.
These charged particles can flow out into the surrounding rocks, explained Dr Freund. And when they arrive at the Earth's surface they react with the air - converting air molecules into charged particles known as ions.
"Positive airborne ions are known in the medical community to cause headaches and nausea in humans and to increase the level of serotonin, a stress hormone, in the blood of animals," said Dr Freund. They can also react with water, turning it into hydrogen peroxide.
This chemical chain of events could affect the organic material dissolved in the pond water - turning harmless organic material into substances that are toxic to aquatic animals.
It's a complicated mechanism and the scientists stress that it needs to be tested thoroughly.
But, Dr Grant says this is the first convincing possible mechanism for a "pre-earthquake cue" that aquatic, semi-aquatic and burrowing animals might be able to sense and respond to.
"When you think of all of the many things that are happening to these rocks, it would be weird if the animals weren't affected in some way," she said.
Dr Freund said that the behaviour of animals could be one of a number of connected events that might forecast an earthquake.
"Once we understand how all of these signals are connected," he told BBC Nature, "if we see four of five signals all pointing in [the same] direction, we can say, 'ok, something is about to happen'."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15945014
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FRANKFURT, Germany ? Major central banks around the globe took coordinated action Wednesday to ease the strains on the world's financial system, saying they would make it easier for banks to get dollars if they need them. Stock markets and the euro rose sharply on the move.
The U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland were all taking part.
"The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," the central banks said in a joint statement.
The announcement came just hours after China reduced bank reserve levels Wednesday to release money for lending and help shore up slowing growth. It was the first easing of Chinese monetary policy in three years ? and higher growth in China could be crucial for a suffering global economy.
Stocks surged following the news. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 400 points in early trading and was up 392 an hour after the opening bell. Germany's DAX was trading 4.7 percent higher, France's CAC was up 4.1 percent, the euro rose 1.1 percent to $1.3463 and oil was up $1.45 to $101.25.
As Europe's debt crisis has spread, the global financial system is showing signs of entering another credit crunch like the one that followed the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. Banks are afraid to lend to each other, since no one is really sure what institutions are holding how much bad government debt.
Greece, Ireland and Portugal have all been forced to take international bailouts, and Italy, Spain and Belgium are seeing their borrowing costs rise sharply. Banks already had to agree to forgive 50 percent of the value of their Greek debt holdings ? and many fear that other struggling European countries might also demand a so-called "haircut" on bonds.
A ratings downgrade by Standard & Poors for six major U.S. banks on Tuesday added to fears that Europe's woes would hurt the entire financial system. If one or more European governments default, that would unleash a shock to the world's financial system that at the very least would lead to recessions in the United States and Europe, severe losses for banks and a global stranglehold on lending.
The central banks agreed to reduce the cost of temporary dollar loans they offer to banks ? called liquidity swaps ? by a half percentage point. The new, lower rate will be applied to all central bank operations starting Monday.
The cut means that the charge will fall to 50 basis points ? or one-half percentage point ? over an international benchmark, the overnight index swap rate, which is averaging around seven to 10 basis points currently.
Non-U.S. banks need dollars to fund their U.S. operations and to make dollar loans to companies that need the U.S. currency. The dollar is the world's leading currency for central bank reserves and is widely used in international trade.
"Obviously, these moves are designed to increase the flow of dollar liquidity to European banks, which are struggling to attract short-term funding because of questions about their exposure to potential losses on holdings of European sovereign bonds," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
He explained that Wednesday's move does not expose the Fed to propping up ailing European banks.
"The ECB actually makes the loans to these banks, so the Fed is not on the hook for any losses if a European bank failed," Ashworth added.
The announcement also extended the length of time the temporary dollar lines will be available by six months to Feb. 1, 2013. The swap line program had been scheduled to end Aug. 1, 2013.
According to Federal Reserve figures, $2.4 billion in swap lines were being used as of last week. By comparison, at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, $580 billion was provided in temporary swap lines in December of that year.
The central banks are also taking steps to ensure that banks can get ready money in any of their currencies if market conditions warrant by establishing a temporary network of reciprocal swap lines.
Right now there is no need to offer non-domestic credits in currencies other than the dollar, the central banks said, but they "judge it prudent" to get such an arrangement in place ahead of time.
Fears of more financial turmoil in Europe have already left some European banks dependent on central bank loans to fund their daily operations. Other banks are wary of lending to them for fear of not getting paid back. Such constraints on interbank lending can hurt the wider economy by making less money available to lend to businesses.
__
AP Business Writer Marty Crutsinger contributed from Washington, DC.
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More and more physicians are investing in their own imaging equipment. But when a doctor stands to make money on each MRI he or she orders, it doesn?t take a brain surgeon to figure out that they might be inclined to order too many scans.
Patients with back problems whose orthopedic surgeons referred them for an MRI were much more likely to have their spinal lumbar scan come back clean?indicating that the test might not have been necessary?if their doc had a financial stake in the equipment being used, than if he or she didn?t, according to new findings that were presented this week at the Radiological Society of North America?s annual meeting in Chicago.
?It is important for patients to be aware of the problem of self-referral and to understand the conflict of interest that exists when their doctor orders an imaging exam and then collects money on that imaging exam,? said Ben Paxton, a radiology resident who led the study at Duke University Medical Center? in a prepared statement.
Of 250 spine lumbar MRIs ordered by orthopedic surgeons who had financial interest in the imaging equipment, 106 scans came back negative?that is, without serious abnormalities. Of the 250 lumbar MRIs ordered by orthopedic surgeons in the same area who would not see an extra penny from the scans, 57 came back negative.
Scans that did find problems seemed to be of equal severity in both groups, suggesting that the doctors should be referring roughly equal portions of patients for MRIs.
The two patient groups did show one interesting difference, however. Doctors with financial interest in the equipment ?were much more likely to order MRI exams on younger patients,? Paxton said. The mean age for patients getting an MRI from these physicians was about 50, whereas the disinterested docs? patients were closer to 57. That means the physicians with financial incentives might have different threshold altogether for recommending an MRI, he suggested.
The new findings suggest that studying these detailed correlation can help shape more effective health care cost cuts. Medical imaging overall cost Medicare some $14.1 billion in 2006?about twice as much as in 2000, according to a 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. About $3.9 billion of that was from physicians who referred patients for imaging in their own offices, according to a July Journal of the American College of Radiology paper, co-authored by Ramsey Kilani, also of Duke, who worked on the new study as well.
?Attempts to date at reducing health care spending on medical imaging have come in the form of across-the-board cuts that threaten to reduce access to vital imaging services,? Kilani said. ?We believe patients would be better served if we instead eliminated underlying drivers of unnecessary imaging spending.? Reducing doctor ownership of these scanners might be difficult in the short-term. So as these income-generating machines proliferate in physicians? portfolios, the next time your doctor orders an MRI, it might be worth asking about the financial arrangement?or getting a second opinion from a doctor who hasn?t invested in equipment.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=6aa93827dd6224bff077a8ce6ad8648b
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