Chuck Schumer: House Will Pass Senate Immigration Bill

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted on Sunday that the House would pass the Senate's immigration bill, despite Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) repeated insistence that his chamber would pass a reform bill of its own.

"By the end of this year, the House will pass the Senate bill," Schumer said on Fox News Sunday.

Boehner has consistently stressed his plan to stick to the so-called "Hastert rule," which would require support of a majority of his own party caucus, in order to pass immigration. That could produce a much harsher bill than the Senate's legislation.

But Schumer said that dissensions within Boehner's own caucus would leave him with little choice other than to work with Democrats and pass the Senate bill, especially with outside pressure coming down on him.

"He's got a whole lot of Republican members, I'm sure a majority of the caucus, saying they will vote no," Schumer said. "I believe over the next several months that dynamic will change."

But Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who sits on the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, laughed off Schumer's suggestion when he appeared later on Fox News Sunday.

"I was moved almost to the point of tears by Sen. Schumer's concern for the future prospects of the Republican party. But we're going to not take his advice," he said. "The Senate bill is not going to pass in the House, it's not going to pass for myriad reasons."

Gowdy said the House will pass its own bill in pieces, and that it would be much tougher on enforcement and border security than the Senate bill.

"We're making progress and we will continue to do so," he said. "I'm more interested in getting it right than doing it on Sen. Schumer's schedule."

Also on HuffPost:

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/30/chuck-schumer-house-immigration_n_3525163.html

powerball numbers American Idol 2013 mega millions Plumber american idol memphis grizzlies aretha franklin

Saturday Night Card Game (Would Zimmerman ... - Legal Insurrection

There was a concerted effort at the start of this case to frame the shooting as the result of racial profiling, and to use that narrative to pressure prosecutors to file the case after the police had refused to charge Zimmerman finding his claim of self-defense plausible.

From the false narrative of the hoodie, to the doctored NBC tape, to the false allegation that Zimmerman used the term ?coon,? conclusions were jumped to and the pressure was on the prosecutors.

All the racial narratives went in one direction before the evidence was heard in court.

Now it heads in the opposite direction:

Given the weakness of the State?s case so far ? at best conflicting eyewitness accounts which themselves create reasonable doubt as to what happened ? I can only wonder if the prosecution would have been brought at all had the racial narrative reflected what we now know.

?

?0?

?

?12

Saturday Night Card Game (Would Zimmerman case have been filed if ?creepy ass cracker? comment known?)

18 votes, 5.00 avg. rating (99% score)

?

?

?

Source: http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/saturday-night-card-game-would-zimmerman-case-have-been-filed-if-creepy-ass-cracker-comment-known/

New Pope Jeff Gordon Test Drive Veronica Mars Pope John Paul II Galaxy S4 google reader carnival cruise

Obama to announce new power initiative for Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Sunday will announce a new initiative to double access to electric power in sub-Saharan Africa, part of his effort to build on the legacy of equality and opportunity forged by his personal hero, Nelson Mandela.

Obama, who flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town Sunday, will pay tribute to the ailing 94-year-old Mandela throughout the day. The president and his family were visiting Robben Island, where the anti-apartheid leader spent 18 years confined to a tiny cell, including a stop at the lime quarry where Mandela toiled and developed the lung problems that put him in the hospital for most of the month.

The White House said Obama's guide during his tour of the island will be 83-year-old South African politician Ahmed Kathrada, who also was held at the prison for nearly two decades and guided Obama on his 2006 visit to the prison as a U.S. senator. The president will also see the prison courtyard where Mandela planted grapevines that remain today, and where he and others in the dissident leadership would discuss politics, sneak notes to one another and hide writings.

During the tour, which took place against the backdrop of sunshine and clear, blue skies, Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters took in the expansive view of the island's lime quarry, a huge crater with views of the rusty guard tower from where Mandela likely would have been watched. Obama commented on the "hard labor" Mandela endured and asked Kathrada to remind his daughters, Malia and Sasha, how long Mandela was in prison.

Michelle Obama asked how often Mandela would work and was told he worked daily. As the family turned to leave, Obama asked Kathrada to tell his daughters how the African National Congress, the South African political party, got started.

After the tour, Obama will deliver what the White House has billed as the signature speech of his weeklong trip, an address at the University of Cape Town that will be infused with memories of Mandela.

During the speech, Obama will unveil the "Power Africa" initiative, which includes an initial $7 billion investment from the United States over the next five years. Private companies, including General Electric and Symbion Power, are making an additional $9 billion in commitments with the goal of providing power to millions of Africans crippled by a lack of electricity.

Gayle Smith, Obama's senior director for development and democracy, said more than two-thirds of people living in sub-Saharan Africa do not have electricity, including 85 percent of those living in rural areas.

"If you want lights so kids can study at night or you can maintain vaccines in a cold chain, you don't have that, so going the extra mile to reach people is more difficult," Smith said.

The U.S. and its private sector partners initially will focus its efforts on six countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania, where Obama will wrap up his trip later this week. Former President George W. Bush, who supports health programs throughout the continent, will also be in Tanzania next week, and the White House did not rule out the possibility that the two men might meet.

Obama will also highlight U.S. efforts to bolster access to food and health programs on the continent. His advisers said the president sees reducing the poverty and illness that plague many parts of Africa as an extension of Mandela's example of how change can happen within countries.

The former South African president has been hospitalized in critical condition for three weeks. Obama met Saturday with members of Mandela's family, but did not visit the anti-apartheid icon, a decision the White House said was in keeping with his family's wishes.

Obama's weeklong trip, which opened last week in Senegal, marks his most significant trip to the continent since taking office. His scant personal engagement has come as a disappointment to some in the region, who had high hopes for a man whose father was from Kenya.

Obama visited Robben Island when he was a U.S. senator. But since being elected as the first black American president, Obama has drawn inevitable comparisons to Mandela, making Sunday's visit particularly poignant.

The president said he's also eager to bring his family with him to the prison to teach them about Mandela's role in overcoming white racist rule, first as an activist and later as a president who forged a unity government with his former captors.

He told reporters Saturday he wanted to "help them to understand not only how those lessons apply to their own lives but also to their responsibilities in the future as citizens of the world, that's a great privilege and a great honor."

Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Mandela's vision was always going to feature prominently in the speech. But his deteriorating health "certainly puts a finer point on just how much we can't take for granted what Nelson Mandela did."

Harkening back to a prominent theme from Obama's 2009 speech in Ghana ? his only other trip to Africa as president ? Obama will emphasize that Africans must take much of the responsibility for finishing the work started by Mandela and his contemporaries.

"The progress that Africa has made opens new doors, but frankly, it's up to the leaders in Africa and particularly young people to make sure that they're walking through those doors of opportunity," Rhodes said.

Obama will speak at the University of Cape Town nearly 50 years after Robert F. Kennedy delivered his famous "Ripple of Hope" speech from the school. Kennedy spoke in Cape Town two years after Mandela was sentenced to life in prison.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler and Julie Pace on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nedrapickler and http://www.twitter.com/jpaceDC .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-announce-power-initiative-africa-085714963.html

seahawks new uniforms 2012 tornadoes in dallas kentucky basketball oaksterdam the fray national anthem dallas tornado oikos

Upbeat Japan data cheers Nikkei, Asia - gold slumps

By Ian Chua

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares rose for a third day on Friday led by a solid rally in Tokyo's Nikkei, which is on track to end the first half of the year up a barnstorming 31 percent.

Gold, however, plumbed fresh three-year lows, leaving investors battered and bruised after a near 30 percent drop this year. Analysts suspect the recent leg lower was due in part to forced liquidations of positions and quarter-end selling by funds.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> climbed 1.4 percent, pulling further away from an 11-month low and wiping out this week's losses. It was still down around 7 percent for the year.

European stocks were seen opening steady, in line with U.S. stock futures, which were a touch firmer.

The improved sentiment in Asian bourses followed Wall Street's rally as two more U.S. Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure markets that any tightening of its stimulus drive was still a distant prospect.

Japan's Nikkei average <.n225> jumped 3.5 percent to its highest in nearly four weeks, egged on by upbeat data showing consumer prices stopped falling in May and labor demand reached its strongest level in five years.

"Investors are cheered by the better data and see that Abenomics is being effective for the economy," said Takuya Takahashi, an analyst at Daiwa Securities, referring to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's expansionary policy.

Concerns about China's credit crunch continued to subside with the central bank pledging to ensure reasonable lending growth and stable markets.

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analysts Ting Lu and Larry Hu said the worst of the liquidity squeeze is over and markets should calm down.

"No policymaker can afford to be blamed for being responsible for an unnecessary financial meltdown and growth hard landing," they wrote in a research note.

Mainland Chinese stocks <.ssec><.csi300> rose on Friday.

The better mood in equity markets helped the euro push higher, although the Australian dollar missed the party with traders citing selling pressure from Japanese banks.

The euro rose 0.3 percent to $1.3070, continuing to pull away from a four-week trough around $1.2984. This saw the dollar ease 0.1 percent against a basket of major currencies <.dxy>.

The Australian dollar fell 0.2 percent to $0.9262, within easy reach of a 33-month trough around $0.9148 plumbed on Monday.

The slide in gold, a major export earner for Australia, was one factor keeping the Aussie under pressure.

Spot gold fell deeper below $1,200 to reach its lowest since August 2010. It was on track to record its worst quarter since at least 1968.

Other commodities fared better with U.S. crude futures climbing 0.4 percent to $97.49 a barrel, while copper dipped 0.4 percent to $6,727 a metric ton.

(Additional reporting Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo; Editing by Eric Meijer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-edge-higher-global-equity-gains-002424215.html

Gabby Olympic Gymnast Robyn Lawley Gore Vidal mlb trade rumors Misty May And Kerri Walsh

Garlic Oil May Ease Adverse Effects of Chemotherapy and Radiation

Overview of the latest five Focus news of the innovations-report:

In the focus: Le Bourget: Electric Hybrid Drives for Aircraft

In cooperation with several partners, Siemens has created its second aircraft powered by an electric series hybrid drive system.

The two-seat DA36 E-Star 2 plane recently made its one-hour maiden flight and was then presented to aeronautics experts at the Paris Air Show. The electric series hybrid drive ensures quiet and energy-efficient operation.

After a predecessor model had demonstrated in 2011 that electric series hybrid drives are, in principle, suited ...

In the focus: Efficient Production Process for Coveted Nanocrystals

A formation mechanism of nanocrystalline cerium dioxide (CeO2), a versatile nanomaterial, has been unveiled by scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

The research results were published in the scientific journal Chemistry ? A European Journal (DOI: 10.1002/chem.201204101). This finding potentially simplifies and alleviates the existing synthetic processes of nanocrystalline CeO2 production.

Nanocrystalline CeO2 particles are widely used, for example, in catalysts for hazardous gas treatment, in electrodes for solid oxide fuel ...

In the focus: Data storage: Making the switch

Magnetic materials that change their properties when heated could pack more data on to hard drives

A ?sandwich? of three iron alloy layers could help to create computer hard drives that can store more data than ever before. Tiejun Zhou and co-workers at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute in Singapore expect that their development, based on a new technology called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), could boost ...

In the focus: Sun emits a solstice CME

On June 20, 2013, at 11:24 p.m., the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later.

These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.

Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory and ESA/NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory show that the CME left the sun at ...

In the focus: Chlamydia promotes gene mutations

Outcome of experimental Chlamydia infections points towards cancer

Chlamydia trachomatis is a human pathogen that is the leading cause of bacterial sexually transmitted disease worldwide with more than 90 million new cases of genital infections occurring each year. About 70 percent of women infected with Chlamydia remain asymptomatic and these bacteria can establish chronic infections for months, or ...

Source: http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/garlic_oil_ease_adverse_effects_chemotherapy_216276.html

dallas fort worth dfw 1930 census nike new nfl uniforms nfl uniforms andrew bailey the village

Plaintiffs in gay marriage case wed in SF, LA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? The four plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California's same-sex marriage ban tied the knot Friday, just hours after a federal appeals court freed gay couples to obtain marriage licenses in the state for the first time in 4 1/2 years.

Attorney General Kamala Harris presided at the San Francisco City Hall wedding of Kris Perry and Sandy Stier as hundreds of supporters looked on and cheered. The couple sued to overturn the state's voter-approved gay marriage ban along with Jeff Katami and Paul Zarrillo, who married at Los Angeles City Hall 90 minutes later with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presiding.

"By joining the case against Proposition 8, they represented thousands of couples like themselves in their fight for marriage equality," Harris said during Stier and Perry's brief ceremony. "Through the ups and downs, the struggles and the triumphs, they came out victorious."

Harris declared Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, "spouses for life," but during their vows, the Berkeley couple took each other as "lawfully wedded wife." One of their twin sons served as ring-bearer.

Although the couples fought for the right to wed for years, their nuptials came together in a flurry when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a brief order Friday afternoon dissolving a stay it had imposed on gay marriages while the lawsuit challenging the ban advanced through the courts.

Sponsors of California's same-sex marriage ban, known as Proposition 8, also were caught off-guard and complained that the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit's swift action made it more difficult for them to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision.

Under Supreme Court rules, the losing side has 25 days to ask the high court to rehear the case, and Proposition 8's backers had not yet announced whether they would do so.

"The resumption of same-sex marriage this day has been obtained by illegitimate means. If our opponents rejoice in achieving their goal in a dishonorable fashion, they should be ashamed," said Andy Pugno, general counsel for a coalition of religious conservative groups that sponsored the 2008 ballot measure.

"It remains to be seen whether the fight can go on, but either way, it is a disgraceful day for California," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that Proposition 8's sponsors lacked standing in the case after Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown, both Democrats, refused to defend the ban in court.

The decision lets stand a trial judge's declaration that the ban violates the civil rights of gay Californians and cannot be enforced.

The Supreme Court said earlier this week that it would not finalize its ruling in the Proposition 8 case "at least" until after the 25-day period, which ends July 21.

The appeals court was widely expected to wait until the Supreme Court's judgment was official. Ninth Circuit spokesman David Madden said Friday that the panel's decision to act sooner was "unusual, but not unprecedented," although he could not recall another time the appeals court acted before receiving an official judgment from the high court.

The panel ? Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was named to the 9th Circuit by President Jimmy Carter and has a reputation as the court's liberal lion; Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, an early appointee of President Bill Clinton; and Judge Randy Smith, the last 9th Circuit judge nominated by President George W. Bush ? decided on its own to lift the stay, Madden said.

Its order read simply, "The stay in the above matter is dissolved effective immediately."

Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Davis, said the Supreme Court's 25-day waiting period to make its decisions final isn't binding on lower courts.

"Some people may think it was in poor form, But it's not illegal," Amar said. "The appeals court may have felt that this case has dragged on long enough."

The same panel of judges ruled 2-1 last year that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, but it kept same-sex marriages on hold while the case was appealed. But when the Supreme Court decided Proposition 8's backers couldn't defend the ban, it also wiped out the 9th Circuit's opinion.

Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008, 4 1/2 months after same-sex marriages commenced in California the first time. The Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates 18,000 couples from around the country got married in the state during that window.

Shortly after the appeals court issued its order Friday, the governor directed California counties to resume performing same-sex marriages. A memo from the Department of Public Health said "same-sex marriage is again legal in California" and ordered county clerks to comply by making marriage licenses available to gay couples.

Given that word did not come down from the appeals court until mid-afternoon, most counties were not prepared to stay open late to accommodate potential crowds. The clerks in a few counties announced that they would stay open a few hours late Friday before reopening Monday.

A jubilant San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced that same-sex couples would be able to marry all weekend in his city, which is hosting its annual gay pride celebration.

___

Associated Press writers Jason Dearen, Paul Elias and Mihir Zaveri contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/plaintiffs-gay-marriage-case-wed-sf-la-015212241.html

secret service prostitute rich ross april 20 secret service prostitution 4 20 sheree whitfield weather dallas

Leading light in science, Italy's 'lady of the stars' Hack dies

By Naomi O'Leary

ROME | Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:51am EDT

ROME (Reuters) - Astrophysicist Margherita Hack, a popular science writer, public intellectual and the first woman to lead an astronomical observatory in Italy, died on Saturday at the age of 91.

Known as the "lady of the stars", Hack's research contributed to the spectral classification of many groups of stars, and the asteroid 8558 Hack is named after her.

She introduced astrophysics to a broad Italian audience, from university textbooks to colorful tomes of astronomy for children, and was astronomy chair at the University of Trieste and director of the Trieste Astronomical Observatory from 1964 to 1987, the first woman to hold the position.

Hack was one of Italy's most visible scientists over her career and remained a grey-haired media presence into her 90s, often consulted for her assessment of the issues of the day from a wooden rocking chair in her book-lined Trieste home.

An outspoken atheist in a predominantly Catholic country, Hack was known for her opposition to the influence of religious beliefs over scientific research, and lobbied for legalized abortion, euthanasia, animal protection and gay rights.

One of her many books, "Why I am Vegetarian", published at the age of 89, outlined Hack's belief that there was no difference between human and animal pain and that eating meat damaged the environment, sparking debate in a country with a proud tradition of meatballs, beef pasta dishes and cured hams.

In December 2012 she told a reporter she had decided not to have a heart operation that could prolong her life, wryly commenting that she might as well save the Italian public health service the money, and saying she preferred to stay at home with her books and her husband of seven decades, Aldo De Rosa.

"I do not believe in the afterlife," she said, chuckling and animated, in her final television appearance in March. "When I die my particles will flutter about the terrestrial atmosphere."

(Reporting by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/PzboXaR1qGQ/story01.htm

Rose Parade 2013 rex ryan Louisville football Fidelity Charlie Strong Calendar 2013 john boehner

Escape Plan Trailer: Arrived!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/escape-plan-trailer-arrived/

sf giants gold rush gold rush windows 8 Emanuel Steward nyc.gov SAT

91% Frances Ha

All Critics (101) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (9)

It's a tribute to Gerwig's performance, somehow both clumsy and elegant, that she wins us over despite ourselves, that we come to appreciate her aimlessness in a goal-oriented society ...

This is an odd film (creepier than it knows), and even if you feel the atmospheric company of Dunham-ism, with a little of Whit Stillman, Henry Jaglom, and Woody Allen, the core influence on Noah Baumbach's film is fifty years older or more.

Baumbach usually builds his films around difficult protagonists, but Frances is entirely endearing, at once silly and deep, hopeless and promising.

The dialogue and editing are zippy and generally charming, combining with the tart observations of 20-something culture to create a nice frisson.

A black-and-white salute to the French New Wave (the score is borrowed from Georges Delerue, composer of many a Truffaut and Godard film) that manages to be very much of this moment ...

The movie's a love letter to an actress and her character, but by the end you may feel like an intervention is more in order.

Frances Ha is a refreshingly contemporary film, exploring 20-something hipster ennui with accuracy, empathy and humour.

As long as you remember to laugh, Frances Ha is a tolerable experience. Forget the "ha ha" and Frances Ha is beyond unbearable. I found this an odd and often frustrating truth, but it's what makes Noah Baumbach's new movie a success.

Gerwig keeps you on side and rooting for Frances to get her act together in what becomes an affectionate salute to messy lives, an endearing underachiever and a New York state of mind.

Don't be fooled by Frances with all her feigned insecurity and branding of herself as "undateable" and predicting she'll be a lonely spinster. She's a psychopath.

Gerwig's deft screwball timing turns every disaster into a grace note. This may be a comedy of awkwardness, but rather than curl, your toes will tap.

A refreshing amount of buoyancy to dance and charm its way through Quarter-Life Crisis territory. One of the best performances of Greta Gerwig's career to date

Frances Ha is a sympathetic but not uncritical depiction of a girl's gradual evolution into a woman; one that never condescends by forcing her to abandon all her quirks and impish qualities in the final act... An absolute delight, this is.

Indie darling Gerwig has a great deal to do with the picture's success: she's disarmingly likable...

There's a level of audacity beneath the lightweight whimsy in this unassuming low-budget comedy.

"Frances Ha makes a star out of Gerwig, and she's the kind of star we need: a goofy one we can feel tender about but never underestimate."

'I can't account for my own bruises,' Frances says, as if she were a clumsy kid with an adult's vocabulary. Does the remark refer to more than the abrasions on her skin?

A celebration of cinema, New York City and the distinctive charms of actress Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha was co-written by Gerwig and its director, Noah Baumbach, and it's the best film either has made.

There's a thin line between comedy and tragedy, and Greta Gerwig walks it remarkably well.

There's depth and realism in the way Frances Ha shows aspiration versus reality.

Gerwig, beyond a doubt, is immeasurably appealing, and Frances Ha is tailor-made to showcase her gifts better than anything she's ever been in.

...if you hold your nose and simply wallow through the stench of self-aggrandizement, you'll be rewarded with an experience that will actually tug on your emotions.

Frances Ha provides a sharp, fleet, and very funny look at female friendship and the acceptance of adult responsibilities.

No quotes approved yet for Frances Ha. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frances_ha_2013/

clive davis nba trade thomas robinson nba trades Xbox 720 HTC One NICOLAUS COPERNICUS

Federal decisiveness thrives, for a week at least

WASHINGTON (AP) ? For all the talk of Washington gridlock, the three branches of government are asserting their powers this week, and sometimes surprising their closest observers.

The Supreme Court kept affirmative action alive on college campuses and cleared the way for gay married couples to get federal benefits. A compromise-crafting Senate passed major immigration legislation. And President Barack Obama issued long-awaited orders to combat climate change.

It's possible these events will ultimately amount to little. The House might stifle the immigration bill, for instance. And the Supreme Court ordered a lower court to look hard at colleges' consideration of race when recruiting students.

Still, the first week of summer proved that all facets of the federal government still pack punches, even in a capital riven by partisanship.

The Supreme Court decisions caused the biggest stirs. The justices infuriated conservative lawmakers by overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

At least as surprising was the decision on affirmative action, which some legal scholars had expected the Supreme Court to curtail severely. The NAACP said it was "pleased that the court chose to affirm that there is a place for race in university admissions."

Others, however, said affirmative action won little more than a reprieve, because new waves of legal challenges to race-conscious admissions seem imminent. And later, the NAACP and other liberal groups expressed dismay at another Supreme Court ruling, which nullified key elements of the Voting Rights Act.

Obama, meanwhile, acknowledged that Congress can reach no agreements on climate change, and announced his own plans to limit heat-trapping gases from coal-fired power plants. Using executive powers, the president laid out the first-ever federal regulations on carbon dioxide emitted by existing power plants, which is partly blamed for global warming and rising sea levels.

Republicans and numerous business groups immediately denounced him. It was a reminder -- as if anyone needed it -- of why it's hard for the federal government to take major steps on the environment and many other fields.

"It is astonishing that President Obama is unilaterally imposing new regulations that will cost jobs and increase energy prices," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Environmental groups welcomed the president's moves, even as they called them long overdue. Environmental activists have grown increasingly frustrated since 2009 as they watched Obama place health care, Wall Street reform, immigration and other priorities ahead of curbing greenhouse gases.

The 2009-2010 congressional struggle to enact Obama's health care overhaul exacerbated Washington's already-intense partisanship. By late 2010 -- when tea party-backed Republicans regained control of the House -- antagonism between the parties grew so heated that once-routine tasks became major chores.

Since then in fact, some of Congress' most consequential actions essentially resulted from the inability to agree on anything. Decision-by-indecision became Washington's new operating method.

In 2011, Senate Republicans devised a strategy that effectively washed Congress' hands of any role in raising the federal debt limit.

Then, when lawmakers struggled for bipartisan spending agreements, they tried to jump-start negotiations by establishing severe national consequences if talks ultimately failed. The talks failed nonetheless, and the once unthinkable consequences -- the "fiscal cliff" tax hikes and "sequestration" spending cuts -- became law this year.

Not terribly long ago, Democrats and Republicans reached agreements to enact budgets, raise the debt limit, pass farm bills and do hundreds of other tasks. Now, bipartisan accords on almost anything will turn heads.

"We have an historic opportunity here in the Senate," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said on the chamber floor Tuesday. He was speaking of the immigration bill that would tighten border security and grant pathways to citizenship for people here illegally.

"It doesn't happen very often," Durbin said. "A bipartisan bill! How about that?"

Some Americans, however, see bipartisanship as a betrayal of political principles.

"Primary Rubio!" someone shouted at a recent tea party rally at the Capitol. He was calling for a Republican primary challenge to Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican once seen as a tea party hero, and an author of the bipartisan Senate immigration plan.

The outbreak of robust government actions might not last. Congress is in recess next week, and many people expect a tough road for the immigration legislation in the Republican-controlled House when lawmakers return to Washington.

And Obama -- already accused of not using his presidential powers to inspire enough fear and friendships to advance his agenda -- may find his clout further reduced. The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the president violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to appoint three people to the National Labor Relations Board.

---

Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-28-Washington%20Wakes%20Up/id-5fc68167d8b943bcbfb1185c7f1aaed7

Dick Van Dyke pro bowl victoria azarenka Royal Rumble 2013 senior bowl norovirus Eclampsia

Courageous Fatherhood | Freedom Is Just Another Word...

Courageous Fatherhood

Chuck Colson

These men fight crime, maintain justice and protect the most vulnerable in society. No, they don?t patrol the streets in squad cars or wear uniforms or badges (at least not the majority). But their job isn?t all that different from the job of law enforcement.

I?m talking about fathers and the roles they?re called to fulfill. The comparison is the theme of a new movie from Sherwood Pictures, the makers of Fireproof and Facing the Giants ? actually a Baptist church doing a great getting these kinds of films into popular culture.

It?s called Courageous, getting a real buzz in the Christian world deservedly, but what really strikes me about it is the lesson it teaches about something I?ve been working on for 35 years: Those with the most power to prevent crime are dads.

The film is about four cops in Albany, Georgia, who do what cops do best: They deal on a daily basis with carjackings, gang violence, drug-running and shootings. They put on their badges, protect and serve. It takes courage, and they uphold their duty no matter what.

But when it comes time to head home, these same men find themselves lacking as fathers. Two have lost touch with their teenage children, one is divorced and hardly sees his son, and the other secretly abandoned his pregnant girlfriend after college.

These men don?t seem to notice their failures until tragedy strikes one of them. Realizing how little time they truly have with their children, these fathers decide to set it straight: They pledge to embrace the principles of biblical fatherhood and live as courageously at home as they do at work.

The producers? emphasis is the connection between the failure of the fathers and crime. In a particularly chilling scene, a young man, as part of his initiation into the gang, allows his fellow members to beat him senseless before hugging them and calling them ?family.?

?If fathers just did what they were supposed to do,? says one of the cops, ?half the junk we face on the streets wouldn?t exist.?

Right! For 35 years working in the prisons, I?ve come to realized that the standard liberal theories about what causes crime ? poverty, racism, environment ? they?re dead wrong.

Our prison systems are full of people who never had the example of a courageous father ? or any father at all. More than 70 percent of long-term prison inmates come from broken homes, and young men raised in fatherless households are at least twice as likely to be incarcerated as those from intact families.

One of the biggest reasons why I started BreakPoint 20 years ago, was to sound the alarm to the culture. Worldview matters ? as families break down, prisons fill up. As my colleague Shane Morris points out in his review of Courageous on our website, biblical fatherhood deals with crime at its source.

In the movie, this teaching takes the form of 12 commitments within a resolution for fathers. You can read them by clicking on today?s commentary at BreakPoint.org. Then, I hope you?ll go see Courageous, and ? if you?re a father ? sign the resolution within own your family.

Take it from someone who has witnessed the destruction of failed fathers for over three decades: You?ve got a duty to your children. And you can change the course of their lives and society.

And if you haven?t been the father you?ve wanted to be, it?s not too late to start. Sign that resolution today and change your ways.

Chuck Colson?s daily BreakPoint commentary airs each weekday on more than one thousand outlets with an estimated listening audience of one million people. BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today?s news and trends via radio, interactive media and print.

Publication date: November 1, 2011

Like this:

Like Loading...

Source: http://maddmedic.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/courageous-fatherhood/

the giver march 30 rimm pauly d project adrienne rich autism cesar chavez day

Interview with Pierre Zarokian on Reputation Management for Small ...

In the mid-90s, while developing a search engine for a yellow pages company, Pierre Zarokian became interested in how search engines determined their rankings, eventually starting a search engine submission and optimization company. He founded Submit Express in 1998, right around when Google was launched. Submit Express began in his parents? garage, with virtually no investment, but it became successful within a year. Today, Submit Express employs over 30 people. Pierre is still its president, and is involved with day-to-day operations and management see www.submitexpress.com.?

Why is online reputation especially significant for small businesses?

Your business represents a huge investment in time, money, education, expertise, equipment, staff training, and marketing. It is everything?it is your life. So how do you protect your business if a crazy customer goes on a verbal rampage and posts numerous negative reviews all over the Internet? What will that result in?

Your reputation matters and here is why:

• 83% of consumers say online customer reviews influence their purchase decisions. (Source: Opinion Research Corp., June 2008)
• A word-of-mouth recommendation is the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions. (Source: McKinsey Quarterly, April 2010)
• Harvard University research on Yelp shows that a 1-star difference in reviews on Yelp may result in 5% to 9% in business gained or lost. (Source: Harvard University, September 2011)

These days, anyone can go online and anonymously leave negative feedback or reviews about individuals or businesses. Sites such as Yelp, RipoffReport.com, Scam.com, Scambook.com, PissedConsumer.com, and ComplaintsBoard.com allow postings by anyone. Posters? identities are often validated through nothing more than an Email address. Some of these sites may track the IP address of the poster; however, it would be virtually impossible to acquire the IP address without legal action and subpoenaing the records of the complaints site. Furthermore, simply acquiring an IP address is no guarantee that you?ll easily identify the poster. You?d need to subpoena the records of the ISP as well, and, in some cases, it might not have records available.

Consumers oftentimes leave negative feedback and rants on their social media pages such as Twitter and Facebook, and many of those sites normally rank very high in Google and other search engines due to their popularity. That?s why negative reviews posted on these types of sites tend to show up in search engines. If it?s your business that?s being disparaged, the situation can turn ugly.

With that backdrop, the early 2000s saw the birth of a new industry?Online Reputation Management (ORM), also called Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM). Online Reputation Management helps businesses eliminate or reduce the damage caused by negative Internet postings that are ranking high on searches for their companies, brand names, or associated individuals (such as a company president). Removing offending pages is sometimes not possible, even through legal action. However, the targeted use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing enables businesses to push down negative pages in search engine rankings?even to the second page or lower, where they will be ?buried? and attract less attention. If you have negative reviews online, you could be losing thousands of dollars a month and not even know it.

Are there any benefits that come from negative feedback online?

Although negative feedback is unquestionably bad, it can, in fact, provide you with valuable insights about your operations and alert you to problems at your practice. Stay on top of all reviews posted and be proactive about avoiding similar problems in the future. In my opinion, many complaints happen because of poor management.

If you are running a company with at least 5 employees, most often you may not be directly aware of client interaction with some of your staff. ?Negative online reviews are great source of customer feedback. You might also want to consider establishing a medium through which your customers can give you direct feedback. Maybe try placing a review form on your website.

What things do small business customers complain about most?

As a reputation management consultant, my company currently helps many customers with their reputation management, especially with Yelp. I have personally read thousands of negative reviews on Yelp and what I can tell you as being the #1 complaint on Yelp are issues with staff. Oftentimes businesses such as restaurants or medical practices do not have proper management. Most often staff that are under poor management do not do their jobs correctly, either because of lack of proper training or because no one is giving them warnings when they make mistakes. So even though the staff might be the problem, ultimately as a business owner it is your responsibility to be aware of what is going on and properly train your staff or provide necessary warnings to those that fail at their tasks.

Some customers are more sensitive than others, and you never know for sure what will tick someone off. Sometimes, if a customer is bent on being dissatisfied, even doing the best job possible will not help you avoid a negative review.

Are there ways to be proactive when it comes to protecting the reputation of you business?

The best reputation defense is to resolve them as soon as you spot them. If you?re paying attention, you can tell when a customer gets upset. Don?t argue with such customers. Instead, offer a discount or a full refund to avoid getting a potential negative review. You never want to lose a returning customer because of an isolated incident, and you certainly don?t want to lose new customers over negative reviews online. With bad reviews, you could potentially lose dozens of new customers each month. The flipside, of course, is that a happy customer can refer business to you through word of mouth, and also through positive online reviews.

What is the best way for a business to maintain a good reputation?

Your reputation matters, regardless of your company?s size. What people see when they search for you online has an impact whether you?re a one-person show or a giant, multinational company with complex customers.

Owning the top 10 sites that appear in Google and other search engines when your name or that of your business is queried is one way to thwart high-ranking negative information. The easiest way to own the Top 10 for your brand is to create many social media profiles and to launch some blogs. Keep in mind that it?s not just the search engines you need to worry about?sites like Yelp and other review platforms have the potential to do a lot of harm.

Do sites like Yelp really have an impact on small businesses?

Getting negative reviews on Yelp can be very bad for small local businesses. It can cost your business a lot of income. Yelp, a social networking review website launched in 2004, really took off in 2009. Its business model is based on user-generated reviews for local businesses. Yelp uses a 5-star rating system and has mechanisms to stop spammers from posting false reports, and business owners from creating 5-star reports for themselves. You may often see filtered reviews on Yelp (click on the pertinent link at the bottom of any Yelp page to view these). The score from filtered reviews is not added to a business?s overall rating because Yelp has deemed them untrustworthy.

The reviews of new Yelp users and of those whose accounts are not very active tend to get filtered. Reviews are likely to be filtered if the Yelp account they?re coming from is less than 3 months old and has less than 10 reviews. Lack of activity, friends, or a profile picture can all result in filtered reviews.

Concern has been voiced about Yelp pressuring businesses into paying for Yelp advertisements by purposely displaying more negative reviews than positive ones. Many business owners claim they?ve been told by Yelp sales-people that unless they advertise with them, their businesses? positive reviews will be removed. In 2010, Yelp was hit with a class-action lawsuit by business owners claiming extortion, saying that Yelp demanded $300 a month, or more, for the removal or modification of negative listings. The forum Yelp Sucks also has posts from users with related issues.

Can businesses remove negative listings from yelp?

Usually, you cannot remove negative listings from Yelp, but there are a few ways to try, and sometimes, achieve it. For instance, Yelp has strict guidelines and Terms of Service (TOS). If a reviewer posts a review violating the TOS, you can request its removal. Examples of Yelp TOS violations include copyright infringements and third-party-perspective reviews?all these qualify for removal.

Besides Yelp, the only person who can remove a review is its original author. You may want to reach out to the reviewer to try and resolve the issues that led to the negative review. Perhaps some refund or free service may get the reviewer to remove the offending commentary. You can contact the reviewer from within Yelp. However, if you know the reviewer and have their contact info, then reach out to them by phone.

Legal action is another resort, especially in cases of false reviews. To proceed, you need to know who the reviewer is so you can file and serve the appropriate legal documents. This is a costly option. Nevertheless, if you feel a review is especially damaging, at minimum, have an attorney send a cease-and-desist letter to the poster.

The only other option to mitigate negative reviews is to improve your tally of positive ones. To do this, I recommend that you always ask your happy clients to post reviews on Yelp. Some businesses like to provide incentives, like discounts for those that leave positive reviews, but be aware that this practice goes against Yelp?s policies.

Is there a way for businesses to prevent negative reviews from showing up on Google?s first page?

Yes, you can, but it is a time-consuming process, and often expensive. You would either need to dedicate a lot of time to it, or hire an SEO or Reputation Management expert to help you. Below are tips on a few things you can do.

How can small businesses use social media to improve their reputation?

Negative reviews on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites are harmful, but social media can be used to benefit your business greatly. Planned, proactive participation in social media can create positive buzz around your brand. Moreover, social media sites ? Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and YouTube, to name a few ? possess enormous inherent power to have any profile you create on them rank for your brand. Just make sure that the profiles you create contain your brand?s name. This is one way to push down negative content that?s appearing in search engines.

Creating new blogs with your brand name in the domain name, or URL, is also a great idea. WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr are sites that allow you to create blogs with subdomains. You may want to use your brand as part of the subdomain (i.e., http://yourbrand.wordspress.com). Take note that simply creating profiles isn?t enough. Once created, profiles need to be updated regularly through posted content and other activities, like adding Friends and Liking. To carry this out properly, my recommendation is to register profiles on as many social media sites as possible. I recommend a minimum of 300 different profiles.

Registering your brand on multiple social media sites has an additional benefit: it locks down your brand name on them, meaning you won?t risk losing your name to cyber squatters or to someone likely to associate negative content with your name. There are services out there that offer bulk social media profile creations, so don?t waste your time doing this one at a time.

Are there any other steps that businesses can take to further protect their reputation?

If you don?t already own all the different variations of the domain name for your brand, including versions with dashes and different TLDs (i.e., .com, .net, .org, .biz, et cetera), then start registering them right away. In my estimation, it?s best to likewise grab your domain name with the addition of words like ?sucks? and ?reviews? at the end. Doing so will impede those tempted to launch a site with negative content about you. There?s overwhelming evidence indicating that major search engines use keywords in domain names as a ranking factor. That?s why having these types of domains, and launching sites with them, is a good way to prevent negative reputations from arising.

But be careful! Duplicating content from your main site on extra domains is detrimental. Google actually uses its Duplicate Content Algorithm to filter out duplicated content. If you?re going to create extra sites, make sure that each one has unique content about your brand, and that you?re engaging good SEO and Link Building practices.

How can small businesses recover from negative reviews and rebuild their reputation?

If an incident has created negative publicity for your company, consider reaching out to the media and publicly explaining the situation and/or apologizing to your customers. One of my clients had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a shooting at his establishment that resulted in an employee?s death. His business lost a lot of money. To avoid similar situations in the future, this client increased security and installed video surveillance at his establishment. Heeding my recommendation, the client afterwards issued a press release announcing the improvements. He got the word out about the work he was doing to make his clients feel safe, and more likely to return to his business.

It is relatively cheap to put out a press release. Via PRWeb, it?ll only run you $200. You should also contact local press outlets and send the press releases directly. You might try asking local press to interview you about your business, or to find an angle that could result in news coverage for you. Press coverage helps in two ways:

1. Clients get some positive information about you.
2. Online press coverage tends to rank high in search engines.

What other ways can businesses strengthen their reputation?

You may have heard it before: in SEO, content is king. Well, it is also king for reputation management. Create as much content as possible about your company or brand and post it on your own websites. Then, submit it to other sites for publication. Try writing pieces about your industry, such as ?How To? articles, and sending them to industry publications or blogs as guest postings. Don?t forget to make these blogs and articles link back to your company and to some of your social media profiles, if possible; that way, the links will help your other properties rank higher.

Is there a specific type of content that works best for building a reputation?

Start uploading videos to YouTube. Google owns YouTube, and the site is so popular that clips posted there may naturally rank on Google?s first page. Imagine, YouTube is the third most visited website, so a video on YouTube may even help you get more business. Providing short, 3-5 minute videos about your profession and business, or informational and ?How To? videos, can be favorable. A dental client of mine has created scores of dentistry-related videos. Not only are those videos ranking on the first page of Google for the name of his practice, but they are ranking in both Google and YouTube for particular keywords.

What can reputation management companies do to fix a business? online reputation?

Most people view their cars as valuable possessions, and when they break down, they take them to expert mechanics, ASAP! Smart people go to experts when something valuable breaks down, even if capable of doing a decent fix-it job themselves. If your brand is experiencing trouble, do you have the skills to fix it? You might know a little bit about SEO, such as how to build links, or understand general concepts related to public relations. But still, you?re no expert. Your company?s reputation is more valuable than your car, by far, so doesn?t it make sense to have an expert take a look at its problems, and heed his or her recommendations?

Can agencies help?

Reputation management agencies can do much to repair your reputation on search engines. They help you build up a positive reputation by ensuring that disparaging information that?s showing up on popular searches for your name, or other important terms related to you, does not rank well. Reputation management agencies can create positive PR for you by getting strategic articles about your company placed in popular websites. This works stupendously when such websites have names similar to terms related to what potential customers are searching for. With this action plan, advantageous information about you will be found by customers searching for your associated keywords, as well as ?review? and similar items.

Agencies can also make sure that people produce glowing content about you, organically. Some agencies may have relationships with top publications and journalists to secure good reviews about your product. A good reputation management company will consult with you on all available options, and recommend the best tactics to better your reputation. As experts, they can even guide you through the process of acquiring an attorney to have negative content legally removed, when that is a possibility.

What do you recommend for businesses whose reputations have been damaged online?

The Internet goes both ways?it can generate great wealth for your business by helping you reach many new customers, and it can wreak havoc on your reputation and income. Online negative reviews are among the worst things to deal with, and any business is a target. For small business, having positive reviews on sites like Yelp is essential. And it?s a mistake to wait until you have negative reviews to act. If you have a plan in place to increase your positive reviews on an ongoing basis, you will be better positioned to weather the impact of any negative reviews you receive later. The cost of increasing positive reviews is low compared to the thousands of dollars that can be lost in production after receiving negative ones.

If you need help with your reputation, talk with an expert about recapturing your good standing. Be sure to select whom you engage with carefully. There are scammers who?ll post negative content about you in order to later play savior by removing it. Others are so new to the industry that they can offer little tangible benefits. Check your provider?s reputation online before entrusting them with your own Web presence. Finding a good reputation company is kind of like finding a good dentist?you need to find skilled, ethical, and honest treatment.

Murray founded of The Mail in 2013 an angel funded start up publication covering performance marketing and mobile marketing. Murray is an advisor to a number of bay area startups including VigLink. In 2011 Wiley published his book Online Marketing: A User's Manual. Born I England Murray moved to the USA in 2011 being recognized by the US government as an alien of extraordinary ability

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/interview-with-pierre-zarokian-on-reputation-management-for-small-business/65135/

Larry King Suzy Favor Hamilton mayan calendar end of the world end of the world december 21 2012 norad

Paparazzo sues Justin Bieber for alleged assault

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Justin Bieber has been sued by a paparazzo who claims the singer kicked and punched him last year at a Southern California shopping center.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges the "Baby" crooner attacked Jose Osmin Hernandez Duran after Bieber and his then-girlfriend went to the movies at The Commons in Calabasas.

Bieber's representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Duran claims Bieber started to leave the shopping center in his Mercedes, but got out of his car and sprinted toward him.

Duran says Bieber jumped into the air from 6 to 8 feet away to deliver a martial-arts-type kick to the photographer's gut before punching him in the face.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for "severe and extreme emotional distress" and negligence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paparazzo-sues-justin-bieber-alleged-assault-023647768.html

Psalms 91 once upon a time once upon a time RG3 nfl playoff schedule Rex Ryan tattoo Alaska earthquake

Get a 15 Minute Workout | Body Health ? Bodybuilding, Workouts ...

In order t? cope w?th th? challenges ?f th? current era more efficiently, ??? h??? t? b? ?t th? peak ?f ???r health; otherwise ??? ?r? ??k??? t? lag behind ?n th? competition. If ??? visit a gym regularly ?r indulge ?n ?n? ?th?r physical activity, ??? h??? a greater chance ?f achieving success ?n different spheres ?f life, b?????? according t? m??t experts, physical ?n? mental strength ?r? inter-related. Th?r? ?r? many people wh? fail t? work out b?????? ?f th??r ???? ???r???h b?t m??t ?f th? working men ?n? women actually ?? n?t ??t enough time f?r gym ?r ?th?r activities. Y?? ?? n?t need t? lose heart h?w???r, b?????? ??? ??n still b? fit ?n? healthy ?f ??? ??n learn q???k workout techniques.

1 D????? th? r??ht time ?n? follow th? routine
First ?f ???, ??? need t? ?? ??m? homework ?b??t ???r fitness plans. Convince yourself th?t ??? h??? t? b? dedicated ?n? m??t take ?t ????t 15 minutes out ?f ???r daily routine t? work out. Th? next step ?? t? ?????? wh?t time ??? wish t? exercise. Th? two best times t? work out ?r? early morning ?n? late ?n th? evening ?ft?r coming back home fr?m work. M?k? a ???n ?n? adhere t? ?t strictly.

2 Stretching
Th? initial minutes ?f th? 15-minutes ???n ?h???? consist ?f stretching ???r muscles, ?? th?t th?? ?r? properly warmed up. Y?? m?? risk a muscle injury ?f ??? ?t?rt exercising without stretching ???r body fr?m head t? toe. Learn ??m? basic stretching exercises fr?m a trainer ?r through online videos.

3 Push-ups
Th? second step ?f ???r workout ???n ?? ?b??t push-ups. If ??? ?r? a beginner, ??? need t? see h?w many push-ups ??? ??n achieve ?n a set. Try t? ?? 8 t? 10 push-ups ?n th? initial stage ?n? h??? three sets ?n ???r ???n each day. Increase th? number ?f push-ups per set w?th th? passage ?f time. Th?? ?? ?r??t workout f?r ???r upper body, including chest, arms ?n? shoulders. Try t? complete three sets ?f push-ups ?n ?b??t 5 minutes.

4 Sit-ups
Follow th? same pattern w?th sit-ups. Instead ?f going r??ht down t? th? floor, ??? ?h???? ???t ?? half-way (?b??t a sitting position) ?n? th?n stand. Look t? produce three sets ?f 15 sit-ups each. Take a 30 t? 45 seconds br??k ?ft?r each set. Sit-ups ?r? n?t ?n?? ???? f?r ???r thighs ?n? hamstrings; th?? w??? ???? strengthen ???r back.

5 Crunches
If ??? h??? a f?t tummy, th? next exercise ?n ???r ???n ?? crunches. J??t ??k? th? ?th?r two major exercises, complete three sets, w?th each one consisting ?f 12 crunches. Take a 30 seconds br??k ?ft?r each set.

Related Articles:

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://mybodyhealth.net/get-a-15-minute-workout/

Presidents Day 2013 jack white wiz khalifa 2013 Grammys kelly clarkson Lumineers The Lumineers

Early brain stimulation may help stroke survivors recover language function

June 27, 2013 ? Non-invasive brain stimulation may help stroke survivors recover speech and language function, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

Between 20 percent to 30 percent of stroke survivors have aphasia, a disorder that affects the ability to grasp language, read, write or speak. It's most often caused by strokes that occur in areas of the brain that control speech and language.

"For decades, skilled speech and language therapy has been the only therapeutic option for stroke survivors with aphasia," said Alexander Thiel, M.D., study lead author and associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. "We are entering exciting times where we might be able in the near future to combine speech and language therapy with non-invasive brain stimulation earlier in the recovery. This could result in earlier and more efficient aphasia recovery and also have an economic impact."

In the small study, researchers treated 24 stroke survivors with several types of aphasia at the rehabilitation hospital Rehanova and the Max-Planck-Institute for neurological research in Cologne, Germany. Thirteen received transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and 11 got sham stimulation.

The TMS device is a handheld magnetic coil that delivers low intensity stimulation and elicits muscle contractions when applied over the motor cortex.

During sham stimulation the coil is placed over the top of the head in the midline where there is a large venous blood vessel and not a language-related brain region. The intensity for stimulation was lower intensity so that participants still had the same sensation on the skin but no effective electrical currents were induced in the brain tissue.

Patients received 20 minutes of TMS or sham stimulation followed by 45 minutes of speech and language therapy for 10 days.

The TMS groups' improvements were on average three times greater than the non-TMS group, researchers said. They used German language aphasia tests, which are similar to those in the United States, to measure language performance of the patients.

"TMS had the biggest impact on improvement in anomia, the inability to name objects, which is one of the most debilitating aphasia symptoms," Thiel said.

Researchers, in essence, shut down the working part of the brain so that the stroke-affected side could relearn language. "This is similar to physical rehabilitation where the unaffected limb is immobilized with a splint so that the patients must use the affected limb during the therapy session," Thiel said.

"We believe brain stimulation should be most effective early, within about five weeks after stroke, because genes controlling the recovery process are active during this time window," he said.

Thiel said the result of this study opens the door to larger, multi-center trials. The NORTHSTAR study has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and will be launched at four Canadian sites and one German site later in 2013.

The Walter and Marga Boll and Wolf-Dieter-Heiss Foundations funded the current study.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/QC3RAuNF0D0/130627161434.htm

justin theroux Bumbo recall USA Basketball taio cruz taio cruz Winter Olympics 2014 freddie mercury

Shooting Challenge: Summer

Kool-aid. Sunscreen. Swass. It's summer, that time we dream about all year, only to bitch about when it's finally here. And for this week's Shooting Challenge, capture the feeling of summer, in a single frame.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/uZw2xh4gIgU/shooting-challenge-summer-593584192

colorado rockies moonshine news channel 4 radar weather morosini death jacoby ellsbury jacoby ellsbury

Who Would You Cast In a Live-Action Jetsons Movie?

Kanye West is making the rounds again claiming that he's the creative director for a live-action Jetsons movie that's currently (sort-of, kind-of, not really) in development. Beyond the fact that "creative director" isn't actually the title for a job on any movie ? but something you'd find at an advertising agency ? consider this retrofuture blogger skeptical that a Jetsons movie will ever see the light of day.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3At8snGsq8k/who-would-you-cast-in-a-live-action-jetsons-movie-598378176

2012 nfl draft grades young justice d rose iman shumpert mayweather vs cotto shumpert hopkins

Aaron Swartz has been posthumously inducted into the Internet Society's Hall Of Fame this year.

Aaron Swartz has been posthumously inducted into the Internet Society's Hall Of Fame this year. You can read a full list of new members here.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/aaron-swartz-has-been-posthumously-inducted-into-the-in-595063128

nbc news msnbc reddit abc news Boston Police Scanner Jeff Bauman cbs news

Now You Can Browse Twitter's #Music iPhone App By Genre (And With New Charts)

Twitter released an update to the Twitter #music iPhone app today that should make it easier to explore different types of music. Previously, you could find different artists in the app through two charts, Popular and Emerging. And Popular was the real focus ? that's where you were taken when you opened the app. Which makes sense, since the goal of Twitter #music is to highlight the music that's most popular on Twitter.

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

Tate Stevens Miss Universe 2012 x factor x factor john kerry eastbay Samantha Steele

Pitch-Perfect: Why Our Shoulders Are Key To Throwing

Link Information - Click to View

Pitch-Perfect: Why Our Shoulders Are Key To Throwing
Being able to throw stones with power and precision must have been fun for humans' early ancestors. It was essential, too, since we lack the the fangs and claws of other predators. A recent study suggests the ability to fire rocket fastballs depends on shoulder anatomy that chimps don't share.

Source: NPR
Posted on: Thursday, Jun 27, 2013, 8:51am
Views: 8

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128809/Pitch_Perfect__Why_Our_Shoulders_Are_Key_To_Throwing

doug hutchison larry brown thomas kinkade pat summit brewers matt cain

Overweight causes heart failure: Large study with new method clarifies the association

June 25, 2013 ? An international research team led by Swedish scientists has used a new method to investigate obesity and overweight as a cause of cardiovascular disease. Strong association have been found previously, but it has not been clear whether it was overweight as such that was the cause, or if the overweight was just a marker of another underlying cause, as clinical trials with long-term follow-ups are difficult to implement.

A total of nearly 200,000 subjects were included in the researchers' study of the causality between obesity/overweight and diseases related to cardiovascular conditions and metabolism, which is being published for the first time in PLOS Medicine. The goal was to determine whether obesity as such is the actual cause of these diseases or whether obesity is simply a marker of something else in the subject's lifestyle that causes the disease.

"We knew already that obesity and cardiovascular disease often occur together. However, it has been hard to determine whether increased BMI as such is dangerous. In this study we found that individuals with gene variants that lead to increased body-mass index (BMI) also had an increased risk of heart failure and diabetes. The risk of developing diabetes was greater than was previously thought," says Tove Fall, a researcher at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, who coordinated the study together with researchers from the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.

These scientists studied whether a gene variant in the FTO gene, which regulates the appetite and thereby increases the individual's BMI, is also linked to a series of cardiovascular diseases and metabolism. The risk variant is common in the population, and each copy of the risk variant increases BMI by an average of 0.3-0.4 units. Since an individual's genome is not affected by lifestyle and social factors, but rather is established at conception, when the embryo randomly receives half of each parent's genome, the method is thus called "Mendelian randomization." To achieve reliable results a large study material was needed, and nearly 200,000 individuals from Europe and Australia participated.

"Epidemiological studies look for associations in large populations, but it is usually difficult to reliably determine cause and effect -- what we call causality. By using this new genetic method, Mendelian randomization, in our research, we can now confirm what many people have long believed, that increased BMI contributes to the development of heart failure. We also found that overweight causes increases in liver enzymes . This knowledge is important, as it strengthens the evidence that forceful societal measures need to be taken to counteract the epidemic of obesity and its consequences," says Erik Ingelsson, professor at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University.

The results show that an increase of one unit of BMI increases the risk of developing heart failure by an average of 20 per cent. Further, the study also confirms that obesity leads to higher insulin values, higher blood pressure, worse cholesterol values, increased inflammation markers, and increased risk of diabetes.

The present study was carried out within the framework of the major research consortium ENGAGE, which brings together more than 35 studies and more than 130 co-authors. The study was coordinated by Erik Ingelsson's research group in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.

The study was funded by, among others, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (ENGAGE), the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/x3-K-iv2mww/130625172248.htm

hunger games review jeff saturday jason smith jon corzine austin rivers austin rivers sweet home alabama