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Saturday, 31 December 2011
Friday, 30 December 2011
Romney, Perry slap at Paul on Iran
A campaign sign for Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, sits in front of home, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
A campaign sign for Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, sits in front of home, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich makes a stop at the National Farm Toy Museum in Dyersville, Iowa, on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, in Dyersville, Iowa. Gingrich also made stops in Dubuque and Decorah Tuesday afternoon and evening. (AP Photo/The Gazette, Nikole Hanna)
Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry answers questions during a campaign stop at the Glenn Miller Museum in Clarinda, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. speaks during a campaign stop at Scooter's Coffeehouse , Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) ? Mitt Romney and Rick Perry on Wednesday assailed Republican presidential rival Ron Paul for saying the U.S. has no business bombing Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, drawing a sharp contrast with their rising rival as he returned to Iowa to campaign before the lead-off caucuses.
"One of the people running for president thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said in this eastern Iowa city in response to a question from the audience. "I don't."
It was the first time Romney has challenged Paul directly since the Texas congressman jumped in polls. Neither Romney nor Perry, the Texas governor, named Paul, but the target was clear.
"You don't have to vote for a candidate who will allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Because America will be next," Perry said in Urbandale, reiterating a line of argument from a day earlier.
"I'm here to say: You have a choice," Perry added.
As if in rebuttal, Paul's campaign launched a new television ad describing him as "principled, incorruptible, guided by faith and principle" and the man to restore the economy. "Politicians who supported bailouts and mandates, serial hypocrites and flip floppers can't clean up the mess," it says as photos of Newt Gingrich and Romney appear on screen.
The stepped-up criticism of Paul, the libertarian-leaning Republican, comes as surveys show he's in contention to win Tuesday's caucuses.
In recent days, conservative opponents including Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann have increased their criticism of Paul on social issues, foreign affairs and inflammatory comments in his decades-old newsletter. By tearing him down, they hope voters will give their campaigns another, closer look after a season marked by candidates who have risen quickly in public standing only to fall back down.
Gingrich, whose slide in surveys over the past week has come as Paul has risen, said Tuesday he couldn't vote for Paul if he were to become the GOP nominee and called his views "totally outside the mainstream of every decent American" during an interview with CNN.
Gingrich, the former House speaker, began Wednesday, the second day of his Iowa bus tour with a speech to about 200 people in the atrium of the Southbridge Mall in Mason City. He plugged his support for supply-side economics favored by President Ronald Reagan.
Gingrich said the primary is giving voters a "choice between a populist supply side approach ... and a much more timid Washington-centered approach that will not create jobs."
Bachmann, who was on the 86th stop of her tour of Iowa's 99 counties, criticized both of her rivals from Texas. She accused Perry of spending "27 years as a political insider." He was a Texas legislator and agriculture commissioner before becoming governor in 2001.
Bachmann said Paul would be "dangerous as president" because of his hands-off views on national security.
Paul, for his part, was meeting with supporters near Des Moines, his first visit to the state since before the campaigns went dark for the Christmas holiday. He planned a series of events over the next two days as he looked to take advantage of a burst of momentum.
A conservative, Paul commands strong allegiance from his supporters but appears to have little potential to expand his appeal and emerge as a serious challenger for the nomination. Yet he could complicate other candidates' pathway to the nomination.
His opponents were spreading out across the state to woo potential caucus-goers, many of whom are still undecided amid a flood of television and radio ads.
In Independence, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum mingled with 25 people at a diner and touted his plan to give a tax break to businesses that bring their operations back to the United States.
He told diners: "Things are going great, we've got momentum." He began airing a new radio ad Wednesday that promotes his hardline opposition to abortion and describes him as a "father of seven, a home-schooler and a devoted husband for 21 years."
Romney kicked off a three-day bus tour in the eastern edge of the state, in Muscatine, and shook hands with an overflow crowd at Elly's Tea and Coffee House. The line to get in stretched into the street.
Beginning the day, Romney told Fox News Channel that he was only joking Monday when he criticized Gingrich's failure to earn a spot on the Virginia ballot as something out of the sitcom "I Love Lucy."
"I hope the speaker understands that was humor, and I'm happy to tell my humorous anecdote to him face to face," Romney said.
Gingrich on Tuesday challenged Romney to make the "I Love Lucy" comparison to Gingrich's face.
Perry, looking to recapture the enthusiasm that greeted his entry into the race in August, railed against Washington and Wall Street insiders as he met with conservatives for breakfast near Des Moines.
"Why should you settle for less than an authentic conservative who will fight for your views and your values without apologies?" he asked, delivering the core rationale for his candidacy.
The packed crowd of conservatives in Urbandale applauded as he pledged to champion a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget, secure the border within a year and crack down on illegal immigration. He also said he would bring his faith with him into the Oval Office, a nod to the Christian conservatives who have strong sway in the nominating process.
___
Elliott reported from Urbandale. Associated Press writers Mike Glover in Independence, Brian Bakst in Creston, Shannon McCaffrey in Mason City and Charles Babington in Des Moines contributed to this report.
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Wendy?s adds foie gras burger in bid to fill Japan?s ?high-end? fast food niche
Wendy?s Co, the third-biggest US fast-food chain, added goose-liver pate and truffles to burgers as it invests as much as US$200 million on a return to Japan two years after leaving the country.
The Japan Premium sandwich sells for ?1,280 (US$16) at Wendy?s in Tokyo?s Omotesando luxury shopping area, the first of a targeted 100 shops. ?We think the fast-food market here is ready for something different,? Ernest Higa, chief executive officer of Wendy?s Japan LLC, said in an interview at the restaurant?s opening on Tuesday.
Wendy?s is re-entering Japan under a plan to expand outside the US, where it got 92 percent of revenue last year, after posting losses in six of the past eight quarters. The Dublin, Ohio-based chain is focusing on the world?s second-biggest fast-food market first as it looks for operating partners in China and Brazil.
?Japan is the most important of the three to me, because we are actually selling burgers here today,? Darrell van Ligten, international division president, said in an interview in Omotesando.
The company expects to eventually expand to about 700 restaurants in Japan, compared with about 3,300 for McDonald?s Corp?s local unit, the nation?s biggest fast-food burger chain.
Wendy?s ended a 30-year run in Japan in 2009 after its partner Zensho Holdings Co declined to renew the agreement, saying it would focus on building its main Sukiya chain of beef-bowl restaurants.
?Our partner had a pretty significant business which was their primary focus,? van Ligten said. ?Given the size of the different businesses, Wendy?s wasn?t as much of a focus area as we would have liked it to be.?
In coming back to Japan, the burger chain is counting on its premium menu to lure customers in a ?very, very competitive? environment, Higa said.
Wendy?s menu pits it against Japanese rivals, including Mos Food Services Inc?s Mos Burger in terms of taste and Lotteria Co, which has a ?1,800 Matsuzaka beef burger, for premium items.
However, Japan?s outlook for slow economic growth adds to the pressure on Wendy?s to find a new niche in the industry.
The Bank of Japan last week said the economy?s rebound from the March 11 earthquake has come to a pause, lowering its evaluation for a second straight month because of the local currency?s strength and a cooler global expansion.
McDonald?s Holdings Co Japan forecasts sales of ?304.5 billion this year, a third straight annual decline and 25 percent less than 2008 revenue.
?With the economic situation, you need to bring something that is unique and exciting,? Higa said.
The ?new fashion? of high-end fast food will give the chain what it needs to thrive, he said.
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Thursday, 29 December 2011
Repairs to stricken boat in Antarctica going well
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Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Smart ForTwo EV gets delayed until September, 'unspecified problems' to blame
Smart ForTwo EV gets delayed until September, 'unspecified problems' to blame originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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byxspeaks: Terorista na pala ang mga nagsasabi ng opinion sa Twitter @angieligot @krisaquinoSTD "@piamagalona: Cyberbullies are also terrorists"
Terorista na pala ang mga nagsasabi ng opinion sa Twitter @ @ "@: Cyberbullies are also terrorists" Source: http://twitter.com/byxspeaks/statuses/151594115644141568
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Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Christmas Apple iPhone advertising
I love my iPhone 4 and couldn?t imagine life without it, but after watching this ad, I found myself thinking should I upgrade to the new iPhone 4S. That is the power of this soft sell ad from Apple. It doesn?t mention Siri or iPhone at all in the ad but yet the messages about the new features was so strong. Watch it yourself and let me know what you think.
Yours in soft selling
Belinda
Filed Under: Advertising, Advertising Campaign, Branding, Communication, entertainment, marketing Tagged Apple, Christmas, iphone, iPhone 4S, Siri
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Monday, 26 December 2011
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This Monster From The Deep Could Change Everything For Norwegian Oil
[This post by Euan Mearns was published at The Oil Drum.]
With relatively little fanfare on the international stage, Lundin Petroleum and Statoil (and partners) have just recently jointly discovered one of the largest oil fields ever found in the North Sea. The Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes discovery on the Utsira High structure is currently estimated to contain 1.7 to 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The astonishing thing about this discovery is that it has lain undiscovered in a mature oil province for so long providing ample encouragement for explorers to go on exploring.
The recoverable resource estimates have grown with every well drilled and with a new delineation well spudded on 28th November, further news on the size of this giant is expected in early January.
Figure 1 Oil fields can often be imagined as subterranean hills draped in mudstone (the seal) and partially filled with oil-saturated sandstone. This 3D image shows the Avaldsnes and Aldous Major South discoveries are in all likelihood part of the same giant field.
This post is joint with Rune Likvern. One of us (EM) owns common stock in Lundin Petroleum.
The Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes story has been a year in the making. The 16/2-6 discovery well was announced in September 2010, but the story only gained traction on 30th September 2011 when the recoverable resource estimate was substantially increased following evaluation of data from the 16/2-7a sidetrack well. Prior to then recoverable resource estimates for Avaldsnes were in the range 100-400 million barrels - not enough to get overly excited about. The 16/2-7a well extended the area of proved hydrocarbons but also "proved" that Avaldsnes and Aldous Major South were part of the same gigantic structure. Avaldsnes is now estimated to hold 0.8 to 1.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil and promises to be a giant field in its own right.
A note on terminology. The term resource is normally used to describe the quantity of oil in place and the term reserves used to describe the amount of that oil that can be economically recovered. At this stage of field appraisal, none of the oil in Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes can yet be booked as technical reserves. Instead the term recoverable resource is employed.
A note on well numbering convention. Well number 16/2-6 means that the well was drilled in Norwegian quadrant 16. Each Norwegian quadrant is divided into 12 blocks, and this well was drilled in block 2. It is the 6th well to be drilled on this block.
Shortly after, Statoil announced the results from the 16/2-10 delineation well on Aldous Major South on 21st October, which prior to then was estimated to contain 0.4 to 0.8 billion barrels recoverable resource. The 16/2-10 well proved a much bigger resource that is now estimated in the range 0.9 to 1.5 billion recoverable barrels.
Thus the combined Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes structure is now estimated to contain between 1.7 and 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The 16/5-2S well currently drilling represents a significant step out from the existing wells towards the south of the field. Success is not to be taken for granted. For example, the mapped structure is dependent upon accurate interpretation of seismic and the occurrence of oil is dependent on the presence of the reservoir sandstone in this part of the field. Should the well fail to find oil, then the resource estimate may settle toward the lower end of the current range; however, should it be successful then ever larger numbers are to be expected.
This recent presentation (large pdf) from Lundin states that the oil is intermediate grade with API gravity of 28? (slide 31) and that oil is "dripping out of the cores" (see picture on slide 31). Furthermore the water depth at 115 m is shallow by today's standards as is the depth to reservoir, which is only 1900m. All this seems too good to be true and as a rule of thumb, when something is too good to be true it often, though not always, is.
This discovery is remarkable since it will not only transform the fortunes of Lundin Petroleum and provide a welcome boost to Statoil, but it may also materially affect the future production profile for Norway. Norwegian oil production peaked in 2001 at 3.42 mmbpd (crude+condensate+NGL) and has been declining at an average rate of 5% for the last 9 years. The impact of Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes coming on stream towards the end of the decade is shown below. The field may build to a plateau production rate of around 500,000 bpd and remain on plateau for 11 years. The stacked production chart extends to 2040 and shows 3.3 billion barrels production from this sleeping giant. Production decline may be reversed for two to three years while the field is building to plateau. In 2040, this one field may account for over half all Norwegian oil production.
Figure 2 Stacked production chart for all Norwegian crude oil fields showing the peak in 2001. The stacked colored areas to the left represent the production from past and existing oil fields. Data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. The green segment shows a production model for Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes with first production in 2017 and plateau production of 500,000 bpd reached in 2020. Decline sets in by 2031. The production model as shown contains 3.3 billion barrels of oil produced from Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes.
Whilst the discovery of Aldous Major South - Avaldsnes is a welcome boost for future North Sea production, with the world consuming 88 million bpd, 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil represents only 38 days of global oil consumption.
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Sunday, 25 December 2011
mattsarz: RT @GoodmanCBS: Received countless calls from plenty of college basketball coaches today about fact NCAA has posted Greg Shaheen's job. ...
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Received countless calls from plenty of college basketball coaches today about fact NCAA has posted Greg Shaheen's job. All were shocked. 
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The American Horror Story Finale: Ryan Murphy Tells Us Who's Coming Back for Season 2 (omg!)
[SPOILER WARNING: This story contains key plot details from Wednesday's season finale of American Horror Story. Read at your own risk.]
American Horror Story really lived up to its name, huh?
In the FX series' first season finale, the Harmons were finally reunited in the afterlife when Ben's vengeful former lover Hayden hanged him by the chandelier, staging it to look like a suicide. (You'll recall that Vivien and Violet, Ben's wife and daughter, already died, respectively, in childbirth and by overdosing on pills.)
What were the top TV shows of 2011?
So what does this mean for Season 2? Will Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, who starred as Vivien and Ben, return to haunt the new owners of Murder House? Nope! "Those characters and those stories are done," creator Ryan Murphy told reporters Thursday morning. "Every season of the show will be a different haunting. Every season will have a beginning, a middle and an end. What you saw in the finale was the end of the Harmon house. The second season of the show will be a brand new home or building to haunt."
Murphy says the show was always intended to be an anthology, with a new set of cast members and characters each season. But there will be some residual elements from Season 1. "Some of [the actors] will be coming back... so there will be familiar faces and also new faces on the show, but they will be playing completely different characters, creatures and monsters, etc."
"Connie and Dylan will not be playing the leads of the show," Murphy reiterated. "But I'd love for them to come back and do something, albeit a different part or a smaller part or a cameo." He cites New York's Mercury Theatre, a troupe founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman in the 1930s, as an inspiration. "You have a cast of actors that you love and believe in and you just rotate them every season.... I have been getting a lot of calls from film actors who've always wanted to dabble in television."
While Murphy declined to specify which original actors they are negotiating with to return for next season, he says, "I'd have them [all] back in a heartbeat." An announcement of new cast members and the second season story line is slated to come in February. Season 2 is tentatively scheduled to premiere in late September or October 2012.
Who were the breakout stars of the year?
Until then, Murphy says he's happy with the finale, in which the reunited ghost Harmons decorated the Christmas tree together. "I thought it was a great goodbye to those characters," he said. "I felt a lot of peace with how they ended up and I hope other people felt that as well. We're simply not interested in doing another season with all those people trapped in the house. The criticism had we done that would've been that it would be the same old thing. You really can't win sometimes... I can say with 100 percent optimism, I really think they will love the second season, perhaps even more so based on what we've cooked up."
So what is in store for the second season? Murphy says there are plenty of tales to choose from, "Be it serial-killing stories, true crime stories or prison stories. Every year of the show is almost like a miniseries in itself.... The only thing I don't think I would do would be a season about vampires. The season we're planning now is very different from the California house approach." Murphy teases that there is a clue within the last three episodes that indicates exactly what next season will be about. Any guesses?
What did you think of the American Horror Story finale? Will you miss the Harmon family? Hit the comments with your thoughts.
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Saturday, 24 December 2011
Romney charity has history of donations to conservative groups; Will it help his GOP image? (Star Tribune)
Microsoft's CES 2012 keynote won't deliver 'significant news,' more of 'a wrap-up'
Update: While Microsoft can't confirm specifics, we're getting the impression that the company's partners will be the ones leading and driving announcements in the CES events to come. And while it wouldn't comment specifically on the future of MIX or BUILD, we're told that "it will continue to invest in those kinds of owned venues going forward."
Update 2: The CEA, also known as the entity that puts CES together, has officially responded to the news. It also affirmed that Microsoft will not reserve the massive Central Hall exhibit space that it has used in past years, but it seems pretty unconcerned about the whole ordeal. The full statement is after the break.
Continue reading Microsoft's CES 2012 keynote won't deliver 'significant news,' more of 'a wrap-up'
Microsoft's CES 2012 keynote won't deliver 'significant news,' more of 'a wrap-up' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Friday, 23 December 2011
Dr. Peter Breggin: The Psychiatric Drugging of America's Foster Children (Huffington post)
Stocks open lower; Oracle drags down tech shares
Stocks opened lower Wednesday, led by technology shares, after Oracle Corp. plunged on a disappointing earnings report.
The Nasdaq composite index, which is heavily weighted with technology companies, fell 36 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,567 in the first half-hour of trading.
Broader market indicators had smaller declines. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 31, or 0.3 percent, at 12,051. It jumped 337 the day before. IBM Corp. fell 3.4 percent, the most among the 30 stocks in the Dow.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 4 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,237.
Oracle plunged 13 percent after the business software company said it was struggling to close deals. The results seemed to reinforce worries that businesses and the government may cut back on technology spending.
Walgreen Co. sank 7.2 percent after the drugstore chain said quarterly profits fell more than 4 percent after a slow year for flu shots. Walgreen said it made no progress in staying with a pharmacy network that provides $5.3 billion of its annual revenue. Walgreen says filling those prescriptions is unprofitable.
Nike Inc. shares rose 1.9 percent after the shoemaker reported strong demand and higher prices for its shoes and clothing.
European markets gave up early gains. Germany's DAX was down 0.4 percent. New data showed extensive lending from the European Central Bank to European banks. Early optimism at the extent of the bank's assistance gave way to worries that it was only treating the symptoms of the debt crisis.
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Thursday, 22 December 2011
Trade group: Holiday shoppers step up buying
NEW YORK (AP) ? Shoppers came out again to seriously shop last week, after taking breather from a record spending spree over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to one measure
Sales at stores opened at least a year rose 3.4 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index, released Tuesday.
That follows two consecutive weekly declines, compared with the previous weeks, as shoppers took a break after a discount-fueled spending spree over the Thanksgiving weekend, the official start of the holiday shopping season.
Compared with a year ago, sales for the week rose 4.6 percent.
"Consumers were out in force this past week trying to complete their holiday shopping," said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers.
And there's still more shopping to do. According to a poll of 1,000 shoppers conducted by ICSC and Goldman Sachs, shoppers on average completed 70 percent of their holiday buying as of Sunday. That compares with 74 percent at the same time a year ago. Moreover, 9 percent of shoppers polled hadn't even started their holiday buying, up from 6 percent last year.
The weekly index is a sales proxy for 24 major stores, including Target Corp, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Macy's.
Niemira still expects revenue at stores opened at least a year for his monthly tally of retailers to be up anywhere from 3.5 percent to 4.0 percent, following a revised 2.8 percent increase in November. Overall, he's predicting the measure to be up 3.5 percent for the combined November and December period. That's considered a healthy increase but less than the 3.8 percent pace seen during the holiday 2010 period.
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Monday, 19 December 2011
'Velvet Revolution' icon Vaclav Havel dead at 75
PRAGUE?? Czechs joined their leaders and foreign politicians Sunday in paying tribute to Vaclav Havel, who led the 1989 Velvet Revolution that peacefully toppled communism in the former Czechoslovakia.
A black flag flew over Prague Castle, the presidential seat, while Czechs lit candles to remember the the dissident playwright who helped kick off the fall of the Iron Curtain and then served as president of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic.
"Mr. President, thank you for democracy," read a note placed at the monument to the revolution in downtown Prague.
Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, died Sunday morning at his weekend house. He was 75.
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He was comforted in his last moments by his wife Dagmar and several nuns, Reuters reported.
Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."
Video: Former Czech president dies (on this page)As president, he oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Even out of office, the diminutive Czech remained a world figure. He was part of the "new Europe" ? in the coinage of then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ? of ex-communist countries that stood up for the U.S. when the democracies of "old Europe" opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion.
A former chain-smoker, Havel had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist jails. He was hospitalized in Prague on Jan. 12, 2009, with an unspecified inflammation, and had developed breathing difficulties after undergoing minor throat surgery.
'Truth and love must prevail'
Havel left office in 2003, 10 years after Czechoslovakia broke up and just months before both nations joined the European Union. He was credited with laying the groundwork that brought his Czech Republic into the 27-nation bloc, and was president when it joined NATO in 1999.
Shy and bookish, with wispy mustache and unkempt hair, Havel came to symbolize the power of the people to peacefully overcome totalitarian rule.
"Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred," Havel famously said. It became his revolutionary motto which he said he always strove to live by.
Havel was nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and collected dozens of other accolades worldwide for his efforts as a global ambassador of conscience, defended the downtrodden from Darfur to Myanmar.
Among his many honors were Sweden's prestigious Olof Palme Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award, bestowed on him by President George W. Bush for being "one of liberty's great heroes."
An avowed peacenik whose heroes included rockers such as Frank Zappa, he never quite shed his flower-child past and often signed his name with a small heart as a flourish.
In an October 2008 interview with The Associated Press, Havel rebuked Russia for invading Georgia two months earlier, and warned EU leaders against appeasing Moscow.
"We should not turn a blind eye ... It's a big test for the West," he said.
Havel also said he saw the global economic crisis as a warning not to abandon basic human values in the scramble to prosper.
"It's a warning against the idea that we understand the world, that we know how everything works," he told the AP in his office in Prague. The cramped work space was packed with his books, plays and rock memorabilia.
Underground essays
Havel first made a name for himself after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reforms of Alexander Dubcek and other liberally minded communists in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Havel's plays were banned as hard-liners installed by Moscow snuffed out every whiff of rebellion. But he continued to write, producing a series of underground essays that stand with the work of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov as the most incisive and eloquent analyses of what communism did to society and the individual.
One of his best-known essays, "The Power and the Powerless" written in 1978, borrowed slyly from the immortal opening line of the mid-19th century Communist Manifesto, writing: "A specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called 'dissent.'"
In the essay, he dissected what he called the "dictatorship of ritual" ? the ossified Soviet bloc system under Leonid Brezhnev ? and imagined what happens when an ordinary greengrocer stops displaying communist slogans and begins "living in truth," rediscovering "his suppressed identity and dignity."
Havel knew that suppression firsthand.
Born Oct. 5, 1936, in Prague, the child of a wealthy family which lost extensive property to communist nationalization in 1948, Havel was denied a formal education, eventually earning a degree at night school and starting out in theater as a stagehand.
His political activism began in earnest in January 1977, when he co-authored the human rights manifesto Charter 77, and the cause drew widening attention in the West.
Havel was detained countless times and spent four years in communist jails. His letters from prison to his wife became one of his best-known works. "Letters to Olga" blended deep philosophy with a stream of stern advice to the spouse he saw as his mentor and best friend, and who tolerated his reputed philandering and other foibles.
The events of August 1988 ? the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion ? first suggested that Havel and his friends might one day replace the faceless apparatchiks who jailed them.
Thousands of mostly young people marched through central Prague, yelling Havel's name and that of the playwright's hero, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the philosopher who was Czechoslovakia's first president after it was founded in 1918.
Havel's arrest in January 1989 at another street protest and his subsequent trial generated anger at home and abroad. Pressure for change was so strong that the communists released him again in May.
That fall, communism began to collapse across Eastern Europe, and in November the Berlin Wall fell. Eight days later, communist police brutally broke up a demonstration by thousands of Prague students.
It was the signal that Havel and his country had awaited. Within 48 hours, a broad new opposition movement was founded, and a day later, hundreds of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks took to the streets.
In three heady weeks, communist rule was broken. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones arrived just as the Soviet army was leaving. Posters in Prague proclaimed: "The tanks are rolling out ? the Stones are rolling in."
On Dec. 29, 1989, Havel was elected Czechoslovakia's president by the country's still-communist parliament. Three days later, he told the nation in a televised New Year's address: "Out of gifted and sovereign people, the regime made us little screws in a monstrously big, rattling and stinking machine."
Moral voice
Although he continued to be regarded a moral voice as he decried the shortcomings of his society under democracy, he eventually bent to the dictates of convention and power. His watchwords ? "what the heart thinks, the tongue speaks" ? had to be modified for day-to-day politics.
And post-revolutionary life contained many challenges.
In July 1992, it became clear that the Czechoslovak federation was heading for a split. Considering it a personal failure, Havel resigned as president.
But he remained popular and was elected president of the new Czech Republic uncontested.
He was small, but his presence and wit could fill a room. Even late in life, he retained a certain impishness and boyish grin, shifting easily from philosophy to jokes or plain old Prague gossip.
Slideshow: Year in Review: Newsmaker Farewells 2011In December 1996, just 11 months after his first wife, Olga Havlova, died of cancer, he lost a third of his right lung during surgery to remove a half-inch malignant tumor.
He gave up smoking and married Dagmar Veskrnova, a dashing actress almost 20 years his junior.
Holding a post of immense prestige but little power, Havel's image suffered in the latter years as his people discovered the difficulties of transforming their society in the post-communist era.
His attempts to reconcile rival politicians were considered by many as unconstitutional intrusions, and his pleas for political leaders to build a "civic society" based on respect, tolerance and individual responsibility went largely unanswered.
Media criticism, once unthinkable, became unrelenting. Serious newspapers questioned his political visions; tabloids focused mainly on his private life and his flashy second wife.
Havel himself acknowledged that his handling of domestic issues never matched his flair for foreign affairs. But when the Czech Republic joined NATO in March 1999, and the European Union in May 2004, his dreams came true.
"I can't stop rejoicing that I live in this time and can participate in it," Havel exulted.
Early in 2008, Havel returned to his first love: the stage. He published a new play, "Leaving," about the struggles of a leader on his way out of office, and the work gained critical acclaim.
Theater, he told the AP, was once again his major interest.
"My return to the stage was not easy," he said. "It's not a common thing for someone to be involved in theater, become a president, and then go back."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45713881/ns/world_news-europe/
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Sunday, 18 December 2011
Cheap Car Insurance Quotes ? Never Pay Too Much For Auto ...
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Low-budget car insurance is an affordable car insurance, which offers simply a minimum coverage to the driver. The coverage that?s offered by car insurance rates varies from region to region. However, any low-budget automobile insurance will provide pay for the third-party injuries and also damages to property. There are a certain low-budget auto insurances, which cover the medical bills from the car driver/owner in case of the road accident whether or not he is insured or otherwise not. There are many auto insurance businesses that offer low-budget car insurance depending on the vehicle and site visitors laws of each condition. You can check out the estimates offered by various insurance companies online and offline before selecting a car insurance coverage that is most suited.
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Saturday, 17 December 2011
Rapper Slim Dunkin slain in Atlanta music studio
ATLANTA (AP) ? Atlanta police say the rapper Slim Dunkin was gunned down Friday evening in a city music studio as he was preparing to record a video.
Police Maj. Keith Meadows said the rapper, whose real name is Mario Hamilton, was fatally shot in the chest after getting into an argument with another individual.
He was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Meadows told The Associated Press late Friday that police have not been able to identify the shooter. He said investigators have been interviewing those who were inside the studio. He said as many as 20 people were inside the small office-type building at the time of the shooting, which took place around 5:30 p.m., but they were in different places.
Police have not recovered the handgun that was used. Investigators remained at the scene late Friday evening.
"Right now we're just trying to....identify who may have seen what, really just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together," Meadows said. "It seems everybody witnessed something very different. We're just trying to go back and make sense of everything."
Slim Dunkin had appeared on a number of songs with the rapper Waka Flocka Flame. The website Mtv.com reported that the Brick Squad Monopoly rapper was on a solo track and had recently released a 20-track mix tape that featured Gucci Mane, Roscoe Dash and Pastor Troy.
"It appears the victim was scheduled to do a photo shoot," Meadows said of Friday's events. "Before the video shoot took place, it appears the victim and suspect got involved in a verbal altercation. We don't know what that altercation was about."
"The suspect produced a weapon, discharged that handgun one time, striking the victim in the chest," Meadows said.
Meadows said the victim was in his early 20s and resided in the Atlanta area.
Many fans were posting messages late Friday night on a Facebook page for the rapper.
The website AllHipHop.com last February described Slim Dunkin, a Detroit native, as an up-and-coming talent with "a unique lyrical ability and style all his own."
In an interview with the website, he described himself as someone "trying to provide for his family by making something out of nothing just trying to beat the odds."
"I don't have amazing lyrical ability I just know how to speak on what I been through and where I came from," he said.
Asked what to expect from him in 2011, he responded: "Music, music, music!"
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Obama welcomes home troops from Iraq (AP)
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama is welcoming home troops who served in Iraq, offering up their service as a lesson of the nation's character.
"There's a reason our military is the most respected institution in America," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "They don't see themselves or each other as Democrats first or Republicans first. They see themselves as Americans first.
"For all our differences and disagreements, they remind us that we are all a part of something bigger, that we are one nation and one people."
Obama marked the end of the Iraq war earlier in the week, meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in advance of the last American troops leaving Iraq by Dec. 31. The withdrawal caps a war in which nearly 4,500 Americans were killed, about 32,000 were wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent.
"Our troops are now preparing to make their final march across the border and out of the country," Obama said. "Iraq's future will be in the hands of its own people."
The president met with troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Wednesday to discuss the end of the war and to honor the military's sacrifice. Obama opposed the war as a state lawmaker and then made ending the war in Iraq a key part of his 2008 presidential campaign.
Obama said the nation needs to enlist soldiers returning home in the rebuilding of the nation's economy, noting that his grandfather's generation returned home from World War II "to form the backbone of the largest middle class in history."
"This is a moment for us to build a country that lives up to the ideals that so many of our bravest Americans have fought and even died for," Obama said. "That is our highest obligation as citizens. That is the welcome home that our troops deserve."
Republicans said in their weekly address that soldiers returning home are most concerned about finding a good job and cited the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline as an example of a project that could put people back to work.
Republicans have pushed for a swift decision on the pipeline proposed from Canada to Texas. Obama recently announced he was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections to allow for more time to study the environmental ramifications of the proposal. An agreement reached by Senate leaders Friday night on a two-month extension of a Social Security payroll tax cut and jobless benefits would require Obama to decide within 60 days whether to grant a permit for the pipeline.
The pipeline would carry oil from western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The project is expected to create up to 20,000 jobs.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said the project would transport 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada and the "steady source of energy from our friend and ally here would make us less dependent on energy from the volatile Middle East ? and that is good for America."
Environmentalists have opposed the project but some unions have supported the plan, complicating Obama's decision.
___
Online:
Obama address: http://www.whitehouse.gov
GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress
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Friday, 16 December 2011
Mantis Stand for iPad and iPad 2
Here’s an attractive entry to the world of iPad stands.? The Mantis Stand for iPad & iPad 2 from Flatscreen Arms is made of solid aluminum and has an anodized, maintenance-free finish.? The swivel, tilting head let’s you position your iPad in vertical or horizontal orientations; you can even adjust it to hold the iPad [...]
Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/12/14/mantis-stand-for-ipad-and-ipad-2/
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HPV Test Spots Cervical Cancer Earlier Than Pap Smear: Study (HealthDay)
THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) - To catch cervical cancer or the lesions that can lead to it, a human papillomavirus (HPV) test is the best option for women over 30, Dutch researchers report.
Using it in conjunction with the more traditional Pap smear resulted in earlier detection of precancerous lesions and prevented more cervical cancers from developing, said study author Dr. Chris Meijer, a professor of pathology at VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam.
The study is published online Dec. 15 in The Lancet Oncology.
Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV, a virus spread through sexual intercourse. Some HPV strains are more strongly linked with the cancer than others.
The superiority of HPV testing over traditional Paps at finding precancerous cervical lesions is established, Meijer noted. However, his team wanted to see if HPV testing also offered better protection and detection long-term -- in two screenings done over a five-year period.
They found it did.
While five years may sound like a long lag time between screenings, it is not, he said. "The Netherlands already has a screening interval of five years, starting from 30 years of age until 60 years," he said. The program is inexpensive and effective, he added.
In the study, Meijer's team evaluated nearly 45,000 women, aged 29 to 56. Women in one group got a traditional Pap smear and an HPV DNA test. The women in the other group got just the Pap test.
Five years later, all women got both tests.
The researchers looked to see whether HPV tests resulted in fewer high-grade cervical lesions and cervical cancer in the second screening, due to earlier detection and treatment.
In the first screen, the HPV tests found more of the early changes that can precede cervical cancer than the Pap smear alone did.
Five years later, far fewer women in the HPV group had more advanced lesions or cervical cancer than did the Pap-only women.
Four women in the HPV/Pap group were diagnosed with cervical cancer, while 14 in the Pap-only group were.
When they looked at cervical cancer or advanced lesions, 88 in the HPV arm of the study were diagnosed with one or the other compared to 122 in the Pap-alone arm.
The improved protection against advanced lesions, the researchers said, is due to the earlier detection of the precursor lesions. When they were treated, it helped prevent them from progressing.
In an accompanying commentary, scientists from the U.S. National Cancer Institute wrote that the Dutch trial does show the five-year screening interval is safe. But they added that it is unclear if the same results would hold true in a different population with different testing guidelines.
The HPV test can be done using the same specimen collected for the Pap test, Meijer said.
Costs of the tests differ. Meijer said Pap smears are about $38 in the Netherlands, while an HPV test costs about $64. However, the Dutch Minister of Health recently recommended lowering the cost of an HPV test to below that of the traditional Pap.
The new study is "further defining how we can incorporate HPV testing into our screening program," said Dr. Elizabeth Poynor, a gynecologic oncologist and pelvic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City.
She noted that she doesn't think the HPV screen will replace the Pap test completely. "It may turn out to be a first-line screen. Stay tuned for more," she said. "Certainly ask your physician if you've had HPV."
In October, three U.S. cancer groups proposed new guidelines for cervical cancer testing, extending intervals between screenings and making other changes. These guidelines, issued by the American Cancer Society and others, call for combination HPV/Pap smear testing for women aged 30 and older.
After three normal Paps, women over 30 can have the test ever two to three years, according to the American Cancer Society.
However, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force remains cautious about the use of the HPV test, standing by the Pap as the best bet for now.
The Dutch study was funded by Zorg Onderzoek Nederland (the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development).
More information
To learn more about cervical cancer, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
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