Widow to Supreme Court: DOMA is unconstitutional

Andy Kropa / Getty Images

By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

A federal law that leaves hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples without any recognition of their marriage violates the Constitution, lawyers for a woman whose wife?s death left her unprotected from more than $350,000 in estate taxes said in a legal brief Tuesday, one month before the Supreme Court hears her case.?

The landmark case is one of two the court will hear in March about the battle over whether same-sex couples can legally wed, and if they do, whether they can receive spousal benefits and get the same rights that heterosexual couples currently enjoy.

The former is a legal fight over California?s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, and the latter centers on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level.

Of a few cases brought to the high court challenging DOMA, the justices chose to hear the one brought by Edie Windsor, whose wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The New York couple married in 2007 in Canada, though they were?together for 44 years before Spyer died.

Spyer left her estate to Windsor. As a married heterosexual couple there would have been no estate tax. But Windsor was left with a federal tax bill of $363,000 since the couple?s marriage was not recognized by the U.S. government.

The lawyers? brief filed Tuesday by Windsor?s lawyers argues that DOMA's?Section 3, which defines marriage at the federal level, ?violates the Constitution because it treats married gay couples differently than married straight couples? for ?no logical reason,? the American Civil Liberties Union, part of Windsor's legal team, said in a summary of the brief.

Gays and lesbians, who have already endured a long history of discrimination, the ACLU said, were subjected to further discrimination from DOMA, which they noted Congress passed in 1996 ?based on fear of and stereotypes about gay people, rather than any legitimate government purpose.? ?

?But the Constitution doesn?t permit the government to pass a law just to disadvantage a politically unpopular group of people,? the group added.

DOMA affects more than 1,100 provisions of federal laws, denying gay couples the right to file joint taxes, the protections of the Family Medical and Leave Act, and blocks surviving spouses from accessing veterans? benefits, among other things, Windsor?s lawyers said.

?DOMA excludes married couples who are gay from all of the rights, privileges and obligations that the federal government otherwise affords married couples,? her lawyers? brief said.

Two lower courts have agreed with Windsor and her attorneys. Other lower courts that reviewed DOMA challenges elsewhere, such as in Boston, reached similar findings.

The Obama administration filed a brief last Friday?in the case with the Supreme Court asking it to throw out Section 3, which it had already stopped defending.

The administration also mentioned California's Proposition 8 and similar measures in other states as evidence that anti-gay discrimination remained a major problem.?

The appeal of the lower courts? decision was brought by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, a congressional group made of three Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, and two Democrats.

In its brief, filed in late January, the group argued to let the debate over same-sex marriage continue to play out as it has been through votes in many states and public debate, saying ?gays and lesbians have substantial political power, and that power is growing. Victories at the ballot box that would have been unthinkable a decade ago have become routine,? it said, apparently referring to wins for same-sex marriage in four states last November.

?There is absolutely no reason to think that gays and lesbians are shut out of the political process to a degree that would justify judicial intervention on an issue as divisive and fastmoving as same-sex marriage,? the group said, as it urged the court not to step in.

?Indeed, the democratic process has substantial advantages over constitutionalizing this issue. Same-sex marriage is being actively debated in legislatures, in the press, and at every level of government and society across the country. That is how it should be,? the group added.

The court will hear on DOMA from both sides on March 27, one day after Proposition 8 supporters and opponents go before the justices.

Related:?

Once 'inconceivable,' Republican leaders sign pro-gay marriage brief
US asks Supreme Court to strike down law denying benefits to same-sex couples
Supreme Court to take up same-sex marriage issue??

?

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17106674-widow-to-supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ban-is-unconstitutional?lite

iman shumpert mayweather vs cotto shumpert hopkins hopkins dear john derrick rose torn acl

SpaceX tests rocket for space station launch

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket completed a two-second ignition of its first stage while being held down onto its Florida launch pad on Monday, in preparation for Friday's launch to the International Space Station. This view of the test was taken by a remote video camera, which makes it difficult to see the flare of the rocket.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

SpaceX said it completed a successful test of the engines on its Falcon 9 rocket on Monday, in preparation for Friday's planned cargo launch to the International Space Station.

The California-based rocket company's unmanned Dragon capsule is due to deliver about 1,200 pounds (550 kilograms) of supplies to the space station and bring back 2,300 pounds (1,050 kilograms) of cargo, including scientific samples and space station hardware.

Monday's static-fire test was aimed at checking the performance of the Falcon 9 first stage's nine engines before they're called upon to loft the second stage and the Dragon capsule toward orbit on Friday. The rocket was held down onto its launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for the engine firing, which came at the end of a dress rehearsal for Friday's countdown.

---

"SpaceX engineers ran through all countdown processes as though it were launch day," the company said in a statement issued after the 1:30 p.m. ET firing. "All nine engines fired at full power for two seconds, while the Falcon 9 was held down to the pad. SpaceX will now conduct a thorough review of all data and continue preparations for Friday's targeted launch."

In a Twitter update, SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, reported that the static-fire test looked good: "Engines generated 433 tons of thrust, parameters nominal."

SpaceX said the first opportunity for launch will come at 10:10 a.m. ET on Friday. This is the third Dragon to be sent to the space station, and the second flight under the terms of a $1.6 billion, 12-flight cargo resupply contract with NASA.

Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., has a separate $1.9 billion contract to deliver supplies to the space station but has not yet begun flying its Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule. On Friday, Orbital completed a successful static-fire test of Antares' engines in preparation for the rocket's first flight, which is expected to take place later this year.

NASA's contracts with SpaceX and Orbital are meant to help fill the gap left by the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011. Russian, European and Japanese unmanned spacecraft are also used to send supplies to the space station, but Russia's Soyuz capsule is the only spacecraft currently cleared to transport astronauts to and from orbit. NASA is providing more than $1 billion to SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. to support the development of new crew-capable spacecraft for low Earth orbit.

More about SpaceX's mission:

---

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17094139-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-passes-test-in-advance-of-space-station-launch?lite

Richard Blanco The Following Anna Burns Welker Martin Luther King, Jr. Mlk Quotes Elder Scrolls Online joe biden

TuneIn Radio updated with new Google+ sign-in feature

Google only just today announced their Google+ sign-in features that are opening up to app developers, but TuneIn Radio is one of the first out of the gate to implement it. Much as they were involved early on with Jelly Bean expandable notifications, the extremely popular radio streaming app is in on the ground floor with Google's latest features. 

To the user, it's exactly the same process as signing in via Twitter or Facebook, without the necessity of course to enter any login details. You choose which of your Google accounts you wish to sign-in with, and that's it. You're also presented with a check box allowing you to restrict who has access to content you share on Google+ -- although sharing something only you can see does seem a little, well, pointless. 

Google+ sign in isn't the only new feature in this update either. TuneIn Radio will now integrate with your calendar, so if you don't want to forget about that big soccer football game coming up, tapping the 'add to calendar' button will produce a handy reminder when the program is about to begin. Additionally, Chevrolet drivers with the MyLink functionality can now access TuneIn Radio directly from the car. Download the free version of TuneIn Radio can be found at the Play Store link above.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/MvfGUUGJuhA/story01.htm

mothers day 2012 cinco de mayo osama bin laden death spinal muscular atrophy brooklyn nets may day protests tony nominations 2012

C. Everett Koop Dies; Former Surgeon General Was 96

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/c-everett-koop-dies-former-surgeon-general-was-96/

Rivals beyonce Kaepernick Eddie Vanderdoes finish line puppy bowl national pancake day

Boys? lack of effort in school tied to college gender gap

Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Claudia Buchmann
Buchmann.4@osu.edu
614-247-8363
Ohio State University

New book examines why women succeed more in college

COLUMBUS, Ohio When it comes to college education, men are falling behind by standing still.

The proportion of men receiving college degrees has stagnated, while women have thrived under the new economic and social realities in the United States and elsewhere, according to two sociologists who have written a new book on the subject.

"The world has changed around boys, and they have not adapted as well as girls," said Claudia Buchmann, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University and co-author of The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).

Buchmann and co-author Thomas DiPrete, professor of sociology at Columbia University, spent more than a decade researching the education gender gap. They wanted to find out why women are now getting more college degrees than ever before, while the proportion of young men doing so hasn't changed much in more than 50 years.

In 1960, 65 percent of all bachelor's degrees were awarded to men. By 2010, the gender positions reversed and women received 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees.

Some commentators blame schools and argue that schools have become too "feminized" and don't support the way that boys learn. Some have asserted that single-sex education is the best way to help improve boys' academic achievement.

But there's little evidence to support these arguments, Buchmann said.

"Schools haven't changed that much. Boys have long underachieved in school compared to girls, but it mattered less when they could get good blue-collar jobs without a college degree," Buchmann said.

"In the last few decades, as those good blue-collar jobs have declined, that boys' performance in school has become a bigger issue."

Meanwhile, new job opportunities have opened for women in our society, giving girls the incentive to use their better academic skills to earn college degrees.

Boys' underachievement compared to girls has nothing to do with intelligence. Study after study shows that boys and girls are very similar in terms of cognitive ability.

"But what is striking is that at every level of cognitive ability, boys are getting lower grades than girls. It is not about ability it is about effort and engagement," Buchmann said.

More girls than boys report that they like school and that good grades are important to them. They also study more than boys.

"Success in academics, like success in sports, requires time and effort. Because boys put forth less effort and are less engaged, they get lower grades and are less likely to get through college," Buchmann said.

Some of boys' underperformance is related to outdated views of masculinity that devalue hard work and effort in school, she said. This is particularly true for boys from blue-collar and lower-class families. Working class fathers may reinforce the idea that school is feminizing because, for them, masculinity is more about physical strength and manual labor than about getting good grades.

Many boys from middle-class families, whose fathers have managerial and white-collar jobs, often develop an "instrumental" approach to school, Buchmann said. Regardless of how much they like school, they have learned how to do well in school in order to get a well-paying job and achieve material success.

"For these boys, notions of what it means to be a man are much more in tune with what is required to be successful in today's economy," she said.

Buchmann said the best solution to the education gender gap is to focus efforts on the "middle third" of students many of whom are boys - who have the ability to go to college, but who are not honing the academic skills they will need to successfully graduate. These are generally students who are getting mostly "B" grades in their classes, with a few "C"s.

The top third of students are those, mostly from white-collar families, who are already on track to successfully finish college, while the bottom third don't have the resources and skills to realistically finish a four-year degree.

In order to reach these boys in the middle third, the answer isn't single-sex classrooms, or making schools more "boy-friendly," Buchmann said.

"This taps into those narrow notions of what boys and men are like. That is going to backfire," she said.

"Instead, we need schools to expect high levels of effort and academic achievement of all students, including boys. Schools need to break down the gendered stereotypes that say that real men don't work hard in school."

Schools also need to do a better job of teaching students about the pathways through college to a good job. They need to make clear what kinds of grades students will need, and what kind of classes they need to take, to get the job they want to have.

This should start in elementary school, but should be especially emphasized in middle and high schools.

"Many boys say they expect to go to college, and many will enroll, but their expectations about what it will take to succeed are way off. They underestimate the work and effort they need to put forth," she said.

In one survey, 65 percent of boys in 8th grade expected they would get at least a bachelor's degree.

"Not even half of the boys who think they are going to get a college degree will actually do so," Buchmann said.

"Those years from 7th to 12th grade are crucial for really learning good study skills, learning how to apply yourself to your studies, and how to stay motivated even when the schoolwork is not particularly fun."

The good news is that the same changes that will help more boys achieve college success will help girls as well.

"This is not a zero-sum game," Buchmann said. "Helping boys to succeed in school won't hurt girls. It is all about closing the gender gap."

###

Contact: Claudia Buchmann

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Claudia Buchmann
Buchmann.4@osu.edu
614-247-8363
Ohio State University

New book examines why women succeed more in college

COLUMBUS, Ohio When it comes to college education, men are falling behind by standing still.

The proportion of men receiving college degrees has stagnated, while women have thrived under the new economic and social realities in the United States and elsewhere, according to two sociologists who have written a new book on the subject.

"The world has changed around boys, and they have not adapted as well as girls," said Claudia Buchmann, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University and co-author of The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).

Buchmann and co-author Thomas DiPrete, professor of sociology at Columbia University, spent more than a decade researching the education gender gap. They wanted to find out why women are now getting more college degrees than ever before, while the proportion of young men doing so hasn't changed much in more than 50 years.

In 1960, 65 percent of all bachelor's degrees were awarded to men. By 2010, the gender positions reversed and women received 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees.

Some commentators blame schools and argue that schools have become too "feminized" and don't support the way that boys learn. Some have asserted that single-sex education is the best way to help improve boys' academic achievement.

But there's little evidence to support these arguments, Buchmann said.

"Schools haven't changed that much. Boys have long underachieved in school compared to girls, but it mattered less when they could get good blue-collar jobs without a college degree," Buchmann said.

"In the last few decades, as those good blue-collar jobs have declined, that boys' performance in school has become a bigger issue."

Meanwhile, new job opportunities have opened for women in our society, giving girls the incentive to use their better academic skills to earn college degrees.

Boys' underachievement compared to girls has nothing to do with intelligence. Study after study shows that boys and girls are very similar in terms of cognitive ability.

"But what is striking is that at every level of cognitive ability, boys are getting lower grades than girls. It is not about ability it is about effort and engagement," Buchmann said.

More girls than boys report that they like school and that good grades are important to them. They also study more than boys.

"Success in academics, like success in sports, requires time and effort. Because boys put forth less effort and are less engaged, they get lower grades and are less likely to get through college," Buchmann said.

Some of boys' underperformance is related to outdated views of masculinity that devalue hard work and effort in school, she said. This is particularly true for boys from blue-collar and lower-class families. Working class fathers may reinforce the idea that school is feminizing because, for them, masculinity is more about physical strength and manual labor than about getting good grades.

Many boys from middle-class families, whose fathers have managerial and white-collar jobs, often develop an "instrumental" approach to school, Buchmann said. Regardless of how much they like school, they have learned how to do well in school in order to get a well-paying job and achieve material success.

"For these boys, notions of what it means to be a man are much more in tune with what is required to be successful in today's economy," she said.

Buchmann said the best solution to the education gender gap is to focus efforts on the "middle third" of students many of whom are boys - who have the ability to go to college, but who are not honing the academic skills they will need to successfully graduate. These are generally students who are getting mostly "B" grades in their classes, with a few "C"s.

The top third of students are those, mostly from white-collar families, who are already on track to successfully finish college, while the bottom third don't have the resources and skills to realistically finish a four-year degree.

In order to reach these boys in the middle third, the answer isn't single-sex classrooms, or making schools more "boy-friendly," Buchmann said.

"This taps into those narrow notions of what boys and men are like. That is going to backfire," she said.

"Instead, we need schools to expect high levels of effort and academic achievement of all students, including boys. Schools need to break down the gendered stereotypes that say that real men don't work hard in school."

Schools also need to do a better job of teaching students about the pathways through college to a good job. They need to make clear what kinds of grades students will need, and what kind of classes they need to take, to get the job they want to have.

This should start in elementary school, but should be especially emphasized in middle and high schools.

"Many boys say they expect to go to college, and many will enroll, but their expectations about what it will take to succeed are way off. They underestimate the work and effort they need to put forth," she said.

In one survey, 65 percent of boys in 8th grade expected they would get at least a bachelor's degree.

"Not even half of the boys who think they are going to get a college degree will actually do so," Buchmann said.

"Those years from 7th to 12th grade are crucial for really learning good study skills, learning how to apply yourself to your studies, and how to stay motivated even when the schoolwork is not particularly fun."

The good news is that the same changes that will help more boys achieve college success will help girls as well.

"This is not a zero-sum game," Buchmann said. "Helping boys to succeed in school won't hurt girls. It is all about closing the gender gap."

###

Contact: Claudia Buchmann

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/osu-blo022513.php

concede Obama Acceptance Speech Prop 30 Election 2012 Michigan Election Results Missouri Election Results Amendment 64

Thriving in a Long Distance Relationship | Catholic Match Blog

When I joined CatholicMatch I was so against long distance relationships (LDR), that I wrote in my profile that I wasn?t willing to travel far to meet anyone, but they were welcome to travel to meet me. That didn?t deter Alex?my future husband?from contacting me. While we were both happy with initiating friendship online, we knew it was important to move offline as soon as possible.

Because we lived two states away, we had to wait a whole month to see each other in person. After our first real date, another month passed before it was possible for us to see one another again ? then another month passed.

If you are in a long distance relationship, or considering one, here are some basic tips to help manage the difficulties of a long distance courtship:

1. Plan ahead. Meet in person as SOON and as OFTEN as possible. The sooner you can determine if there is chemistry, the sooner you can invest in the relationship. Plan ahead to avoid settling into a routine when you to get together. Do acts of charity together: volunteer at a Catholic school, church, soup kitchen, retirement home, Homefront, etc. Or plan to go to a museum, concert, hear a talk, hike, play sports, visit a farm or zoo, ice skate (rinks are open year round), dance or kayak.

Find other friends and relatives who want to travel with you to split gas or share hotel rooms. Or skip the hotel altogether and ask to stay with your significant other?s friend, sister, or cousin to cut expenses.

2. Date even when you?re not in the same room. If you can perfect this skill, you will make a fantastic spouse. Play Mad Libs or Loaded Questions over the phone. Take turns reading a book to one another (check out your library). Start writing a story together (make it as silly as you want) or draw comic strips. Play charades, hangman, or Sudoku together. Audit a foreign language class, and practice the new language together.

Swap new recipes, and then you?ll have a great meal to make next time you?re together. Create your own wine-tasting/beer-tasting/cheese-tasting/chocolate-tasting/Jelly Belly-tasting date via Skype or phone. Try carving a pumpkin or watermelon, and wear a costume to show your goofy side while on Skype. Create playlists for one another. Borrow your parents? photo albums, and share those childhood memories. Make different origami animals, and then mail your creations to one another.

3. Make regular connections throughout the day. Don?t hesitate to send texts or emails! I work from home with my husband, but I still love his texts, emails, and Facebook posts for me. You can email and text each other lyrics, jokes, Bible quotes, prayers, or poems (or leave them in voicemails). Create your own fun poem through this site: Festisite.com/love/poems. Send each other funny or sweet photos of your day.

It?s that type of connectivity that helps you stay close while you?re dating and keeps you closer when you?re married!

4. Pray together. Praying is one of the most intimate things you can do together. Praise and glorify God regardless of the outcome of your relationship. Our favorite form of prayer is song! You may feel intimidated to pray with your date, but I can attest that awkward prayer doesn?t ruin good relationships.

Early in our relationship, Alex sent a novena prayer for us to pray together (he didn?t read through the prayer before sending it to me). Although some of the language is very direct, we prayed it together anyway.

5. Savor the time apart. The hardest time to get through with LDR is when you are on your way home after seeing one another. Surround yourself with people who are supportive of your LDR, who will listen to your heartaches, but who will also help you focus on the good or virtue in every situation.

Remember that our purpose is to praise and glorify God through every joy and sorrow in this life. Use this time to lighten the burden of those around you, and cultivate those local friendships. This time apart also gives you something to talk about with your significant other.

Because we attended weddings separately, Alex and I talked comfortably about engagements, marriage, family life, and goals for the future.

6. Relocate. How open are you to relocating? Would that involve career changes? What are you willing to sacrifice for the other? Be honest with one another.

By moving to Connecticut Alex sacrificed and risked everything for love. We were engaged about one month later! I?m still open to living anywhere, but his gesture meant more than words.

7. Trust in God. When in doubt read Saint Faustina?s diary and always pray to know God?s will.

God willing, these practices will help to develop your relationship into a very satisfying marriage.

Source: http://www.catholicmatch.com/blog/2013/02/thriving-in-a-long-distance-relationship/

derbyshire the matrix oceans 11 ferris state hockey mary poppins john derbyshire kinkade

Can escape clause save voting rights provision?

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration and civil rights groups are defending a key section of the landmark voting rights law at the Supreme Court by pointing reformed state, county and local governments to an escape hatch from the law's strictest provision.

The Voting Rights Act effectively attacked persistent discrimination at the polls by keeping close watch, when it comes to holding elections, on those places with a history of preventing minorities from voting. Any changes, from moving a polling place to redrawing electoral districts, can't take effect without approval from the Justice Department or federal judges in Washington.

But the Voting Rights Act allows governments that have changed their ways to get out from under this humbling need to get permission through a "bailout provision." Nearly 250 counties and local jurisdictions have done so; thousands more could be eligible based on the absence of recent discriminatory efforts in voting.

The viability of the bailout option could play an outsized role in the Supreme Court's consideration of the voting rights law's prior approval provision, although four years ago, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said the prospect of bailing out had been "no more than a mirage."

The court will hear arguments Wednesday in the case, which is among the term's most important, in a challenge from Shelby County, Ala.

Opponents of the law say they no longer should be forced to live under oversight from Washington because the country has made enormous racial progress, demonstrated most recently by the re-election of President Barack Obama. They object in particular to the 40-year-old formula by which some jurisdictions, most in the Deep South, are swept under the law and others remain outside it.

The administration and its allies acknowledge that there has been progress. But they say minority voters still need the protection the law affords from efforts to reduce their influence at the polls. Last year, federal judges in two separate cases blocked Texas from putting in place a voter identification law and congressional redistricting plan because they discriminated against black and Hispanic residents.

Obama himself talked about the case in a radio interview last week. He told SiriusXM host Joe Madison that if the law were stripped of its advance approval provision, "it would be hard for us to catch those things up front to make sure that elections are done in an equitable way."

Also, the law's defenders say places that have changed their ways can win release from having to get Washington's blessing for election changes. Governments seeking to exit have to show that they and the smaller jurisdictions within their borders have had a clean record, no evidence of discrimination in voting, for the past 10 years.

Shelby County has never asked to be freed from the law, but would seem to be ineligible because one city in the county, Calera, defied the voting rights law and prompted intervention by the Bush Justice Department.

Yet places with a long, well-known history of discrimination probably could find their way out from under federal monitoring, according to a prominent voting rights lawyer who used to work for the Justice Department.

"Birmingham, Ala., where they used to use fire hoses on people, may well be eligible to bail out," said the lawyer, Gerry Hebert. Birmingham officials said they've never considered asking.

The Supreme Court made clear its skepticism about the ongoing need for the law when it heard a similar case in 2009. "Past success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirements," Chief Justice John Roberts said for the court. That ruling sidestepped the constitutional issue and instead expanded the ability of states, counties and local governments to exit the advance approval process.

At that point, so few governments had tried to free themselves from the advance approval requirement that, in 2009, Thomas said the "promise of a bailout opportunity has, in the great majority of cases, turned out to be no more than a mirage."

At the time, Thomas said, only a handful of the 12,000 state, county and local governments covered by the law had successfully bailed out.

The overall numbers remain low, but the Obama administration argues that "the rate of successful bailouts has rapidly increased" since the high court last took up the Voting Rights Act nearly four years ago.

In the past 12 months, 110 local governments have been freed from the requirement to show in advance that their proposed election changes are not discriminatory. Places that have won their release from coverage include Prince William County, Va., with more than 400,000 residents, and Merced County, Calif., and its 84 municipalities.

Shelby County says that even with the recent jump in bailouts, "only a tiny percentage" of governments have found their way out of oversight from Washington.

The advance approval was adopted in the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success, and Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent time was in 2006, when a Republican-led Congress overwhelmingly approved and President George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives and Hispanics.

The 10 covered towns in New Hampshire are poised to become the next places to win their release from the law. An agreement between the Justice Department and the state is awaiting approval from a federal court in Washington.

Critics of the law contend the Justice Department is highlighting the escape hatch and agreeing to allow places such as the New Hampshire towns to exit to try to make the entire law look more palatable to the court.

Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty says in his court filing in support of Shelby County that the Justice Department "commonly agrees to bailouts for jurisdictions that are not legally entitled to receive them."

But supporters of the law argue in response that the federal government's willingness to agree to free places from the need to get permission shows that the voting rights act is flexible and helps focus attention on potentially discriminatory voting schemes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/escape-clause-save-voting-rights-provision-132218205--politics.html

Shirley Bassey Quvenzhané Wallis seth macfarlane jennifer lawrence kristen stewart daniel day lewis adele

Google Glass: a wearable heads-up display and camera

Available soon for about $1500, and in "explorer" testing now. (The title hashtag -- #ifihadglass -- is how Google is picking testers.) Joshua Topolsky at The Verge got an extended try-out with the device, and wrote about his experience. In short, he found it useful and awkward and very much the possible start of something big.

But I walked away convinced that this wasn?t just one of Google?s weird flights of fancy. The more I used Glass the more it made sense to me; the more I wanted it. If the team had told me I could sign up to have my current glasses augmented with Glass technology, I would have put pen to paper (and money in their hands) right then and there. And it?s that kind of stuff that will make the difference between this being a niche device for geeks and a product that everyone wants to experience.

After a few hours with Glass, I?ve decided that the question is no longer ?if,? but ?when??

You'll forgive me if I'm not terribly surprised by all of this. This is pretty much a spot-on manifestation of the next phase of the Participatory Panopticon. The first phase used cameraphones -- ubiquitous and useful, to be sure, but reactive: you had to take it out and do something to make it record. A cameraphone isn't a tool of a panopticon in your pocket. But a wearable system, particularly something that looks stylish and not "tech," leads to very different kinds of outcomes.

Here's a bit of something I wrote in 2005 ("personal memory assistant" was my term for a Google Glass-like device):

But the world of the participatory panopticon is not as interested in privacy, or even secrecy, as it is in lies. A police officer lying about hitting a protestor, a politician lying about human rights abuses, a potential new partner lying about past indiscretions -- all of these are harder in a world where everything might be on the record. The participatory panopticon is a world where accusations can easily be documented, where corporations will become more transparent to stakeholders as a matter of course, where officials may even be required to wear a recorder while on duty, simply to avoid situations where they are discovered to have been lying. It's a world where we can all be witnesses with perfect recall. Ironically, it's a world where trust is easy, because lying is hard.

But ask yourself: what would it really be like to have perfect memory? Relationships -- business, casual or personal -- are very often built on the consensual misrememberings of slights. Memories fade. Emotional wounds heal. The insult that seemed so important one day is soon gone. But personal memory assistants will allow people to play back what you really said, time and again, allow people to obsess over a momentary sneer or distracted gaze. Reputation networks will allow people to share those recordings, showing their friends (and their friends' friends, and so on) just how much of a cad you really are.

In the world of the Participatory Panopticon, it's not just politicians concerned about inadvertent gestures, quick glances or private frowns.

And avoiding it won't be as easy as simply agreeing to shut off the recorders. Unless you schedule your arguments, it's inevitable that something will be caught and archived. And if you leave your assistant off as a matter of course, you lose its value as an aid to recalling details that pass in an instant or didn't seem important at the time.

Moreover, if you turn your recorder off while those around you are still archiving their lives, you place yourself at a disadvantage -- it's not knowledge that's power, it's recall of and access to knowledge that's power.

The recently-posted video interview includes some of my more recent thinking on the topic.

It's a really big deal. There are enormous intellectual property implications here, and undoubtedly issues around distracted driving and whatnot. But for me, the truly important aspect is how it changes relationships. And as this becomes more commonplace, it will change relationships -- between business partners, spouses, parents and children, everyone.

And that's with the relatively simple technology of something like Google Glass. When we add things like active visual filtering and face recognition -- just look at someone and get their Twitter stream or Facebook page in front of you -- we get the third phase of the Participatory Panopticon. All of that's still ahead of us -- but the advent of Google Glass makes it much more likely to happen.

And, okay, I admit it. Even though we very modern futurists (who pooh-pooh "predictions" as the stuff of astrologers and TV pundits) are loathe to admit it, getting it right is a thrill. Laying out a forecast that, in the subsequent years, maps to an emerging reality is neat stuff, especially when the forecast includes various social components yet to show up. Add a catchy name and... well, you have the makings of a nice bullet point for the always-inevitable "hey Mr. Futurist, what predictions of yours have come true?" question.

Source: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20130223

New Year Outback Bowl Carly Rae Jepsen dallas cowboys Rose Bowl 2013 kim kardashian anderson cooper

Reusse: SW Minnesota State coach toughs it out on the court and off

This is Tim Miles' first season coaching the Nebraska men's basketball team. Recently, he had a speaking appearance in Omaha and was on the road back to Lincoln when he started a cellphone conversation with Brad Bigler.

"There were some things Brad's team was doing defensively that I wanted to ask him about,'' Miles said. "We got into the conversation and I missed Lincoln. It's not easy to miss Lincoln -- with eight exits -- in Nebraska, but I blew by it by about 20 miles.''

Miles' interest in breaking down defense with Bigler was intriguing for a few reasons: Tim is coaching in the Big Ten and Brad in Division II at Southwest Minnesota State. Tim was the Southwest coach from 1997 to 2001, and Brad was his point guard much of that time.

So, this was the mentor kicking around defensive concepts with the prot?g?.

"He's the son of a coach,'' Miles said. "His dad, Mark, is one of those solid-as-a-rock guys. When Brad talks about basketball, he traces everything back to his father.''

Mark Bigler coached his son at Fort Madison, a small town in southeastern Iowa. He is now the coach at Davenport West, one of the state's large schools.

Brad was recruited to Southwest State by Perry Ford. Before he got to Marshall, Minn., Ford left for Augustana (S.D.) and Miles was hired from Mayville (N.D.) State as his replacement.

"Brad was 5-foot-10 and maybe 140 pounds, but he played with as much resolve as anyone,'' Miles said. "What's the saying? 'Cool water runs deep.' That was him. No matter what situation we put in him, he always made plays.

"He had amazing strength as a person. And we've seen that through these tragedies.''

The tragedies have been chronicled nationally and regionally:

In July 2011, Brad, his mother, Diane Bigler-Hagenow, and three companions were kayaking on Hawk Creek near the Minnesota River. Diane was the enthusiastic kayaker, but the group ran into trouble with a rapids and she drowned.

On July 28, 2012, Brad's wife, Heather, was driving to the family cabin in Starbuck, with Brad in the passenger's seat, with their 5-month-old son, Drake, and Heather's mom in the back. The vehicle was smashed by a drunk driver and Drake died.

"I know it's tough every day for them, but not many of us could handle things like this the way Brad and his family have done," Miles said. "When you mention resiliency, Brad talks about what type of person his mother was, about what he still takes from his father, and now from Heather.''

Miles was on the phone late Saturday afternoon, after his Nebraska team had upset Iowa 64-60 in Lincoln. The fact a Big Ten coach would return a message after a big victory to talk about a former player and now a D-II coach ... that says something about these men.

Bigler and his Mustangs were in St. Paul playing Concordia on Friday night. Southwest held on for a 71-69 victory. The Mustangs then lost the regular-season finale Saturday night in Mankato, falling 85-75 to Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference regular-season champion Minnesota State.

"The ratings came out and we were ninth in the region ... but we're fifth in the South Division,'' Bigler said. "This conference is so tough.''

The Mustangs finished with 16 assists against Concordia -- a tick above the season average. Assists are a go-to statistic for Bigler.

"We take pride in setting up teammates,'' he said. "If we have an offensive philosophy, that's it: move the ball, set up your teammates.''

Miles coached Southwest State to its best season, in 2000-01 -- earning a trip to the Division?II Elite Eight in Bakersfield, Calif. Bigler was a point guard. Miles left for North Dakota State and Greg Stemen took over as the coach.

Bigler was in his sixth year as an assistant in August 2009, when Stemen told his staff in confidence that he was about to take a job in business.

"I didn't even tell Heather,'' Bigler said. "She was pregnant and we were moving into a new home. I didn't want to give her more to worry about.''

On Sept. 30, 2009, Stemen resigned and Bigler became the interim coach. He was 30 ... and secured the job full-time when the Mustangs reached the 2010 NSIC title game.

Thirty years old seems young for a Division?II job?

"Maybe, but Brad was one of those guys,'' Miles said. "You knew he was going to be a coach, and he'd be good at it right away.''

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on 1500-AM. ? preusse@startribune.com

Source: http://www.startribune.com/sports/192768301.html

meryl streep oscar wins sasha baron cohen oscars oscar winners the artist sacha baron cohen oscars the old curiosity shop jane russell

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 22 on Mars Time Meteoric Changes to the Earth Day, as Told by a Thousand Tired Decisions

Editor?s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose?Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American last month describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on ?Mars time? at this blog to see how it affects her sleep and behavior. This post is the seventh in a series.

Who could help but be captivated by the videos of last Friday?s meteorite blazing a blistering trail across the Russian sky?

To me, the event serves as a reminder that our planet is a trifling bit of real estate in a busy universe, and we got off easy this time. Just like its inhabitants, the Earth may at any moment be vulnerable to a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time crisis. If it?s the wrong enough place at the wrong enough time, it will be plowed into by a cosmic cannonball, and the glorious biological achievement that is life on our planet will be erased like one more extraneous scribble on the whiteboard of the universe. In other words, it?s conceivable that everything we ever do will be completely irrelevant.

As I was watching those videos and thinking the gloomily existential thoughts they inspired in me, I was wondering how I could fit them into a blog post about my Mars time experiment, in which I live on a day 40 minutes longer than normal, slowly advancing around earth?s 24 hour clock.

It turns out, the connection between meteors and the length of an Earth day isn?t as farfetched as you may think. Play with this remarkable tool (be warned: it?s easy to kill several hours doing so) developed by earth and space scientists at the University of Arizona and Purdue University, and you will discover that by hurling something large enough at our planet, you can change speed at which Earth rotates by up to several hours. Send a speedy Texas-sized projectile its way at a certain angle and speed and you wind up with a 24 hour 40 minute day, equivalent to that of Mars.

Though it?s within the realm of possibility that a meteor could come along and result in the death of everything on Earth, it?s not really likely that something big enough will come along and dramatically change the Earth?s rotation, so no need to lose sleep over that.. It would take ?a really, really big impact? to significantly change the Earth?s rotation, Jay Melosh, professor at Purdue?s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, told me in an email. ?Such an impact has zero possibility of happening in the current solar system.? And even if were to happen, the change in Earth?s rotation would be neither here nor there, since we would all be spending the rest of our days, whatever their length, extinct.

Even without the intervention of cosmic junk, the length of our home planet?s day is not static. I live in Santiago, Chile, where three years ago this week, a deadly 8.8-magnitude earthquake flung most of the nation out of bed at 3:30 A.M., and simultaneously shifted the Earth?s axis by a few inches, thereby shortening our day by about 1.3 millionths of a second, according to earth scientists at NASA. A year later, the 9.0 earthquake in Japan shortened our day again, this time by 1.8 millionths of a second.

Earthquakes aren?t acting alone to speed up our swirl through the firmament: Ocean currents, atmospheric conditions, and melting polar ice caps swallowed into the earth?s equatorial beer belly also contribute.

But while those factors are pressing the planet?s accelerator pedal, something more forceful is slamming on its breaks: The friction of our Moon?s gravitational pull. By some calculations, back in the planet?s primordial infancy, the Earth was rotating at the mad speed of once every six hours. By a couple hundred million years ago, its day was likely about 23 hours long. In another 150 million years, the day may be closer to 25 hours. So perhaps I should stop calling this my ?Mars time experiment? and begin calling it my ?practicing for AD 150 million experiment.?

And honestly, as time goes on, even the ?experiment? part of the title seems a little too lofty a word, and ?muddle? seems more accurate. As my bedtime has been slinking toward evening?tonight it will be 4:30 P.M.?I?m struggling against (and sometimes succumbing to) the temptation to stay up later, especially since my current schedule pretty much precludes all social interaction in my geographic time zone. Instead of dragging backward towards a more natural time zone, my circadian clock (or at least my social one) is trying to leap forward into one.

The warning the experts gave me when I started this business, and which I immediately pooh-poohed, was that playing with the length of my day would mess up not just my body clock and my social life but also my cognitive abilities and my mood.

And indeed they have: I have been a professional writer for more than a decade, and consider myself a competent journalist. But writing is hard under the best of circumstances. The late, great David Rakoff described it this way: ?Writing is like pulling teeth. From my (privates).? Only he used a different word than privates.

Living on Mars time has not improved those circumstances for me.? Writing is a process of making a thousand tiny decisions in a row. On days when I?m more sleep deprived than usual, it takes longer to make each one, and I feel less confident in my decisions. I wrote five separate versions of this blog post, including one that a friend generously described as having ?the literary qualities of a Creative Writing 101 paper written by a college freshman on a football scholarship,? before returning to my (more or less) original version, the one I?d written when I was most rested.

Fortunately for me, the most that?s riding on the outcome are a few subpar blog posts. That in itself is enough to inspire anxiety, but I keep reminding myself that in the bigger picture it doesn?t really matter, since one of these days we may all be wiped out by another blistering blaze across the sky.

Previously in this series:

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 18 on Mars Time?Cuddle Cafes and the Dangers of Napping

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 15 on Mars Time, or Adventures in Extraplanetary Day Drinking

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 11 on Mars Time, in Which I Give Myself Cancer

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 8 on Mars Time, aka Camping on Mars (Time)

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 4 on Mars Time, aka Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Step into the Twilight Zone: Day 1

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=d2c897927b68116ca50a7f61d9fc2bda

m i a mia super bowl tom coughlin wes welker eli manning eli manning kelly clarkson national anthem

U.S. sends troops to Niger for drone missions

WASHINGTON ? About 100 U.S. troops have deployed to the West African country of Niger to help establish a drone base for surveillance missions, in the latest step by the United States to aid French forces battling Islamic militants in neighboring Mali.

In a letter to Congress on Friday, President Obama said the deployment would "provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region."

The last 40 American troops in the deployment arrived in Niger on Feb. 20 with the consent of the government, Obama said.

A senior U.S. officer described the troops as a security unit that will protect crews flying and maintaining U.S. Air Force drones now operating from an airfield near the capital, Niamey. The force includes drone pilots, intelligence liaison officers and aircraft maintenance personnel, the officer said.

"We're basing drones there to help the French, and this deployment is the security element," the officer said.

He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the operation publicly.

French forces have been battling to push Islamic militants out of northern Mali in recent weeks in an effort to oust insurgents who seized local control after the civilian government collapsed last year.

Predator drones are already flying over Mali to assist French troops, who intervened in January and have driven back militants and Tuareg rebels, who had taken over three major cities and were threatening Mali's capital, Bamako.

The drones flying from Niger will be unarmed surveillance aircraft tracking suspected militants operating in the remote parts of northern Mali. The aircraft could also be used over other countries in the region, the officer said.

The Obama administration has not yet decided to establish a permanent drone base in Niger, the senior officer said. For the moment, the operation is considered a temporary mission to assist the French.

But some senior officers in the Pentagon's Africa Command, which oversees military operations on the continent, favor a permanent base to develop a better picture of the militant threat in West Africa, the officer said.

Among the groups the U.S. is worried about is Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group in neighboring Nigeria.

Currently, the only permanent base in Africa from which drones operate is in Djibouti, thousands of miles to the east.

In addition to the militants in Mali ? some with loose ties to Al Qaeda groups ? extremists have taken refuge in the largely ungoverned desert areas of southern Libya and Algeria.

If the Obama administration decides to authorize a permanent base in Niger, it would probably be in Agadez, near northern Mali, the officer said, confirming a report in the New York Times.

Some senior military commanders, in arguing for a permanent base, say the militant threat in the region is growing and could eventually threaten the U.S. and its allies unless more aggressive action is taken.

But some Obama administration officials are skeptical about getting more deeply involved in the region, saying there is no strong evidence that militants there want to target the United States.

Some officials also argue against getting involved in a low-level military operation just as direct U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan is nearing an end.

The Obama administration has helped the French operation in Mali with intelligence, transportation for French troops and air refueling of French fighters. But the White House has kept the U.S. role limited.

The U.S. buildup in Niger, though still small in numbers, has unfolded quickly. Last month, the U.S. and Niger signed an agreement outlining legal protections for American troops operating there.

The U.S. also has been operating surveillance drones across the region, including over a natural gas complex last month in eastern Algeria, where militants took hundreds of people prisoner during a four-day siege that killed 37 hostages.

david.cloud@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/latimes/news/nationworld/world/~3/mt2cAO_X338/la-fg-obama-drone-20130223,0,7202135.story

jackpot winning numbers mega millions megamillions drawing olbermann mega millions march 30 lucky numbers odds of winning mega millions

'Space Shuttle Atlantis' exhibit opens June 29

collectSpace.com

The new logo for the "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit is unveiled by astronaut Jon McBride (left), Delaware North President Rick Abramson and Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on Thursday,

By Robert Z. Pearlman
Space.com

NASA's final space shuttle to fly in space will be exhibited to the public in a facility that bears simply the retired orbiter's name, officials announced on Thursday.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, which will host the retired shuttle Atlantis, also revealed the logo for its new 90,000 square-foot, $100 million "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit, which will be used on monument signage at the entrance and on a variety of retail merchandise, marketing and promotional materials when the building opens to the public on June 29.

"Although the multimillion-dollar interactive exhibit encompasses much, much more than the display of Atlantis, there is no denying she is truly the star of the show," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the visitor complex.

NASA retired its veteran shuttle fleet in July 2011, after Atlantis flew the 30-year shuttle program's 135th and final mission. The space agency then awarded the orbiters?to museums and science centers in Virginia, New York and California, but decided to keep Atlantis for its own Florida spaceport public attraction.

NASA and Delaware NorthCompanies Parks and Resorts, the company contracted by the space agency to operate the visitor complex at no taxpayer expense, worked with the St. Louis design firm PGAV Destinations to develop the name and logo for Atlantis' display.

collectSpace.com

Space shuttle Atlantis, as seen shrink wrapped and angled for its display in the "Space Shuttle Atlantis" building, on Thursday.

Hundreds of name combinations were considered but the parties agreed that the name needed to convey "emotion, fun, excitement and inspiration," and should be easy for adults and children to understand, repeat and remember. Ultimately, the partners chose to go with a simple name that they felt resonated the most powerfully with guests: Space Shuttle Atlantis. [Rare Last Look Inside Shuttle Atlantis (Photos)]

'Space Shuttle Atlantis'
"We know that this majestic beauty, which safely ferried men and women to space and back on 33 successful missions, is the real reason that our guests will travel thousands of miles, across oceans and across continents to visit Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to see her in all her glory," Moore said of Atlantis.

"There are no words to accurately describe the emotions and insights guests will gain when this attraction opens this summer, for there has truly never been anything like it before. Therefore, we decided to be true to the heart and soul of the exhibit and name it simply and reverently, 'Space Shuttle Atlantis,'" he said.

According to Mike Konzen with PGAV Destinations, the exhibit's logo was created using a gradient of fiery oranges to represent the space shuttle's launch and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. These symbolic colors were also used in the metallic "swish" to represent the re-entry of the shuttle on the outside of the orbiter's new building.

The light-to-dark range in the logo's lettering is meant to convey the excitement and drama of the shuttle program while the iconic silhouette of the orbiter, or shuttle, is used to represent the "A" in Atlantis. The NASA insignia ? or, as it is affectionately referred to, the "meatball" ? serves as a reminder in the logo of the "pride and patriotism" in America's space program, while "Kennedy Space Center" pays tribute to the birthplace of the United States' spaceflight efforts and the launch site for each of the shuttle program's 135 missions.

Milestones moving forward
The visitor complex broke ground for the "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit in January 2012. Atlantis itself was rolled the short distance from its former Kennedy Space Center processing facilities to its display facility 11 months later.

Thursday's reveal of the name and logo, as well as the opening date, marked the latest milestone since Atlantis arrived in the six-story building, was raised off the ground on its display pedestals and then was wrapped in plastic to protect it from gathering dust as the final construction of the building and exhibit continued.

The next milestone is scheduled to begin next month, with the installation of full-scale replicas of the shuttle external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters at the entry to the "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit. These components of the space shuttle "stack" will serve as a gateway, with guests walking beneath the massive orange tank, which will be suspended 24 feet (7 meters) above the ground and will be mounted between the two white rocket boosters that reach 185 feet (56 meters) into the air.

Installation of the entryway structure is slated to be completed by June.

Construction continues on schedule inside the exhibit as well. In May, Atlantis will be uncovered from its protective shrink wrap. The orbiter'scargo bay doors will be opened and a full-scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope will be installed inside the building along with some 60 other exhibits and artifacts.

Atlantis' replica Canadarm robotic manipulator, or arm, will also be extended and suspended from the 115-foot tall (35 meter) ceiling.

The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit presents the shuttle at a tilt of 43.21 degrees, showcasing Atlantis as if it were in space. Guests will view Atlantis as only the astronauts from its 33 missions have previously had a chance to see it from their vantage aboard the International Space Station.

See shuttles.collectspace.com?for continuing coverage of the delivery and display of NASA's retired space shuttles.

Follow collectSpace on Facebook and Twitter @collectSpaceand editor Robert Pearlman @robertpearlman. Copyright 2012?collectSpace.com. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/21/17048516-space-shuttle-atlantis-exhibit-to-open-june-29?lite

ernest borgnine ESPYs 2012 venus williams Freeh Report direct tv wimbledon ray allen

Will Mayor Ed Lee appoint a mother to the board of supervisors?

A Democratic Party resolution calling on Mayor Ed Lee to appoint a mother to the Board of Supervisors may have driven the slow-moving mayor to fill the seat of departing Supervisor Carmen Chu quickly, perhaps as soon as today, City Hall sources are saying.

As the Bay Guardian reports today, Lee appointed Chu to fill the post of Assessor-Recorder vacated when Phil Ting moved to the state Assembly, however, he's been dragging his feet on naming Chu's replacement.

Alix Rosenthal, a member of the Democratic County Central Committee, put a resolution on the agenda for the group's Feb. 27 meeting urging the mayor to appoint a woman with a family.? Her argument:

"Political office is often beyond the reach of mothers, because balancing a political life with family and work is often an insurmountable challenge.? Appointing a mother to fill the District 4 seat will demonstrate the Mayor?s commitment to stemming the tide of families leaving San Francisco, and it may serve to inspire women with children to be politically engaged, and to run for office themselves in the future."

That, of course, could put the mayor's allies on the DCCC in a tough position. Will they vote to urge the mayor to do something he doesn't want to -- or will they vote against motherhood?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sfexaminer/Local/~3/bHuFCFPrbjM/will-mayor-ed-lee-appoint-mother-board-supervisors

love actually strikeforce davy jones deep impact miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy usssa baseball

UNHRC drone-strike investigator: Israel would be wise to cooperate

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

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NewsXS_Middle_East/~3/35RQqsVeEH4/

www.walmart.com Macho Camacho Rise of the Guardians Pumpkin Pie Jack Taylor Apple Pie Recipe black friday

Union County To Host Free Training Workshop On Removal Of Aquatic Invasive Plants, March 8

The Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders

Scotch Plains, NJ ? A free workshop about identification and removal of emergent aquatic invasive plants will be held on Friday, March 8, from 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Union County Engineering Building located at 2325 South Avenue in Scotch Plains. The program is sponsored by the Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders, in partnership with the New Jersey Invasive Species Strike Team (NJISST) and the New Jersey Watershed Ambassador Program, through AmeriCorps and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Melissa Almendinger, executive director of NJISST, will present the two-hour training program. Attendees will be taught to identify target aquatic species, collect and report data to NJISST?s database, and remove specific types of aquatic invasive plants.

?This training will make participants more aware of some of the invasive plants appearing in Union County?s park system and what they can do to help prevent them from spreading,? said Freeholder Chairman Linda Carter.

An invasive species is a non-native organism that causes harm to the environment, human health or the economy. They interrupt the natural functions of an ecosystem by impacting native plants and animals. Overall, invasive species place a tremendous burden on natural resources and are considered to be the greatest threat to global biodiversity, second only to outright habitat destruction.

Invasive aquatic plants spread quickly and discourage the growth of native plants, vastly affecting our ecosystems. NJISST uses the method of Early Detection and Rapid Response to find and destroy new populations of invasive plants, animals and pathogens before they become widespread and cause significant ecological damage.

Registration for the free training workshop is limited and required. Contact Matthew Popin at?watershed7@ucnj.org?or call?908-789-3209. For more information visitwww.njisst.org. For information about how to participate in Union County?s Adopt-A-Park or Trail Program, visit?www.ucnj.org.

Tags: Elizabeth news, elizabeth nj, elizabethinsideout, Friday March 8th, hyperlocal, invasive species, local news, Melissa Almendinger, New Jersey, removal of emergent aquatic plants, Union County Engineering Building

This entry was posted on February 21, 2013 at 9:30 am and is filed under County News, News/Noticias, Scotch Plains. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Source: http://www.elizabethinsideout.tv/union-county-to-host-free-training-workshop-on-removal-of-aquatic-invasive-plants-march-8/

Colorado shootings dark knight rises Aurora shooting James Eagan Holmes jeremy lin Sage Stallone Mermaid Body Found

New York Mom Arrested For Hiring Strippers For Son?s 16th Birthday (VIDEO)

New York Mom Arrested For Hiring Strippers For Son’s 16th Birthday (VIDEO)

Forget clowns and magicians! One crazy mother hired strippers to give lap dances at her son’s sweet sixteen party, which landed her in jail. Judy Viger, 33, was arrested on Monday and charged with child endangerment over her bad party-planning skills. Viger could face up to a year in prison for endangering the mental, physical ...

New York Mom Arrested For Hiring Strippers For Son’s 16th Birthday (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/02/new-york-mom-arrested-for-hiring-strippers-for-sons-16th-birthday-video/

lauren scruggs william shatner seattle weather skier sarah burke gingrich wife cheryl burke sarah burke

Introducing: Nicholas St. Fleur

This is a series of Q&As with new, young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They ? at least some of them ? have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices explaining science to the public.

Today we introduce you to Nicholas St. Fleur (blog, Twitter).

Hello and welcome to The SA Incubator. To start off, where are you from?

Hey there! I?m originally from Long Island, New York, but I?m currently upstate in beautiful Ithaca finishing up my senior year at Cornell University.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

Well, I started off my time at Cornell strictly as a biology-premed student, bent on taking only the necessary courses for med school. But my closed mindset opened after a natural disaster occurred winter break of my freshman year ? the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti, the country where my parents were born. Every day on the news I saw medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta report on the devastation, and as sad as it was to watch, I quickly became captivated by the way he combined medicine with media to convey the gravity of the situation. I decided then that I wanted to expand upon my undergraduate interests in science and medicine by learning about journalism, in hopes that I could be like Sanjay Gupta one day. So when classes resumed I enrolled in my first communication course on science, environmental and health reporting.

Though I originally took the course to learn about medical reporting, the class got me hooked on taking complex science news and sharing those stories with a general audience. By the time the semester was done I was eager to learn more about journalism.

So that summer I signed up for a science writing class taught by famed science writer Carl Zimmer at the Cornell-affiliated Shoals Marine Lab, off the coast of Maine. As a part of the class, we spent our days following marine biologists and island ecologists on hagfishing trips and bird-banding brigades, and then wrote articles about our adventures at night. That course was a tough, week-long science writing bootcamp that catapulted me into an undergraduate career chasing science stories for the student newspaper.

Since then I?ve covered diverse science disciplines from solar physics and multi-dimensional mathematics, to plant pathology and environmental activism as a student reporter for The Cornell Daily Sun.

What professional experience have you had so far?publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

I?m currently the outgoing editor for The Sun?s weekly science section. During my year as head of the science desk, the section has covered cool on-campus research like an engineering team?s work with temporal cloaking, or making moments in time seem invisible, as well as the once-in-a-decade blooming of a titan arum, also known as the rare ?corpse plant.? And yes, it did smell horrendous ? a mix of cabbage gone bad and rotting fish.

But I got the chance to report on science at the professional level this past summer when I had the amazing opportunity to intern at Science as the AAAS Minority Science Writing Intern. I came to Science at an exciting time ? during a summer that saw the announcement of the Higgs Boson discovery followed by the successful landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover. And though I didn?t get to cover those high-profile science stories, I did get to watch the pros tackle them with hard-hitting reporting and style.

The majority of the stories I wrote fell under the ?creature feature? beat. That means I got to report on exciting new animal research, such as the biomechanics behind the brown-tree snake?s gap-bridging abilities and the unfortunate consequences of noisy housefly sex in a bat-filled cave. I sought out these ?gee whiz? science stories ever since successfully making my first pitch for an article on a carnivorous pitcher plant that uses raindrops to launch unsuspecting insects hiding below its lid into an awaiting acid bath.

Following my summer at Science, I got to attend two major science conferences as a student journalism travel grant recipient. The first was in New Orleans for Neuroscience 2012 where I shadowed Science News neuroscience writer Laura Sanders. Then more recently I was at the AAAS Conference in Boston were I met nine other very talented young science writers from across the country and got to cover a symposium on whale evolution and wrote a piece on the blue whale?s impressive aquatic acrobatics.

Which story of yours do you like best?

That would have to be this story I wrote about where people flee after disaster strikes. The researchers analyzed cell phone data following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake to track down where residents escaping Port-au-Prince went following their exodus from the capital. Through my reporting I heard personal stories about people in Haiti that reflected the results that the researchers had found. It was a very humbling experience to write an article about the same event that had set off my path towards science journalism just a few short years before.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

At Science I recorded a podcast about Neanderthal extinction theories and artificial jellyfish, and have wanted to do another one ever since. Right now I?m currently working on integrating more multimedia into The Sun?s science agenda. Currently I?ve done the reporting and directing for a few short science films such as this one on the Cornell NYC Tech Campus and this one about a C.U. vet student?s animal activism efforts. Now that I?m done with my editorial position, I?m looking to shoot/produce/edit my own science videos for The Sun, like this one about a biology-inspired student project team called iGem.

I hope to go even further with the science multimedia. After attending ScienceOnline 2013 and meeting online science news personalities like Talk Nerdy to Me?s Cara Santa Maria and Dr. Carin Bondar from Wild Sex and ScienceAlert, I?ve had an itch to start making my own weekly videos that look at a roundup of science news at Cornell.

Do you write a personal or science blog ? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends? work, to learn and to connect?

Right now Facebook is my main social media platform for broadcasting science news. Throughout the day I tend to post little science ?pick-me ups? to give my friends something interesting to read and ponder while they?re escaping their studies browsing Facebook. I?ve also taken to Twitter (@SciFleur ? a pun on my last name) and love the rush of live-tweeting science conferences.

I have a portfolio site with an accompanying blog, Stardust; Slightly Used, that I?ve been hesitant to start up. But after attending ScienceOnline and talking with blogging extraordinaires like Bora and Ed Yong I?ve gained some great insight into the world of science blogs. So now, with the proper motivation, some ideas in the pipeline, and interviews already taped on my recorder I?ll be starting my science blog soon ? so stay tuned!

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Over the past few months I?ve had the good fortune to be able to attend a number of different science journalism conferences, and through these trips I?ve met with many science writers ? some seasoned professionals and others just breaking into the field from grad programs or undergrad. I?ve learned from talking to people across the science communication spectrum that science journalism is changing, and has been for a while. For example, Ivan Oransky gave a presentation at AAAS that showed in 1989 there were over 95 newspapers with science sections, and in 2012 that number had dwindled to 19.

But in its place new tools like blogs, social media and data visualizations have emerged to help inform the public. And in the midst of all this change there is a new generation of science communicators ready to get their messages out. I?ve been lucky enough to have met a good number of them and I can say that the youngins are a talented and driven bunch. The future of science communication will be different, yes, but not lost.? As long as there are scientifically curious people out there, they will find ways to share their stories.

Thank you!

My good sir, thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines
Audrey Quinn
Douglas Main
Smitha Mundasad
Mary Beth Griggs
Shara Yurkiewicz
Casey Rentz
Akshat Rathi
Kathleen Raven
Penny Sarchet
Amy Shira Teitel
Victoria Charlton
Noby Leong and Tristan O?Brien
Taylor Kubota
Benjamin Plackett
Laura Geggel
Daisy Yuhas
Miriam Kramer
Ashley Taylor
Kate Yandell
Justine Hausheer
Aatish Bhatia
Ashley Tucker
Jessica Men
Kelly Oakes
Lauren Fuge
Catherine Owsik
Marissa Fessenden
Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato
Kelly Poe
Kate Shaw
Meghan Rosen
Jon Tennant
Ashley Braun
Suzi Gage
Michael Grisafe
Jonathan Chang
Alison Schumacher
Alyssa Botelho
Hillary Craddock
Susan Matthews
Lacey Avery
Ilana Yurkiewicz
Kate Prengaman

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=4af317abd31c405f7b8ac4cd7f75709d

Columbus Day 2012 carlina white Sam Champion Engaged Infield fly rule Taken 2 Venezuela Elections Skyfall