Google is experimenting with its Google Adwords offerings, attempting to go beyond regular text ads with Google Email Subscription Ads, allowing companies to buy ads that automatically fill in a "Subscribe to newsletter (or whatever, I'm assuming)" slot with a given searcher's Google email address during a search.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/vP65TacNkhE/
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By Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Amid a rising war of words between the United States and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. and European officials saw no imminent threat Wednesday to the passageway through which some 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil travels daily.
Instead, they said, the latest Iranian threat to close the route reflected Tehran's anger at the U.S. pledge to impose sanctions on its nuclear program that for the first time directly target Iran's oil exports, the source of some 80 percent of its government revenue.
A European Union diplomat said that despite "a history of violating almost any international agreement," expectations were low that Iran would blockade the waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
And while such a blockade could lead to a confrontation with U.S. forces and disrupt the global economy, analysts expressed skepticism that Iran's navy had the capacity to shut down the strait for an extended period.
Amid the tensions, the diplomat said there was nevertheless a "pretty good prospect" that the 27-member EU, which imports some 25 percent of its petroleum supplies from Iran, will adopt an embargo on Iranian oil purchases next month.
The apparent trigger for the flare-up is defense funding legislation that President Barack Obama is preparing to sign.
It contains a provision that would allow the U.S. for the first time to penalize foreign banks that do business with Iran's Central Bank, the main conduit for payments for Iranian
oil.The provision would substantially expand existing U.S. sanctions against Tehran. It is aimed at restricting funds for Iran's nuclear program, which the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency last month reported may be secretly developing a nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The tensions began Tuesday when Iran's vice president, Mohammad Reza-Rahimi, said that if the West imposed sanctions on Iran's oil exports, "then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz."
Then, on Wednesday, Iran's navy chief, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, said closing the strait "is very easy for Iranian naval forces. Iran has comprehensive control over the strategic waterway."
That prompted a response from the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. The Navy said it was prepared to defend the key passageway, through which about 15 million barrels of oil pass daily.
"The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity," Navy Lt. Rebecca Rebarich said. "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated."
At the Pentagon, officials said they were confident the Navy had adequate resources in the region to defend against any potential Iranian threat.
The USS John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that leads a naval strike force, is operating in the northern Arabian Sea, having just completed providing air operations in Iraq.
A naval blockade is unlikely, as it would be considered an act of war by Iran against a far better U.S. naval fleet. Iran spends roughly $8 billion on its military compared with nearly $700 billion slated for next year's U.S. defense budget.
But Iran could employ less direct tactics such as placing mines in the strait, which the U.S. would have to find and disarm, a laborious process that could expose American ships to Iranian attack.
Iran also could use surface craft to harass oil tankers.
Moreover, Iran could respond to any confrontation with the United States through terrorist attacks on U.S. and other targets through its proxies, including Hezbollah, the militant Shiite Muslim movement that controls Lebanon's government.
Micah Zenko, an expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, said there is no scenario for which the U.S. has done more contingency planning than clearing an Iranian blockade of the strait because of its importance to global commerce.
"Iran simply could not close the Strait of Hormuz for any length of time," Zenko said.
Zenko noted that Iran has threatened for different reasons to blockade the Strait of Hormuz every year since 1980 but has never actually done so. However, it did attack shipping in the western Persian Gulf during the 1980-88 war with Iraq.
Source: http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_19635812?source=rss
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Given that indoor tanning beds were officially classified as a human carcinogen in 2009 -- up there with cigarettes and asbestos -- it should be fairly obvious that frequent tanning-booth exposure would increase your risk of skin cancer.
Indeed, the evidence linking indoor tanning with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and squamous cell carcinoma, one of the more common forms of the disease, is "convincing," according to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. But the research concerning tanning beds and basal cell carcinoma, the third and most frequent major type of skin cancer -- which accounts for some 80% of all skin cancer cases in the U.S. -- has thus far been inconsistent. (See pictures of a photographer's intimate account of her mother's cancer ordeal.)
Basal cell carcinoma, a slow-growing cancer, has traditionally been a disease of middle age. But it's been appearing with increasing frequency in people under 40, especially in women -- a demographic that also happens to like indoor tanning -- suggesting a link. So researchers at the Yale School of Public Health sought to study the association.
The study included 376 people under 40, who had been diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma between 2006 and 2010. They were matched with a control group of 390 dermatology patients who were diagnosed with minor skin conditions like cysts and warts. All participants had skin biopsies, and all were drawn from a Yale University database.
The researchers interviewed each participant about their UV exposure -- both in tanning beds and outdoors. They also asked about their history of sunburns, sunscreen use, family history of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers, and their self-reported eye, skin and hair color.
The conclusion: people who had ever used a tanning booth were 69% more likely to develop early-onset basal cell carcinoma than never tanners. Those who used tanning booths more regularly -- for at least six years -- were more than twice a likely to develop basal cell carcinoma, compared with never tanners.
The study found that women were far more devoted than men to indoor tanning, which might help explain why 70% of all early onset basal cell carcinomas occur in females. The authors concluded that about 27% of cases of early onset disease -- including 43% of cases in women -- could be prevented if people simply stopped using tanning booths.
That's a tall order, considering that some 30 million Americans use indoor tanning beds each year. Policy changes, such as the recent California ban on teen tanning, may help, the authors suggest. So would behavioral interventions aimed at women -- at least one study in 2010 found that the best way to get young women to tan less was to warn them about the skin-wrinkling effects of tanning-bed exposure, not the risk of skin cancer.
"Importantly, indoor tanning is a behavior that individuals can change. In conjunction with the findings on melanoma, our results for [basal cell carcinoma] indicate that reducing indoor tanning could translate to a meaningful reduction in the incidence of these two types of skin cancer," said Leah M. Ferrucci, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Public Health, in a statement.
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LONDON?? From whale sperm to colon cleansers to the shape of a woman's foot when she has an orgasm, celebrities did not disappoint during 2011 with their penchant for peddling suspect science in the world's media.
In its annual list of what it considers the year's worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign named reality TV star Nicole Polizzi, Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann and American singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro as top offenders, with their dubious views on why the sea is salty, the risks of cervical cancer vaccines and the colon.
"I used to get a lot of sore throats and then one of my sisters told me that all illnesses start in the colon. I started taking a daily colon cleanser powder mixed with fresh juice every morning and it made an enormous difference," Quatro told the Daily Mail newspaper.
But SAS was keen to dispel such myths. It asked qualified scientists from various disciplines to comment on some of the worst celebrity science offences.
"The colon is very important in some diseases, but it certainly is not the cause of all illnesses," said Melita Gordon, a consultant gastroenterologist said in the review.
"Sore throats do not come from your colon; they are caused by viruses that come in through your nose and mouth. Taking 'colon cleansers' has no beneficial effect on your throat - or on your colon."
While the review is partly about entertainment, the campaign group stresses it also has a serious aim ? to make sure pseudo-science is not allowed to become accepted as true.
After Bachmann used an appearance on a television show to tell a story of a woman from Tampa, Florida, who said her daughter had become "mentally retarded" after getting an HPV vaccine designed to protect against cervical cancer, doctors said they feared the damage done may take many years to reverse.
"It's tempting to dismiss celebrity comments on science and health, but their views travel far and wide and, once uttered, a celebrity cancer prevention idea or environmental claim is hard to reverse," said SAS's managing director Tracey Brown.
"At a time when celebrities dominate the public realm, the pressure for sound science and evidence must keep pace."
The review also highlighted a bizarre quote from TV personality Polizzi, who declared recently: "I don't really like the beach. I hate sharks, and the water's all whale sperm. That's why the ocean's salty."
Simon Boxall, a marine expert and oceanographer dismissed Polizzi's suggestion. "It would take a lot of whale sperm to make the sea that salty," he said.
Some of the most intriguing pseudo-scientific suggestions came via repeated second hand information picked up at parties ? never the most reliable source.
Christian Louboutin, a French footwear designer, was taken with something a fellow party guest told him about shoes.
"She said that what is sexual in a high heel is the arch of the foot, because it is exactly the position of a woman's foot when she orgasms. So putting your foot in a heel, you are putting yourself in a possibly orgasmic situation," he explained.
Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine, responded drily that it's important to differentiate cause from effect.
"A woman's foot may be in this position during orgasm, but that does not mean that putting her foot into this position under other circumstances will result in orgasm," he said.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45800956/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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By Matt Hanley mhanley@stmedianetwork.com December 25, 2011 5:12PM
Jacob Fox, 17, far left, and his Dad Ron Fox from Scales mound, Ill, watch as Sacred Heart Rev. Msgr. Arquimedes Vallejo, right, holds up a wooden heart carving to the new altar at the rebuilt Sacred Heart Church building in Aurora on Wednesday, December 21, 2011. The group decided to leave the heart off the altar. | Brian Powers~Sun-Times Media
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Donations still needed
While the new Sacred Heart Church is expected to open within a month, the church is still praying for help with two important parts of the Catholic Mass. Msgr. Arquimedes Vallejo said donations are still needed to install a new Stations of the Cross and a new ambo, the raised stand where scripture is traditionally read during Mass. Anyone who wishes to help can make donations at the church or send them to 771 Fulton St., Aurora IL 60505.
Updated: December 26, 2011 2:12AM
AURORA ? Every morning, the ladies wander in. Usually three or four show up in the morning, simply to see the work being done: a hole being dug, a window being installed, a pew being screwed down. Witnessing such normally mundane tasks takes on new meaning, when the work appears to be part of a miracle.
It has been 13 years since Aurora?s Sacred Heart Church burned to the ground, accidentally torched by a boy playing with matches.
As the poorest church in the Rockford Diocese, Sacred Heart was struggling and deep in debt before the fire. But while the church lacked financial resources, it has shown to be well-stocked in faith. Families who had been church members for more a century simply refused to give up. Even when the diocese discouraged rebuilding on the site near Fulton and State streets, by refusing to pay for reconstruction. Even when Mass was held in an awkward, smelly basement of the school with exposed pipes directly over the priest?s head. Even when weddings were moved elsewhere and caskets couldn?t get down the winding staircase.
?If you go to other churches, it?s just different,? longtime parishioner Jose Rodriguez said in April. ?I know it?s the same God, but there?s something special here. At other churches, you feel like something?s missing.?
It won?t be long before that something special will include a new church. Rodriguez was one of the dozens who came out in on a Friday morning in April for the groundbreaking that had seemed impossible.
That day, parishioners cried and snapped pictures. The hundreds of folding chairs set out were not nearly enough. Members of the poorest church in the diocese passed collection baskets and sang ?God Bless America.?
The week after that ceremony, construction began on the 8,500-square-foot church with buttressed steel interior and masonry exterior, able to seat 450. From the makeshift seats of the basement church, parishioners can see their new home going up.
?They are very, very, very happy to see the church,? said Msgr. Arquimedes Vallejo, pastor at Sacred Heart. ?The whole community is doing great sacrifices to make this.?
Vallejo said families have cut back on clothes and Christmas gifts so they can donate a little more to the church. When the donated sod and landscaping needed to be planted, 40 men showed up.
?This is one of the poorest churches in money. Regarding their talents, it is very rich,? Vallejo said. ?It is an example for us.?
The new church is a not a replica of the original. But it is built in a more traditional style to keep a connection with the old church. The design is clean and simple, with humble stained glass windows on the sides. The pews and lights have been donated from other churches and refurbished for Sacred Heart.
But, unlike the basement currently in use, the new building will have modern bathrooms, a crying room for people with young children and confessionals. Every day, loyal parishioners regularly peek into the new building to see the progress.
Vallejo expects to hold Mass in the new church in the next month. No doubt, even at twice the seating of the basement church, every seat will be filled with the smiling faces of people whose persistence has been rewarded.
?They are loyal, faithful people. That?s why the people rejoice to see their new church,? Vallejo said. ?For them, it looks like a dream and also a miracle.?
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Nearly a year away from the 2012 election, we?ll talk to the president?s 2008 campaign manager, now White House Senior Adviser, David Plouffe. Then author of the definitive new biography on the late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson; Author of the new book ?The Time of Our Lives,? NBC News Special Correspondent, Tom Brokaw; Former Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm; and Republican strategist, Mike Murphy.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/45787113#45787113
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Question: I?m looking to raise angel funding. What are the advantages of convertible debt? And should I do convertible debt over a typical seed round where I set a valuation and sell shares in my company?
Answer by Ethan Stone, Stone Business Law
First, a quick caveat: I?m not your lawyer and this answer doesn?t establish an lawyer-client relationship. I?m giving a generic answer to a generic question to educate the users of this site.
Now to the question: There are two main advantages of raising seed funding through convertible debt. Neither one is an unequivocal benefit, so I?ll give you the pluses and minuses.
The first advantage is that the documentation is much simpler than the most common alternative ? a full set of documents, establishing a class of preferred stock and various other contractual stockholder rights. The reason that it?s simpler is that the investor is not trying to secure the complex set of rights to control the company and secure a return on investment. In their place, a convertible note substitutes one main right: The right to be repaid, with interest, after a fixed amount of time. Sometimes, the note will also allow the noteholder certain control rights if the note isn?t repaid as agreed.
Think of it this way: If you?re planning to build a new house with a bank loan, the bank could try to secure the value of its investment by requiring you to check in at various stages (approval of the architect, the plans, the builder and certain stages of the building etc.). Alternatively, the bank could just tell you that you owe a lot of money in a relatively short period of time and rely on that as an incentive to get you to build something that will justify the loan (i.e. by resale or refinance). That analogy isn?t perfect. I?ll get to that later.
In the meantime, however, it should get you thinking about one of the downsides: If the time runs on the debt and you haven?t found new equity financing, the angel can call in the debt and put you into bankruptcy (or foreclose on the assets if you?ve used them to ?secure? the debt).
It might not be quite that bad. The main reason is that if you can?t pay back the debt and you can?t raise financing, it?s likely that there will be almost nothing there. Bankruptcy and foreclosure are costly and inefficient processes. So the more likely scenarios are that everyone agrees the company is failing, in which case you?ll just agree on how to shut it down and give whatever?s left to the angel, or everyone agrees the company is worth carrying forward, in which case the angel will be working with you to raise more capital, not playing the evil landlord. That?s not to say there?s no risk. I?ve seen good companies on the verge of success trashed by short-sighted early investors. But that?s not really a reason not to use convertible debt. It?s another reason to be very cautious about whose money you take.
Getting back to the bank loan analogy, it isn?t perfect because angel investors aren?t banks: They aren?t looking for a fixed return on their capital. They?re looking for home run appreciation on a high-risk investment.
That leads to the second benefit of convertible debt: It puts off discussion of a final valuation. How? To back up, the ?convertible? in ?convertible debt? means that the investor can turn your money obligation into a certain share of the equity. That?s where an angel investor differs from a bank. The trick is, what price do you use to convert dollars to stock? If you agree on a specific ?conversion? price, you?ve effectively agreed how much the stock is worth and you might as well issue preferred stock (preferred stock also has a conversion price and usually involves a right to get the invested money back, often with significant ?interest? in the form of cumulative dividends and liquidation preferences).
When companies issue convertible debt to angels, they shortcut the difficult valuation discussion by providing, in one of various ways, that the conversion price will be set by the next round of equity investment. In other words, they put off the final valuation discussion until the company is a bit more developed and the VC money comes in.
You may have noticed that I haven?t been saying that you avoid a discussion of valuation, but rather that you avoid a discussion of ?final? valuation. That?s because a savvy angel investor will never simply provide for conversion at the price of the next round. The reason is that the angel is not putting her money up at the next round, when the company has presumably proved its concept more and is a much safer bet. She?s putting her money up early, when the risk is greatest. But if she converts at the price of the next round, she?s effectively borne that early investment risk for free. In fact, given the time value of money, she?s effectively paid you some money for the privilege of coming in with the VCs.
So experienced angels will always ?cap? the conversion price. You can?t determine the right ?cap? without some determination of the company?s value. The trick is that you don?t have to reach agreement on an exact value. You have to agree that the ?cap? valuation is high enough that you?ll be happy if you can get to it with only the angel?s capital. The angel has to believe that it?s low enough to provide a reasonable percentage of total equity at the first VC round. In many ways, this is more of a psychological benefit than an actual benefit. But psychology is important, especially if you?re trying to reach agreement quickly and get on with building the company. You should notice, however, that setting a ?cap,? rather than a final valuation tends to move the angel toward a higher valuation because everyone can pretend that it?s just the highest valuation the angel will accept, not the actual valuation the angel will receive. That favors the company, a fact that it not lost on experienced angels.
There are more potential complications to convertible debt, but that?s the difference in a nutshell. You should also be aware that not all angels will take convertible debt, although it has become more popular recently. As noted, negotiating a ?cap? rather than a valuation tends to favor the company. Some angels also feel that a full set of preferred stock documents isn?t so complicated that it?s not worth doing.
Source: http://www.foundersspace.com/fund-raising/what-are-the-advantages-of-convertible-debt/
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Evelyn Lozada -- one of the stars of "Basketball Wives" who was once engaged to former NBA All-Star Antoine Walker -- is being sued for allegedly receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally.
The story is shocking.? Walker raked in a whopping $110 million during his NBA career, in addition to untold millions in endorsements and other deals ... and he blew ALL OF IT and a lot more.
Walker filed for bankruptcy last year, and now the bankruptcy trustee smells a rat.? It seems Walker gave Lozada $560,000 when he already knew he was going belly up.? The trustee has sued Lozada, claiming the transfer was fraudulent -- an attempt to hide money from legitimate creditors.
The trustee says Lozada used the money to start a Miami shoe store called Dulce, and now the trustee wants the $560k back.
We're told Lozada and Walker insist there was no funny business.? He gave her the money to help pay her bills.? Sources say Lozada funded Dulce NOT with the $560k, but by selling her engagement ring.? And, our sources say, Lozada had no idea Walker was so deep in debt.
Rich people's problems ...
Source: http://www.tmz.com/2011/12/25/basketball-wives-antoine-walker-evelyn-lozada-bankruptcy/
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NEW YORK ? The dollar rose against other major currencies after the U.S. government released a pair of mixed economic reports.
Currency trading is thin Friday ahead of Christmas. U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday in observance of the holiday, which falls on Sunday.
The euro fell to $1.3040 in late trading Friday from $1.3043 late Thursday. The British pound fell to $1.5605 from $1.5678. The dollar rose to 0.9371 Swiss franc from 0.9364.
The Commerce Department said Friday that orders to U.S. factories for durable goods rose 3.8 percent in November, the biggest gain since July.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department said that consumer spending rose 0.1 percent and incomes also rose 0.1 percent. Both gains were below what economists were expecting.
In other trading Friday, the dollar fell to 78.02 Japanese yen from 78.17 Japanese yen and to 1.0206 Canadian dollar from 1.0212 Canadian dollar.
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The date has been set and registrations are now being taken for the second annual Joe Root's Frostbite Open.
The golf tournament is scheduled for Feb. 19 on frozen Presque Isle Bay.
Named for a hermit who once lived on the peninsula, the event is organized by the Presque Isle Partnership as a fundraiser for Presque Isle State Park.
The first Frostbite Open, in February, drew 144 golfers and raised about $3,400. Organizers said 60 foursomes will be welcomed this year.
See Sunday's Erie Times-News and GoErie.com for more coverage.
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#@law_pundit NCAA Tramples Rights of Student-Athletes, over 3 Million Fans, Sponsors and Donors -- Acting As if it W... ow.ly/1gkl4X 
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Source: http://twitter.com/law_pundit/statuses/150010842845413377
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Three months old, three years old, what's the difference these days?
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Satellites find supply falling mostly due to agriculture
Web edition : Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO ? Groundwater levels have dropped in many places across the globe over the past nine years, a pair of gravity-monitoring satellites finds. This trend raises concerns that farmers are pumping too much water out of the ground in dry regions.
Water has been disappearing beneath southern Argentina, western Australia and stretches of the United States. The decline is especially pronounced in parts of California, India, the Middle East and China, where expanding agriculture has increased water demand.
?Groundwater is being depleted at a rapid clip in virtually of all of the major aquifers in the world's arid and semiarid regions,? says Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California Center for Hydrologic Modeling in Irvine, whose team presented the new trends December 6 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Famiglietti and his colleagues detect water hidden below the surface using the modern equivalent of a dowsing rod: a pair of car-sized satellites, nicknamed Tom and Jerry, that are especially sensitive to the tug of gravity from below.
As the spacecraft chase each other around the planet like their cat and mouse namesakes, they are pulled apart and pushed together by areas of higher or lower gravity. Mountains and other large concentrations of mass have a big, obvious effect that?s consistent from month to month. But water moves around over time, creating small gravity fluctuations that the satellites? orbital motions respond to.
It takes a lot of flow to noticeably change the distance between the satellites. After subtracting the contributions of snowpack, rivers, lakes and soil moisture, scientists can detect changes in groundwater greater than a centimeter over an area about the size of Illinois.
This joint mission between NASA and the German Aerospace Center ? called the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE ? has been creating monthly snapshots of global groundwater since 2002. The trends now identified in this data help fill in monitoring gaps and confirm problems in places where official groundwater information is unreliable or nonexistent.
?GRACE is very good for areas of the world where we don?t have good ground observations,? says Marc Bierkens, a hydrologist who studies groundwater at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
China, for example, has been shown to underestimate groundwater use. The country lacks the nationwide network of monitoring wells found in the United States. GRACE?s measurements suggest that water levels have been dropping six or seven centimeters per year beneath plains in the northeast.
In some areas, short-term climate variability may be to blame. For example, the plains of Patagonia in Argentina and areas across the southeastern United States ? areas that have been hit hard by droughts ? store less groundwater today than they did in 2002.
But there?s little doubt as to what?s behind the biggest drops: farming. An agricultural boom in northern India has helped to squeeze nearly 18 cubic kilometers of water from the ground every year (SN: 9/12/09, p. 5). That?s enough water to fill more than seven million Olympic swimming pools. And in California?s Central Valley, which supports about one-sixth of the nation?s irrigated land, the ground has been sinking for decades as landowners drill more wells and pull out almost 4 cubic kilometers of water per year (SN: 1/16/10, p. 14).
?People are using groundwater faster than it can be naturally recharged,? says Matthew Rodell, a hydrologist and GRACE team member at NASA?s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Agricultural pressures are particularly worrisome in places like the Middle East, another hotspot on the new GRACE map. Water pumped out of the Arabian aquifer beneath Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries today fell as rain thousands of years ago. Once this fossil water disappears, there?s little new rainfall to replenish it. ?
Climate change will only worsen the problem, says Famiglietti. Precipitation patterns are becoming more extreme, increasing the severity of droughts. Wet areas are also becoming wetter and dry areas drier, which may accelerate declines in groundwater in some places over the coming years.
But even as the researchers sound the alarm, they don?t know how loud to crank up the volume. GRACE reveals only changes in groundwater. It doesn?t divulge how much water is left.
?We don?t really know how stressed the world?s largest aquifers are,? says Richey.
Some reservoirs, like the giant Nubian Aquifer that underlies North Africa, may be large enough to meet demand for centuries. But few reliable estimates exist of the amount of groundwater stored in the world?s aquifers.
Despite the uncertainties, Leonard Konikow, a hydrogeologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., says that water use has become unsustainable in many places. Better irrigation systems that use less water could help to curb the problem, he says. So could channeling water during especially wet periods into aquifers instead of letting it run off into the ocean.
?There are too many areas in the world where groundwater development far exceeds a sustainable level,? says Konikow. ?Something will have to change.?
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337097/title/Groundwater_dropping_globally
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Kim Jong Il's death leaves the Korean peninsula and the rest of East Asia in a period of great uncertainty. But one of Kim Jong Il's most dangerous legacies has security implications well beyond the region: he leaves behind a thriving nuclear weapons export business that must now be stopped.
There has been mounting evidence in recent years that North Korea has set up an illicit nuclear export business to Syria, Iran and potentially elsewhere. Syria's Al-Kibar nuclear reactor, which was bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007, closely resembled a North Korean facility used to produce plutonium for bombs, and one western diplomat told me that several senior North Korean technicians were killed in the raid. (See photos of Syria's nuclear reactor destroyed in 2007.)
North Korea and Iran's sharing of technology for missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear warheads is so extensive that some analysts say it is only appropriate to view it as operationally a joint missile program. No one knows if North Korea is also helping Iran with nuclear weapons design, and it's possible it has other, yet-to-be-detected clients as well.
North Korea shares little similarity or ideology with Syria or Iran; its dealings are largely profit-driven. For its clients, DPRK provides a black market to purchase sensitive nuclear technology without detection by the international community. The nightmare scenario is that Pyongyang would even sell fissile material -- the key ingredient for nuclear bombs -- to terrorists if the price is right.
Most nonproliferation experts find this scenario unlikely as it would be quickest route imaginable to have your country bombed and possible invaded. However, the Syrian and Iranian cases show that DPRK has been happy to sell the technology needed to produce fissile material, and the missiles needed to deliver it.
What's not clear is how much this network relied on support or at least authorization from Kim Jong Il. But reports from North Korean defectors once involved in the tripartite proliferation network suggest it is highly sophisticated and involves many different layers of officialdom. It may work something like this: North Korean state trading companies working directly for the DPRK regime set up branch offices in mainland China. These companies contract private Chinese firms to send purchase orders to the local subsidiaries of European industrial machinery companies, who have set up shop in China specifically to cash in on China's growing domestic market. (See photos of the busy life of Kim Jong Il.)
These domestic orders, of course, are not subject to export controls, so without knowing it, western subsidiaries sell dual-use technology -- industrial tool and dye equipment, for example -- directly to private Chinese firms, who then use their established routes to transport the goods to North Korea. In terms of sales, North Korea state trading companies are also contracting private Chinese firms to move sensitive goods through Southeast Asia (including Myanmar) and on to clients in the Middle East.
The success of this network is an unintended consequence of China's North Korea strategy, which has placed a high emphasis on a stable regime succession to Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un. The strategy is understandable: regime collapse in North Korea would send a flood of refugees across the border into some of the poorest provinces in China. Beijing may also believe that economic reform and party-to-party institution building can help reform North Korea and bring it in from the cold. Maybe so, but in the meantime this policy has created more opportunities for North Korea to increase its illicit activity through the mainland.
Unfortunately, enlisting China's help in cracking down on the use of private Chinese firms by North Korean entities -- even now that Kim Jong Il is dead -- is a lost cause for the U.S and its allies. China's port security and trade monitoring resources are woefully unmatched by the volume of trade in China today. Even more importantly, corruption at local levels is still a major problem.
The Proliferation Security Initiative, launched in 2003 as a voluntary organization of nations cooperating to prevent the shipment of proliferation-sensitive technologies, has proven to be an increasingly effective tool for combating North Korean smuggling. It has led to the interdiction of several North Korean shipments of missile and WMD components, most recently the turning around by the U.S. Navy of a Belize-flagged North Korean Vessel in June suspected of transporting missile technology on its way to Myanmar (and then on possibly to the Middle East). In the short term, the PSI should be continued. What's more, we should encourage PSI states -- and China -- to offer monetary rewards that lead to the interdiction of North Korean consignments. Mercenary traders, after all, can often be bought when they cannot be stopped. (Read "China's Stake in a Stable North Korea.")
North Korea is a backward, broken country with a dysfunctional economy. But its leaders are expert survivors and remarkably apt at getting what they need; we should not assume that this will change with Kim Jong Il's pasing. With two nuclear weapons tests already complete, North Korea has clearly learned how to construct a black market, full-service nuclear weapons program. There is growing evidence that they will now help any country that can pay to do the same.
The death of Kim Jong Il should focus the West's attention on stopping the spread of North Korean technology. Cutting off the supply would buy us time to fight the other half of the battle. In countries and regions where the demand for nuclear weapons remains strong, we must do more to address the underlying issues that cause countries to seek nuclear weapons in the first place.
Harrell is a research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Boston-based reporter for TIME.
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I know most of you guys and gals aren't used to sitting down and reading stack traces or debugging logs (you're better off, trust me), but sometimes during Android hacking and debugging reading the logcat output is a necessary evil. When a developer asks for a log, it's usually followed by a command you don't understand with special characters, and no explanation of what you're doing. That's fine for the busy developer, but every opportunity to learn something should be taken. Android Central member JHuston456 has done an excellent job sorting out the switches and parameters used for the logcat command, and has done a fine job explaining them for normal folks. For anyone who has rooted and plans to hack away at their phone, it's required reading. Hit the forums, have a look, and thank JHuston456 when you're done.
Source: Learn logcat like a pro
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/E49n0QtuTzU/story01.htm
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WASHINGTON ? Michelle Obama is urging people to give to charities for the holiday season as she brought more than 800 gifts Friday from White House staff to donate to the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots campaign.
The first lady also got a surprise invitation from a soldier to be his date at next year's Marine Corps Ball.
Lance Cpl. Aaron Leeks, 20, of Frederick, Md., said he asked Obama to accompany him because he's a fan and admires her work to support the military.
When Obama was sorting toys at the charity event and came close to Leeks, he leaned over a toy bin and got her attention to pop the question. The first lady smiled and called over a staff member as she chatted with Leeks.
"She said she'd love to go," Leeks said. "Actually, she said I'd need to speak to her husband, too, but she said she'd love to."
Leeks said he plans to follow up on his invitation. In January, he will be deployed for the first time to Afghanistan but plans to attend the ball when he's home next year.
Later at the White House, Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked whether the president would consider such an offer. Carney said that may be the first the president was hearing about this.
"The first lady's commitment to military families is very strong, indeed," he said. "So I'm sure she was flattered by the invitation."
Obama has supported the Toys for Tots campaign for each of the last three years and urges White House staff to buy gifts to donate. She said they had a 27 percent increase in donations this year.
"It's not too late to donate," she said. "It's still important to nudge our neighbors to give, give, give. We need people to bring in toys like never before."
Millions of families rely on such gifts to make the holidays special for their children, she said.
She hauled in a big red bag of toys, slung over her shoulder to the Washington military base Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. She wished volunteers a "Merry Christmas" and helped sort toys into bins marked for boy and girls by age group. Obama noted more toys are needed for older children, including books and games.
For people who are doing well this year, "it's up to us to dig deep and to make sure we take care of our neighbors out there who may be struggling," she said.
Organizers said the toys will be distributed to needy children in the Washington area.
Obama said her daughter Malia was impressed to learn that Toys for Tots was started by the Marines.
"You all have given so much to our country, as Malia has recognized, and you just keep giving more," Obama said.
Retired Marine Gen. Pete Osman, president and CEO of Quantico, Va.-based Toys for Tots, said Obama is their "No. 1 volunteer," and he called her commitment to military families "incredible."
"It sends a big signal to the military," he said of Obama's support. "When you've got someone like the first lady behind you, how can you go wrong?"
The charity's challenge this year, though, is rising demand as people are still suffering because of the economy, he said. The group has increased the number of toy drives nationwide this year to 730.
The event was Michelle Obama's last holiday stop in Washington. Later Friday, she and daughters Malia and Sasha were scheduled to depart for their annual holiday trip to see family in Hawaii. She said she didn't know when the president would be able to join them. Congress is still grappling with budget issues to close out the year.
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Online:
Toys for Tots: http://toysfortots.org
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Brett Zongker can be reached at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat
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JERUSALEM (AP) ? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, meet your Israeli doppelganger: Mark Zuckerberg.
Israeli entrepreneur Rotem Guez says he has legally changed his name to that of Facebook's CEO, a gimmick meant to persuade the social networking site to back down from what he says are threats to take legal action against him.
He's telling Facebook: "If you want to sue me, you're going to have to sue Mark Zuckerberg."
He says a lawyer for Facebook pressed him this week to close his online business Like Store, calling it illegal. Like Store promises to enhance companies' online reputations by offering Facebook users free content only accessible by clicking "like" on the companies' profiles.
The Israeli acknowledged on Saturday his company violates Facebook's terms of use, but says many U.S. companies offer similar services.
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