Williams, Djokovic into 3rd round in Australia (AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia ? Serena Williams was only two points from her 500th career match win when she tumbled to the court in the second round of the Australian Open.

It's OK, she thought, it's the good ankle. After sitting and watching Barbora Zahlavova Strycova's shot float out to end the penultimate rally, Williams got up and whipped a backhand winner down the line on match point to move into the third round with a 6-0, 6-4 victory on Thursday.

It improved her career record to 500-104 in tour matches and it was her 16th consecutive match win at Melbourne Park, where she has won five of her 13 Grand Slam titles.

"It's totally fine. It was my good ankle, so I'm good," she said, playing down concern that the fall had aggravated the left ankle sprain which hampered her preparation for the season's first major. "There was no extra pain. I twisted it. But it's all taped up, so the tape really, really helped."

She'd earlier put it down to just having "wobbly ankles."

"I wasn't meant to be a ballerina or anything," she told a post-match TV interview. It seems she was meant to be a tennis pro. Her older sister, Venus, has a win-loss record of 589-147 but is missing the Australian Open to recover from illness.

"I knew I had to get there too, because I do everything she does," said Williams, "It's great, it's like the ultimate."

Not quite.

"The first thing I asked, of course, 'Is there anyone that achieved a thousand?'" There's been two: Martina Navratilova had a career record 1,442-219, and Chris Evert retired with a 1,309-146 record.

"I never will get there either, but it's really cool," Williams said. "Five hundred is a lot of matches to play, let alone to win."

Williams won the Australian Open in 2009 and 2010 but didn't get to defend her title in 2011 because she was injured.

Novak Djokovic won the last men's title to kick off a stunning season, which started with a 41-match winning streak and finished with three of the four majors and the No. 1 ranking.

His 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 win over Santiago Giraldo of Colombia on Thursday was his 16th in a row in majors and keeps him on track to become only the fifth man in the Open era to win three consecutive Grand Slam singles tournaments.

Sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who lost the 2008 Australian final to Djokovic, advanced 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 over Ricardo Mello of Brazil, while No. 5 David Ferrer struggled early against American Ryan Sweeting before coming back to win 6-7 (4), 6-2, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3

No. 9 Janko Tipsarevic, No. 23 Milos Raonic of Canada and No. 27 Juan Ignacio Chela also progressed. Frenchman Michael Llodra beat No. 32 Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 5-7, 6-4 and Portugal's Frederico Gil beat No. 26 Marcel Granollers in four sets.

On the women's side, No. 2 Petra Kvitova scraped into the third round with a nervous 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 win over Carla Suarez Navarro.

Kvitova, who lost in the first round at the U.S. Open in the first major after winning Wimbledon, lost the second set and was down a break in the third before recovering to beat the Spaniard.

"In the beginning it was OK but I made many, many, many mistakes," Kvitova said of her 48 unforced errors. "It's part of my game but it's too many. It was very tough to get back in the third set."

Maria Sharapova, one of the three former champions in the women's draw, reached the third round after just two hours on court in two matches.

The 2008 champion had a 6-0, 6-1 second-round win over U.S. qualifier Jamie Hampton in 64 minutes.

Sharapova did not play in any warmup events and spent nearly two weeks in Melbourne ahead of the season's first major while she rested an injured left ankle.

"It was more about getting my feet going ... worrying about myself," Sharapova said. "Yeah, started my preparations in the offseason a little late, took a bit of extra time in practice instead of rushing into a tournament."

She'll meet No. 30 Angelique Kerber, who beat Canada's Stephanie Dubois 7-5, 6-1.

Seventh-seeded Vera Zvonareva, a two-time semifinalist at Melbourne Park, had a 6-1, 7-6 (3) over Lucie Hradecka . No. 21 Ana Ivanovic also advanced, beating Dutch player Michaella Krajicek 6-2, 6-3.

Three seeded players were ousted, with China's Zheng Jie beating No. 23 Roberta Vinci, Sara Errani beating No. 29 Nadia Petrova, No. 25 Kaia Kanepi losing to Ekaterina Makarova.

Defending champion Kim Clijsters is on the other half of the draw and advanced to the third round on Wednesday along with top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki, No. 3 Victoria Azarenka and former No. 1-ranked Jelena Jankovic.

Clijsters will next face longtime friend Daniela Hantuchova in the third round, and a win there could set up a fourth-round match against French Open champion Li Na, a rematch of the 2011 Australian final.

On the bottom half of the men's draw, No. 2 Rafael Nadal advanced without much trouble from his injured right knee or from German veteran Tommy Haas in a 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win. Four-time champion Roger Federer didn't even need to pick up a racket because Andreas Beck withdrew from their second-round match.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_sp_te_ne/ten_australian_open

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Into the mind of a Neanderthal

Continue reading page |1 |2

What would have made them laugh? Or cry? Did they love home more than we do? Meet the real Neanderthals

A NEANDERTHAL walks into a bar and says... well, not a lot, probably. Certainly he or she could never have delivered a full-blown joke of the type modern humans would recognise because a joke hinges on surprise juxtapositions of unexpected or impossible events. Cognitively, it requires quite an advanced theory of mind to put oneself in the position of one or more of the actors in that joke - and enough working memory (the ability to actively hold information in your mind and use it in various ways).

So does that mean our Neanderthal had no sense of humour? No: humans also recognise the physical humour used to mitigate painful episodes - tripping, hitting our heads and so on - which does not depend on language or symbols. So while we could have sat down with Neanderthals and enjoyed the slapstick of The Three Stooges or Lee Evans, the verbal complexities of Twelfth Night would have been lost on them.

Humour is just one aspect of Neanderthal life we have been plotting for some years in our mission to make sense of their cognitive life. So what was it like to be a Neanderthal? Did they feel the same way we do? Did they fall in love? Have a bad day? Palaeoanthropologists now know a great deal about these ice-age Europeans who flourished between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. We know, for example, that Neanderthals shared about 99.84 per cent of their DNA with us, and that we and they evolved separately for several hundred thousand years. We also know Neanderthal brains were a bit larger than ours and were shaped a bit differently. And we know where they lived, what they ate and how they got it.

Skeletal evidence shows that Neanderthal men, women and children led very strenuous lives, preoccupied with hunting large mammals. They often made tactical use of terrain features to gain as much advantage as possible, but administered the coup de grace with thrusting spears. Based on their choice of stone for tools, we know they almost never travelled outside small home territories that were rarely over 1000 square kilometres.

The Neanderthal style of hunting often resulted in injuries, and the victims were often nursed back to health by others. But few would have survived serious lower body injuries, since individuals who could not walk might well have been abandoned. It looks as if Neanderthals had well-developed way-finding and tactical abilities, and empathy for group members, but also that they made pragmatic decisions when necessary.

Looking closely at the choices Neanderthals made when they manufactured and used tools shows that they organised their technical activities much as artisans, such as blacksmiths, organise their production. Like blacksmiths, they relied on "expert" cognition, a form of observational learning and practice acquired through apprenticeship that relies heavily on long-term procedural memory.

The only obvious difference between Neanderthal technical thinking and ours lay in innovation. Although Neanderthals invented the practice of hafting stone points onto spears, this was one of very few innovations over several hundred thousand years. Active invention relies on thinking by analogy and a good amount of working memory, implying they may have had a reduced capacity in these respects. Neanderthals may have relied more heavily than we do on well-learned procedures of expert cognition.

As for the neighbourhood, the size and distribution of archaeological sites shows that Neanderthals spent their lives mostly in small groups of five to 10 individuals. Several such groups would come together briefly after especially successful hunts, suggesting that Neanderthals also belonged to larger communities but that they seldom made contact with people outside those groupings.

Many Neanderthal sites have rare pieces of high-quality stone from more distant sources (more than 100 kilometres), but not enough to indicate trade or even regular contact with other communities. A more likely scenario is that an adolescent boy or girl carried the material with them when they attached themselves to a new community. The small size of Neanderthal territories would have made some form of "marrying out" essential.

We can also assume that Neanderthals had some form of marriage because pair-bonding between men and women, and joint provisioning for their offspring, had been a feature of hominin social life for over a million years. They also protected corpses by covering them with rocks or placing them in shallow pits, suggesting the kinds of intimate, embodied social and cognitive interaction typical of our own family life.

But the Neanderthals' short lifespan - few lived past 35 - meant that other features of our more recent social past were absent: elders, for example, were rare. And they almost certainly lacked the cognitive abilities for dealing with strangers that evolved in modern humans, who lived in larger groups numbering in the scores and belonged to larger communities in the hundreds or more. They also established and maintained contacts with distant groups.

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Powerful drug's surprising, simple method could lead to better treatments

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

With one simple experiment, University of Illinois chemists have debunked a widely held misconception about an often-prescribed drug.

Led by chemistry professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute early career scientist Martin Burke, the researchers demonstrated that the top drug for treating systemic fungal infections works by simply binding to a lipid molecule essential to yeast's physiology, a finding that could change the direction of drug development endeavors and could lead to better treatment not only for microbial infections but also for diseases caused by ion channel deficiencies.

"Dr. Burke's elegant approach to synthesizing amphotericin B, which has been used extensively as an antifungal for more than 50 years, has now allowed him to expose its elusive mode of action," said Miles Fabian, who oversees medicinal chemistry research grants at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The institute is part of the National Institutes of Health, which supported the work. "This work opens up avenues for improving upon current antifungals and developing novel approaches for the discovery of new agents."

Systemic fungal infections are a problem worldwide and affect patients whose immune systems have been compromised, such as the elderly, patients treated with chemotherapy or dialysis, and those with HIV or other immune disorders. A drug called amphotericin (pronounced AM-foe-TARE-uh-sin) has been medicine's best defense against fungal infections since its discovery in the 1950s. It effectively kills a broad spectrum of pathogenic fungi and yeast, and has eluded the resistance that has dogged other antibiotics despite its long history of use.

The downside? Amphotericin is highly toxic.

"When I was in my medical rotations, we called it 'ampho-terrible,' because it's an awful medicine for patients," said Burke, who has an M.D. in addition to a Ph.D. "But its capacity to form ion channels is fascinating. So my group asked, could we make it a better drug by making a derivative that's less toxic but still powerful? And what could it teach us about avoiding resistance in clinical medicine and possibly even replacing missing ion channels with small molecules? All of this depends upon understanding how it works, but up until now, it's been very enigmatic."

While amphotericin's efficacy is clear, the reasons for its remarkable infection-fighting ability remained uncertain. Doctors and researchers do know that amphotericin creates ion channels that permeate the cell membrane. Physicians have long assumed that this was the mechanism that killed the infection, and possibly the patient's cells as well. This widely accepted dogma appears in many scientific publications and textbooks.

However, several studies have shown that channel formation alone may not be the killing stroke. In fact, as Burke's group discovered, the mechanism is much simpler.

Amphotericin binds to a lipid molecule called ergosterol, prevalent in fungus and yeast cells, as the first step in forming the complexes that make ion channels. But Burke's group found that, to kill a cell, the drug doesn't need to create ion channels at all ? it simply needs to bind up the cell's ergosterol.

Burke's group produced a derivative of amphotericin using a molecule synthesis method Burke pioneered called iterative cross-coupling (ICC), a way of building designer molecules using simple chemical "building blocks" called MIDA boronates joined together by one simple reaction. They created a derivative that could bind ergosterol but could not form ion channels, and tested it against the original amphotericin.

If the widely accepted model was true, and ion channel formation was the drug's primary antifungal action, then the derivative would not be able to wipe out a yeast colony. But the ergosterol-binding, non-channel-forming derivative was almost equally potent to natural amphotericin against both of the yeast cell lines the researchers tested, once of which is highly pathogenic in humans. The researchers detailed their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The results are all consistent with the same conclusion: In contrast to half a century of prior study and the textbook-classic model, amphotericin kills yeast by simply binding ergosterol," Burke said.

"The beauty is, because we now know this is the key mechanism, we can focus squarely on that goal. Now we can start to think about drug discovery programs targeting lipid binding."

The researchers currently are working to synthesize a derivative that will bind to ergosterol in yeast cells, but will not bind to cholesterol in human cells, to see if that could kill an infection without harming the patient. They also hope to explore other derivatives that would target lipids in fungi, bacteria and other microbes that are not present in human cells. Attacking these lipids could be a therapeutic strategy that may defy resistance.

In addition to exploiting amphotericin's lipid-binding properties for antimicrobial drugs, Burke and his group hope to harness its channel-creating ability to develop treatments for conditions caused by ion-channel deficiencies; for example, cystic fibrosis. These new findings suggest that the ion-channel mechanism could be decoupled from the cell-killing mechanism, thus enabling development of derivatives that could serve as "molecular prosthetics," replacing missing proteins in cell membranes with small-molecule surrogates.

"Now we have a road map to take ampho-terrible and turn it into ampho-terrific," Burke said.

###

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://www.uiuc.edu

Thanks to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116743/Powerful_drug_s_surprising__simple_method_could_lead_to_better_treatments

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Newt Gingrich allies in South Carolina and Florida smell victory


???
Newt Gingrich allies in South
Carolina and Florida smell victory

Human Events, by?John Gizzi
Original Article
Posted By:Desert Fox, 1/18/2012 6:12:26 AM
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich?s outstanding debate performance on Monday and key endorsements could set the stage for a strong showing by Gingrich in Saturday?s South Carolina primary, which would position him for a possible win in the Florida primary on Jan. 31 and a chance at the Republican nomination for President this summer. That?s what the two former Republican U.S. Representatives who are chairing Gingrich?s campaign in those two key states told HUMAN EVENTS yesterday.? Following what even Gingrich?s enemies say was a virtuoso performance in the debate at Myrtle Beach (S.C.)

Reply 1 - Posted by: falconer, 1/18/2012 6:19:10 AM?????(No. 8286354)

I think Newt will surprise people in SC. He is going to do much better than the polls have indicated thus far.


Reply 2 - Posted by: StormCnter, 1/18/2012 6:37:42 AM?????(No. 8286368)

Gingrich has repeated over and over that SC is a "must win" for him. Is it still? Because I don't see any polls indicating he's very close to a victory there.


???
Reply 3 - Posted by: cartcart, 1/18/2012 7:19:08 AM?????(No. 8286400)

He is definitely a man of quick wit and nice election quips, but he is also one of the nastiest whiners of recent time. If there is a smell, it is one of frying baloney.




Below, you will find ...

Most Recent Articles posted by "Desert Fox"

and

Most Active Articles (last 24 hours)



Most Recent Articles posted by "Desert Fox"

Remember When The Tea Party Threw
Smoke Bombs At the White House?
National Review Online, by Jonah Goldberg??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/18/2012 6:55:36 AM ??? Post Reply
On Michelle?s birthday no less. The Secret Service was responding Tuesday night to an escalating protest that may have involved one or more smoke bombs being thrown over the White House fence. An estimated 1,000 protesters have gathered. No arrests have been made, but authorities are on alert. The Secret Service also deployed a robot to check out the devices on the North Lawn. No one is currently allowed to leave through the North Gate, but those with the right access can go through the White House and leave through the South Gate.The Obamas were at dinner celebrating Michelle Obama?s
Gingrich's Practical Conservatism
American Thinker, by Judy Holloway??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/18/2012 6:31:28 AM ??? Post Reply
Newt Gingrich identified the very core of conservatism with his remarks in the first South Carolina presidential debate.? His vision of conservatism is the one that most Republicans don't understand and most Democrats don't want you to know. Gingrich was asked to explain his views on work ethic and the government erosion of that ethic through (at least in part) federal and state entitlement programs like food stamps.? He suggested that poor high school students be given opportunities to perform janitorial services in their schools as a way to earn money and to learn how to work at a job.
Newt and the '10 PM Question'
American Thinker, by C. Edmund Wright??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/18/2012 6:19:04 AM ??? Post Reply
It's 10 pm.? It's Martin Luther King Day.? You're in the South.? A packed auditorium is deathly quiet.? A large national TV audience is watching.? The electoral stakes are sky-high.? You are sweating on behalf of your favorite candidate.? Then an African-American journalist calls your guy's name -- and asks a racially tinged "gotcha" question.? OH NO!? Hit the mute button.? Take a beer break.? I can't bear to watch!? Why do we let liberals moderate our debates?! So it's not exactly "the 3 am phone call" from the 2008 race.? No, it's scarier than that.? It's the?"10 pm question."?
Newt Gingrich allies in South
Carolina and Florida smell victory
Human Events, by John Gizzi??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/18/2012 6:12:26 AM ??? Post Reply
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich?s outstanding debate performance on Monday and key endorsements could set the stage for a strong showing by Gingrich in Saturday?s South Carolina primary, which would position him for a possible win in the Florida primary on Jan. 31 and a chance at the Republican nomination for President this summer. That?s what the two former Republican U.S. Representatives who are chairing Gingrich?s campaign in those two key states told HUMAN EVENTS yesterday.? Following what even Gingrich?s enemies say was a virtuoso performance in the debate at Myrtle Beach (S.C.)
???
Opposition Dossier on
Romney Hits Internet
National Journal, by Alex Roarty??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/18/2012 5:19:16 AM ??? Post Reply
Think Mitt Romney has been hit hard this Republican primary campaign? Try reading through what John McCain had in store for the former Massachusetts governor in 2008. Two hundred pages of what appears to be the McCain campaign?s old opposition research book against Romney was published on Tuesday by BuzzFeed, offering in great detail a litany of potential vulnerabilities in his record. Many of the issues ? like Romney?s past support of gay rights and abortion rights ? are familiar to GOP voters, but at minimum, the book serves as a vivid reminder of why many conservatives are wary
Krauthammer: Romney Simply
Doesn?t Have Capacity To
Explain Conservative Ideas
Mediaite, by James Crugnale??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/17/2012 10:18:23 PM ??? Post Reply
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer sat down with Fox News? Bill O?Reilly and opined that Newt Gingrich won last night?s debate ? in fact, he ?won big.? Krauthammer criticized Mitt Romney?s mediocre debate performance and was incredulous at how the former Massachusetts Governor wasn?t prepared for a question on his tax returns. ?How could he not have prepared a nice short succinct humane answer about what he did at Bain?? Krauthammer perplexedly exclaimed. ?He didn?t really have that ? he kind of stumbled around.?
Palin: I?d Vote for Newt
(in S.C., at Least)
National Review Online, by Brian Bolduc??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/17/2012 10:07:28 PM ??? Post Reply
On Fox News tonight, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that she would vote for Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary to keep the vetting process in motion: If I were a South Carolinian though, and each one of these primaries and caucuses are different, Sean, I want to see this thing continue because iron sharpens iron. Steel sharpens steel. These guys are getting better in their debates. They are getting more concise. They are getting more grounded in what their beliefs are and articulating what their ideas


Most Active Articles (last 24 hours)

Romney Denialists
American Thinker, by Gene Schwimmer??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/17/2012 7:27:26 AM ??? Post Reply
Though I have yet to read anything on the Internet that caused me literally to bash my laptop computer into the nearest available hard surface, comments like this, in the comments section of a popular conservative website, come pretty close: Oh no we won't.? The GOP has been forcing us to choose their candidates.? No thank you. As most of you reading this probably have already guessed, the "oh no he won't" the commenter is vowing is that he won't unite behind Mitt Romney should the ex-gov of Mass win the GOP nomination.
Once hot, Tea Party goes cold
The Hill [Washington, DC], by Josh Lederman??? Original Article
Posted By: KarenJ1- 1/17/2012 12:40:00 PM ??? Post Reply
The Tea Party is falling to pieces. In presidential, House and Senate races, the Tea Party is struggling to float viable and effective candidates, unify its base and dictate the terms of national discourse on the economy. It is a harsh comedown for a movement that two years ago sent dozens of its members to Congress, revolutionized conservative grassroots organizing and forced both parties to make the national debt and federal spending their top policy concerns. ?I think the Tea Party?s dying out as the economy?s slowly getting better,?
???
Dem Rep. Ellison:
Let 16-year-olds vote

The Hill [Washington DC], by Pete Kasperowicz??? Original Article
Posted By: JoniTx- 1/17/2012 1:24:39 PM ??? Post Reply
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said late last week that the United States should lower the voting age by two years, to 16. "Why shouldn't 16-year-old vote?" Ellison tweeted last week, according to Minnesota's Fridley Patch. "They can drive. Some have jobs. Let's empower our youth." The Patch said Ellison's message started a Twitter debate on the subject, in which some said teens that young are not informed enough to vote. But Ellison rejected that. "Oh come on! 16-year-olds are pretty sharp," Ellison wrote. "When is last time you talked to teens?
Insulting Comments at Fox News Debate
Show Newt Clueless on Black Americans

Daily Beast, by Peter Beinart??? Original Article
Posted By: KarenJ1- 1/17/2012 10:01:36 AM ??? Post Reply
If you want to understand why the GOP is so ill prepared to compete in an increasingly nonwhite America, just look at the exchange between Fox News questioner Juan Williams and Newt Gingrich halfway through last night?s Republican presidential debate. It being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Williams asked Gingrich whether some poor and minority voters might not be insulted at his claim that poor kids lack a work ethic and that black people should be instructed to demand jobs, not food stamps. Gingrich, as is his wont, haughtily dismissed Williams?s question, to wild applause. Then Williams tried again,
Chris Matthews Accuses
Newt Gingrich Of Racially
Charged Use Of The Name ?Juan?

Mediaite, by Jon Bershad??? Original Article
Posted By: JoniTx- 1/17/2012 4:37:31 PM ??? Post Reply
A big moment of last night?s debate came when moderator Juan Williams and Newt Gingrich argued over Gingrich?s comments that many have seen as condescending towards blacks. However, Williams really should have been offended due to Gingrinch?s incredibly insensitive pronunciation of the word ?Juan.? At least, that?s the opinion of Chris Matthews who accused Gingrich of a racial motive in the way he used Williams? name. Matthews? comments came during an appearance on Andrea Mitchell Reports in which he and Mitchell discussed the tone in yesterday?s all white audience. Matthews accused Rick Perry of using terms
Obama takes on Florida snakes
The Hill [Washington, DC], by Andrew Restuccia??? Original Article
Posted By: KarenJ1- 1/17/2012 11:29:45 AM ??? Post Reply
The Obama administration took steps Tuesday to stop the spread of non-native snakes like pythons and anacondas throughout the Florida Everglades. The Interior Department?s Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule that makes it illegal to import or carry across state lines Burmese pythons, yellow anacondas and northern and southern African pythons. Burmese python populations in the Everglades have spiked in recent years, threatening various endangered species in the ecologically sensitive region.
Obama: I'm going
to Disney World

Orlando Sentinel, by Mark K Matthews*??? Original Article
Posted By: Desert Fox- 1/17/2012 2:04:52 PM ??? Post Reply
WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama will visit Walt Disney World during a planned trip to Orlando on Thursday, according to a White House aide. There, he will "unveil a strategy that will significantly help boost tourism and travel," the aide added. Details on that strategy were not disclosed. But it would be hard for Obama to pick a locale that's better known than Disney for a tourism announcement. The resort giant in Orlando has four theme parks that collectively draw more than 45 million visitors a year. It doesn't appear, however, that he'll get much love from local politicians.
???


Source: http://www.lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=660974

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Paul leaves campaign trail to vote on debt ceiling

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, left, shakes hands after his news conference at the South Carolina State House in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, Jan., 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, left, shakes hands after his news conference at the South Carolina State House in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, Jan., 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(AP) ? Ron Paul is stepping off the presidential campaign trail to vote against raising the federal debt ceiling.

The Texas congressman will fly to Washington early Wednesday. He planned to return to South Carolina on Thursday morning, two days before the state's first-in-the-South primary.

Paul has made concern over the federal debt and government spending the central tenet of his candidacy. He says he would trim $1 trillion from the federal budget in his first year as president and has called for steep cuts to military and overseas spending.

His message has found traction in the presidential contest. He placed second in the New Hampshire primary last week.

Paul's campaign says his vote against the debt ceiling increase would signal what it called "displeasure at the spendthrift habits of the administration."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-17-Paul/id-2b2973778d534cb98d32c77ddabd7108

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Michelle Williams Wins Golden Globe For Best Actress

'My Week With Marilyn' actress takes home same award as Monroe did in 1960.
By Jocelyn Vena


Michelle Williams at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards
Photo: Christopher Polk/ Getty Images

Michelle Williams has come a long way since her "Dawson's Creek" days. On Sunday night (January 15), the pixie-haired actress took the stage to accept her prize for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical for her chameleon-like turn as silver-screen icon Marilyn Monroe in "My Week With Marilyn."

"I consider myself a mother first and an actress second, and so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl [Matilda Ledger], whose bravery and exuberance is the example I take with me in my work and in my life. I want to say thank you for sending me off to this job every day with a hug and kiss," she gushed in her Jason Wu gown. "I couldn't have done it otherwise. You kept me so excited to come home at night and for suffering through six months of bedtime stories where the princesses were read out loud in a Marilyn Monroe-sounding voice.

"I could go on and on," she continued, thanking everyone from producer Harvey Weinstein to her longtime pal and former "Dawson's" co-star Busy Phillips, adding, "I wish I could go on and on; there's so many people to thank. Thank you to Hollywood Foreign Press Association for putting in my hands the same award that Marilyn Monroe herself won over fifty years ago. I'm honored."

In 1960, Monroe took home the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical for her iconic role in "Some Like It Hot." Williams has been nominated twice before, in 2005 for her work in "Brokeback Mountain" and again in 2010 for her role in "Blue Valentine." This is her first win.

Stick with MTV News all night for the 2012 Golden Globes winners, and don't miss all the fashion from the Golden Globes red carpet!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677337/golden-globes-2012-michelle-williams-best-actress-comedy-musical.jhtml

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Some Key Social Media Trends To Look For In 2012

Social-Media-CollageIn 2011, social media had its share of growing pains. Large brands and corporations took to social media in force to try to find footing in this expanding medium. Some brands found success, while others found peril and new PR nightmares. One person who has helped brands navigate the proverbial social media minefield is Amy Jo Martin. She is the founder of Digital Royalty, a social media firm that has set itself apart by helping A-listers find their social media voice.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_CPaLV3PZ3k/

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Will pop icons make music video in space?

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images file

Jay-Z and Beyonce strut their stuff during a performance at the 2006 BET Awards. The couple, who just had a baby girl last week, are reportedly talking about doing a music video together in space.

By Alan Boyle

Record executives are reportedly talking about sending Jay-Z and Beyonce into space to make a music video ? and although Virgin Galactic's executives aren't yet in on the discussions, they say the pop-music power couple are welcome to take a ride. They can even bring their celebrity daughter along.

The idea came to light on Thursday in The Sun, a British tabloid that specializes in the exploits of the rich and famous.

"The?label people have been talking about making a music vldeo in space," The Sun's Harry Haydon quoted a source?as saying. "Beyonce and Jay-Z seemed the obvious option. Everything is being done to make it happen."


Executives are reportedly inquiring behind the scenes about?making the video on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane. Scenes for the video would be shot during the few minutes of weightlessness that come?at the peak of the suborbital space ride, more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth's surface.

SpaceShipTwo isn't due to start commercial service until the end of this year at the earliest, which is probably a good thing, because I'm guessing that Jay-Z and Beyonce have their hands full right now?with Blue Ivy Carter, their newborn daughter. Blue Ivy has already hit the Billboard music charts, and eventually she might hit the heights of outer space as well.

Live Poll

Will a space music video fly?

"We're having no talks with Beyonce and/or Jay-Z (or indeed Blue Ivy!) but would be more than happy to take mum and dad or the whole family to space at some point!" Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic's commercial director, told me in an email today.

Celebrities lining up
Beyonce is already known to have a soft spot for space: She recorded a special audio message for the crew of Atlantis during last summer's final space mission. "You inspire us all of us to dare to live our dreams, to know that we're smart enough and strong enough to achieve them," she told the astronauts.

If the project comes together, Jay-Z and Beyonce?could make the first professional music video performed in outer space.?But they?wouldn't be?the only celebrities in space. The glitterati rumored to be on the list of?prospective Virgin Galactic?passengers include Katy Perry and Russell Brand (who recently broke up), Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton, Tom Hanks and Victoria Principal.

Then there's Stephen Hawking, the superstar quadriplegic physicist who just turned 70. Hawking took a zero-gravity airplane flight five years ago and is still up for a Virgin Galactic spaceflight. Attenborough said that Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, "was delighted to attend his 70th birthday celebrations last weekend and reiterated Virgin Galactic's commitment to do everything possible make it happen."

No freebies for the stars
SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry just six passengers and two pilots ? which means celebrities can bring a small entourage along with them. Hawking would reportedly ride for free, but other celebs shouldn't expect freebies: The cost of a space travel package is $200,000 per seat, and Branson said last year that he wouldn't be offering any special?deals.

"I'm in the airline business, and a lot of people ask for upgrades, and we're not going to get the same thing happening with our space program," he told The Canadian Press.

So when might the tourist treks to space begin? Attenborough didn't mention an exact date in his email, but he said "2012 is going to be the most exciting year yet."

"We are poised on the edge of the final stretch of flight testing, with the commencement of?SpaceShipTwo powered tests expected in the not-too-distant near future and ramping up, if all goes well, to space flight within the 12-month period," he said. "Clearly we will also require the FAA licences before we embark on passenger flights, but are continuing to see a major gear-up in the Spaceport America-based operation in preparation for that."

Virgin Galactic has more than 450 would-be spacefliers signed up,?and Attenborough said "we are continuing to see near-record growth in the numbers of future astronauts."

"I expect in the early part of this year we will have more paid-up customers than have been to space to date ? which will be an exciting milestone," he said.

More about Beyonce and Jay-Z:

More about Virgin Galactic:


Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. 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.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10150626-will-pop-icons-make-videomusic-in-space

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9 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Learn From Woody Allen

img-woody-allen-2_111333973473.jpg_article_singleimageI hate Woody Allen. Here?s why. Because if you?re Jewish and a little neurotic then it has become a clich? that nerdy neurotic Jewish people describe themselves as ?Woody Allen-esque? thinking it will attract women. They do this on dating services. The idea is that they will then attract some waif-like Mia Farrow-ish ?(or the 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan) blonde who will love all of their neuroses and want to have sex all the time and will, in the ideal case (the 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan, the 21-year-old Juliette Lewis in Husbands & Wives), be the most mature ?in the movie and yet still be madly in love with the 30-year-older Allen. This only happens in Woody Allen movies. And power to him. He made the movies. He can do whatever the hell he wants in them. If Mariel Hemingway wants to have sex with him all the time then no problem. He wrote the movie! It?s up to you whether you believe it or not. Allen puts out a new movie or two every year. So he?s built up a substantial body of work that we can learn from. Why learn? Because clearly he is a genius, regardless of what other opinions anyone might have of him (and I only know him through his work. I don?t know his personal life at all). It is interesting to see how he, as an artist and creator, has evolved. To see how his idiosyncratic humor has changed,? how he twists reality further to stretch our imagination. He always stands out and stays ahead of the other innovators. And for other people who seek the same, he is worth observing.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/SEE4pstD5OE/

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EPA board rejects appeal of Shell Arctic permit (AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska ? Royal Dutch Shell's quest to drill exploratory wells in Arctic waters has received a boost with the affirmation that its federal air permits for the Chukchi Sea were properly granted.

The EPA Appeals Board on Thursday rejected challenges to the air permits brought by Alaska Native and conservation groups.

Shell Alaska spokesman Curtis Smith said in a formal announcement that the decision means Shell, for the first time, has usable air permits that will allow its drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, to work in the outer continental shelf off Alaska's northwest coast in 2012.

"Achieving usable permits from the EPA is a very important step for Shell and one of the strongest indicators to date that we will be exploring our Beaufort and Chukchi leases in July," Smith said.

Drilling is strongly opposed by conservation groups that contend oil companies cannot clean up a spill in ice-choked waters, and that the remote Chukchi and Beaufort seas are too far from ports, major airports and other infrastructure for an effective cleanup if there's a blowout.

Earthjustice attorney Colin O'Brien, who represented groups that filed one of four air permit appeals, said it an email response to questions that the decision could be appealed in federal court, but that it was too early to speculate about potential next steps.

He said EPA took shortcuts when it issued the permits and failed to fully protect Arctic air quality as required by the Clean Air Act.

"These permits pave the way for Shell to emit thousands of tons of harmful air pollution into the pristine Arctic environment, at levels that may be harmful to nearby communities and the environment for years to come," he said. "We are disappointed that the Environmental Appeals Board decided against us and allowed EPA's permit decisions to stand.

A Shell subsidiary has applied to drill up to three exploratory wells in the Chukchi during the open water season this year and additional exploratory wells in 2013. The company hopes to use a second drill for exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's north coast, and awaits a decision on the appeal of its air permit.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December approved Shell's Chukchi drilling plan with one important stipulation. The agency said Shell must still drilling into hydrocarbon zones 38 days before sea ice is projected to engulf the drill site to make sure it has time cope with a spill or a wellhead blowout. That would cut the drilling window by about one-third.

A successful appeal of previous air permits played a part of Shell's decision to cancel drilling for 2011. In that case, the appeals board concluded that analysis of the impact of nitrogen dioxide emissions on Alaska Native communities was too limited. The board remanded the permits to allow the agency to fix permit problems.

The appeal filed by Earthjustice contended that Shell's new permit was based on pollution estimates that were inherently unreliable because they are based on equipment that Shell did not identify and that the EPA never intends to test.

Shell faces other hurdles before it can send its drill ships and support vessels north. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement must approve Shell's oil spill response plan for the Chukchi.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_on_re_us/us_shell_air_permit

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