Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/J3VVr1yyGPA/
dexter dexter baltimore ravens facebook timeline kim jong il kim jong il nfl playoff picture
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Layla Kayleigh?s Blog: Melody Turns Two!
In her latest blog, Layla fills us in on Melody's birthday party, her and Steven's fall wedding, and asks for help on getting Melody back in her own bedroom. Tell her your tips!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Exoplanets Spotted Orbiting Dead Star
Five billion years from now... oh fuck it, I need a drink.
Sobering up now, this "dead star" is really a white dwarf, isn't it?
Time scales become truly mind-boggling when, after eons as a white dwarf, the nuclear reaction peters out, the "ember" still emitting heat for eons upon eons.
If the proton decays, when the last white dwarf goes out, around 10^14 years from now, the Universe passes from the Stelliferous Era to the Degenerate Era, everything slowly cooling down, matter slowly disintegrating or being su
Monday, December 19, 2011
Traumatic experiences may make you tough
ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? Your parents were right: Hard experiences may indeed make you tough. Psychological scientists have found that, while going through many experiences like assault, hurricanes, and bereavement can be psychologically damaging, small amounts of trauma may help people develop resilience.
"Of course, everybody's heard the aphorism, 'Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger,'" says Mark D. Seery of the University at Buffalo. His paper on adversity and resilience appears in the December issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. But in psychology, he says, a lot of ideas that seem like common sense aren't supported by scientific evidence.
Indeed, a lot of solid psychology research shows that having miserable life experiences is bad for you. Serious events, like the death of a child or parent, a natural disaster, being physically attacked, experiencing sexual abuse, or being forcibly separated from your family, can cause psychological problems. In fact, some research has suggested that the best way to go through life is having nothing ever happen to you. But not only is that unrealistic, it's not necessarily healthy, Seery says.
In one study, Seery and his colleagues found that people who experienced many traumatic life events were more distressed in general -- but they also found that people who had experienced no negative life events had similar problems. The people with the best outcomes were those who had experienced some negative events. Another study found that people with chronic back pain were able to get around better if they had experienced some serious adversity, whereas people with either a lot of adversity or none at all were more impaired.
One possibility for this pattern is that people who have been through difficult experiences have had a chance to develop their ability to cope. "The idea is that negative life experiences can toughen people, making them better able to manage subsequent difficulties," Seery says. In addition, people who get through bad events may have tested out their social network, learning how to get help when they need it.
This research isn't telling parents to abuse their kids so they'll grow up to be well-adjusted adults, Seery says. "Negative events have negative effects," he says. "I really look at this as being a silver lining. Just because something bad has happened to someone doesn't mean they're doomed to be damaged from that point on."
The article is entitled, Resilience: A Silver Lining to Experiencing Adverse Life Events?.
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111216150254.htm
Friday, December 16, 2011
Dell cuts Mini netbooks for non-business customers, ruins Christmas for laptop lovers
If you needed a good, valid reason to Hulk Out today, this might be it. Dell, which recently retired its Streak 5 and Streak 7 tablets, is apparently axing its Mini line of netbooks as well. According to the MyDellMini forums, conducting a search for a laptop with a 10-inch display on the Dell Shop will yield no results, while a search for specific models brings up a variety of messages confirming the world's loss. Fortunately, the full-sized notebooks appear to be in abundant supply, and the search engine will happily suggest one of Dell's 14-inch laptops for $469 and up. Because, you know, a 14-inch machine will totally serve the same purpose as a 10-inch one.Dell cuts Mini netbooks for non-business customers, ruins Christmas for laptop lovers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink
Liliputing | 
MyDellMini | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/15/dell-cuts-mini-netbooks-for-non-business-customers-ruins-christ/
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
An insider's account of vote rigging for Putin (AP)
MOSCOW ? The election official had a problem. Workers at his polling station had been stuffing ballot boxes with votes for Vladimir Putin's party all day, he says, but when the votes were counted United Russia still didn't have enough.
So he huddled with the election commission he chaired at the Moscow precinct. The decision: Putin's party would get the desired 65 percent. One member objected, but relented when the others tossed his Communist Party a few dozen votes.
The commission chairman spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job. He also said he could be punished for disobeying orders to report any contact with foreign observers or journalists to the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
His account closely matches reports by independent observers of rampant vote-rigging during Sunday's election, in which United Russia maintained its majority in parliament. Amateur videos posted on the Internet also appeared to show falsified ballots spilling out of boxes at polling stations.
Officially, United Russia got roughly 50 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 64 percent the party won in the last election. But the reports of fraud indicate it may have lost even more support than those results suggest. Central Election Commission officials said they have received no reports of serious violations but would investigate any formal complaints.
This election was emerging as a watershed moment in a country where people have long seemed inured to vote manipulation, both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. The fraud allegations have set off protests in the street and stirred broader public indignation, suggesting that the political system Putin built to solidify his control has begun to crack just three months ahead of a vote on his return to the presidency. The lackluster opposition has suddenly been energized.
Anger over the election drew more than 5,000 people Monday night, in one of the biggest anti-Putin protests in years. Police detained about 300 protesters to prevent them from marching to the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin. New protests on Tuesday night were thwarted by police, who were out in force after having been taken by surprise the night before.
Amateur videos claiming to show the vote being rigged have spread via social media networks, including one in which the chairman of an election commission is filling out a stack of ballots. The clip attracted so much attention that city election officials were forced to acknowledge that the chairman had been caught falsifying the vote and could face charges.
The commission chairman who spoke to the AP said that representatives of Russia's four main parties got together before the election to negotiate how many votes each would get in district precincts. United Russia initially wanted 68 to 70 percent, but conceded that was too high and settled for around 65.
On voting day, the chairman said, election workers quietly slipped ballots into the boxes, as many as 50 at a time, being careful to keep the papers from rustling and attracting the attention of observers.
He said workers were trained on how to stuff ballots, each a thin sheet roughly the size of standard letter paper. He demonstrated how a stack of up to 30 or even 50 ballots could be folded in half, hidden inside a jacket and slipped into the ballot box without making any noise.
The chairman said there was a limit to the amount of ballot stuffing his commission could do. So district election officials took a few hundred of the precincts ballot, filled them out for United Russia and gave them to migrant men not on the precinct's rolls. Fake voter lists were substituted for the real ones.
During a tour of the polling station, the commission chairman pointed to a spot along the far wall where he had put chairs for observers. He said one observer was particularly zealous, never leaving the room during the 12-hour voting period, even to use the toilet.
The chairman said he got the police to evict the observer 10 minutes before the polls closed, too late for a replacement to be sent. Election monitoring groups and political parties have complained that their observers were barred from many polling places.
When the votes were counted, United Russia got only about 50 percent, even with all the extra ballots; the chairman said its real support had been about 25 percent. Turnout also was low, another setback for the Putin camp.
But when the chairman reported the 50 percent result to the district election commission, he said, he was told to make it 65 percent in the official report, which needed to be signed by all 15 members of the commission. Turnout was also to be inflated.
Most of the commission members willingly went along with the change, he said, and the one holdout was appeased when a few dozen votes were taken from smaller parties and given to the Communists.
The director of Golos, an independent election watchdog, said chairmen of election commissions at polling stations are at the center of efforts to rig the vote and routinely come under heavy pressure.
"Most of the violations we see happen at the local level," Liliya Shibanova said.
Golos says many violations involved busing people with absentee ballots to multiple polling stations so they can vote, a system called "cruise" or "carousel" voting.
Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008 and then moved into the prime minister's office because of presidential term limits, is hoping to return to the presidency after the March election. He had been counting on a strong show of popular support for United Russia in the parliamentary election to add legitimacy to his campaign.
He has appeared shaken by the election results and by the overall lack of enthusiasm over his decision to reclaim the presidency from Dmitry Medvedev.
Many Russians are growing weary of his leadership, and of the pervasive corruption and great social inequality it has fostered.
Still, there is little doubt that Putin will win the presidential election. He remains more popular than his party and will likely face only tepid opposition, given his control over who is allowed to run.
Putin seems to realize that he needs to respond to the discontent, but gave no sign Tuesday that he knows how.
"As for the question of what exactly is worrying people and why they don't vote for United Russia but vote for other parties, of course we need to think about this," he said. "We need to analyze these problems and formulate further suggestions on solving them."
tommy john surgery colorado weather alcohol poisoning alcohol poisoning mark ingram mark ingram between two ferns
Gingrich courts K Street (Politico)
Newt Gingrich likes to boast that he runs an unconventional campaign that relies more on grassroots outreach than expensive infrastructure, but as he?s soared in the polls, he?s turned his sights to a traditional cash source: K Street.
Gingrich?s Washington offensive launches in earnest Wednesday, with a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the power restaurant Occidental Grill and Seafood.
Continue ReadingIt?s a turnaround from this summer, when Washington?s political class mostly turned its back on the former House speaker after his staff quit en masse and his fundraising slowed to a trickle.
Now a crew of Gingrich loyalists, employees and business partners from his three-decade political career are trying to capitalize on his recent momentum by building a network of donors that can undercut GOP rivals Rick Perry and Mitt Romney?s base inside the Beltway and turn Gingrich?s relatively meager war chest into one that can support a front runner.
Gingrich has certain advantages over his rivals when it comes to courting Washington. Even as he?s tried to cast himself as a reformer, his years as a political insider ? capped by a decade in the advocacy industry ? have left him with countless influential connections on K Street, the Hill and the conservative movement.
And those ties are reflected in the fundraiser host committee, which includes former Reps. Robert Livingston (R-La.) and Robert Walker (R-Pa.), both of whom built lucrative lobbying practices after leaving Congress.
Also involved are several folks who worked for or with Gingrich in Congress and afterwards as he built his own successful political business empire.
Dan Crowley was the top lawyer for Gingrich as speaker, while Missy Jenkins was a health policy advisor and Rachel Robinson worked in his speaker?s office. David Merritt and Jim Frogue are former senior level employees of Gingrich?s for-profit healthcare think tank, the Center for Health Transformation, and Sreedhar Potarazu is president of VitalSpring Technologies, a member of the Center that was featured in a New York Times story about how Gingrich used the group to further the interests of its members.
The roster of supporters assembled for the fundraiser represents ?the tip of the iceberg? of Gingrich?s potential Washington presence, said Crowley, now a lobbyist at the mega-firm K&L Gates. Asserting that hundreds of people who worked for Gingrich or members of the GOP conference during his speakership could become the basis of a formidable Washington operation, Crowley said ?Newt World was extensive and most of those people are still around and some are just starting to appreciate that his campaign is viable.? He added ?They all have their own political pedigree and are activists in their own right, and what is emerging as a result is a truly organic political organization.?
steve williams mike wallace mike wallace koch brothers dash diet weather phoenix dippin dots
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)