Monday, March 4, 2013

Keystone Pipeline study: We must kill the environment to save it (Americablog)

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WRITING TIP: Everything is speaking to you ? writingfromthesoul.net

writing tipIn a rush to get things done, are you treating the things you meet as though they are stones in a stagnant world? What if everything is alive and speaking to you, if only you had ears to hear? You can enliven your writing?and your day?by enlivening your perspective. Try taking a walk, opening to the messages that the world is trying to tell you. (Such as the guy walking toward you, carrying a yellow box?the same yellow that used to color your mother?s kitchen?and then the sign in the shop window, also yellow, that says ?caution: breakable.?) Try warming up your writing time with a freewrite, using as a prompt the images you assembled on your walk, listening deeply and ready to be surprised by what they say.

Source: http://writingfromthesoul.net/2013/03/writing-tip-everything-is-speaking-to-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=writing-tip-everything-is-speaking-to-you

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How sequester cuts could set back scientific research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF),?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are among those hit hard by the?sequester cuts that take effect on March 1. ?

By Tanya Lewis,?LiveScience / March 1, 2013

A scientist Ji Guo inspects test tubes containing dyes in a Food and Drug Administration laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland in August 2012.

Jason Reed/Reuters/File

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An $85-billion across-the-board slash to funding for federal agencies and programs is set to take effect Friday (Mar. 1), and many of the nation's top science agencies will feel the blow.

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The cuts, known by the unwieldy term "the sequester," were designed as a last-ditch measure in case Congress couldn't reach a deal to reduce the federal deficit. The cuts were scheduled to take effect Jan. 2, 2013 ? the so-called "fiscal cliff" ? but Congress delayed them until this week.

The cuts apply to both defense and non-defense programs. Non-defense agencies can expect a reduction in funding of about 5 percent, but since that applies to the entire year, it amounts to a cut of more like 9 percent, officials say.

Research agencies will feel the effects particularly keenly. "This is hugely important for everybody who cares about science," Mary Woolley, president of the not-for-profit group Research!America, told LiveScience. [7 Great Dramas in Congressional History]

Who's affected?

The affected agencies include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, among others.

The NSF funds about a fifth of all?federally funded basic research?at American colleges and universities, in fields ranging from biology to math and computer science. In response to the sequester cuts, the agency anticipates it will award about 1,000 fewer research grants. This will affect almost 12,000 people, including professors, college students and?K-12 teachers, and could reduce research on clean energy, job-creating advances in manufacturing, cybersecurity efforts and improvements to undergraduate science education, according to a Feb. 4 letter from the NSF to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The NIH, which funds much of the country's biomedical research, will be similarly slammed. The agency will lose an amount of money equivalent to the funding for three major cancer research programs, according to Research!America. Studies that could ultimately drive down the cost of health care, one of the biggest contributors to the deficit, will slow down, Woolley told LiveScience. "It will also potentially add to our national deficit instead of cutting it," Woolley said, adding that the cuts are expected to affect young scientists in particular. [Image Gallery: The Art in Biomedical Research]

The reductions will also impose a nearly $900 million?budget cut on NASA. This will affect the agency's commercial crew program, which is subsidizing human spaceflight systems at Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada. The upshot? The United States will become more reliant on other countries for transportation to the International Space Station, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Others affected by the cuts include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Cuts to these agencies could affect the nation's ability to monitor threats to public health or approve new drugs.

In December 2012, more than 100 scientific societies signed a letter to the White House and Congress in a plea to avoid the funding cuts. "It is important to recognize that federal research and development (R&D) investments are?not?driving our national deficits," the letter stated. "Placing a significant burden on these crucial areas, as sequestration would do, is nothing less than a threat to national competitiveness."

Sequester cuts will hit defense programs even harder, with a 9 percent funding cut (again, applied to the entire fiscal year)?to all programs except military personnel. Affected entities include research programs like the Defense?Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has funded noteworthy technologies such as computer networking and the development of prosthetic arms.

Not over yet

Currently, government agencies are operating under what's called a "Continuing Resolution," a stopgap measure that will expire March 27. While some agencies have continued to spend the money they were allocated in the?science budget, others are tightening their belts in anticipation of leaner days ahead.

The agencies probably won't be firing people, but there will likely be furloughs (mandatory days of unpaid leave), according to a former congressional budget official who wished to remain anonymous. The furloughs would also apply to contractors, the official said.

Congress must pass legislation later this month once the resolution expires, which could keep the cuts in place, reduce them or even increase the reductions.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter?@livescience. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?

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

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/tjv6DdXl0KI/How-sequester-cuts-could-set-back-scientific-research

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Pepsi Cola Ads 1950s - Business Insider

Historically, Pepsi has a fantastic advertising reputation.

In recent decades, it's been focused on youth and pop culture. (Nicki Minaj is a current brand ambassador.) The brand has, of course, had its missteps, but generally speaking Pepsi has released admirable work.

We took a look through Retronaut?and found a selection of ads the brand created in the 1950s.??

Back then, as today, the drink wanted to be sexy and modern. In its ads, the drink and its consumers were portrayed as super-classy, upscale types at the center of the social scene.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-cola-ads-1950s-2013-2

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Sunday, March 3, 2013

Senate Republicans sell immigration plan to House

FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2013 file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. confer on Capitol Hill in Washington. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Sen. and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. met with key House conservatives this week to promote legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, McCain?s communications director said Friday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2013 file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. confer on Capitol Hill in Washington. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Sen. and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. met with key House conservatives this week to promote legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, McCain?s communications director said Friday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2013 file photo, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. gestures as he leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. Flake, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. met with key House conservatives this week to promote legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, McCain?s communications director said Friday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake met with key House conservatives this week to promote legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, McCain's communications director said Friday.

McCain, R-Ariz.; Graham, R-S.C.; and Flake, R-Ariz., are members of a bipartisan group of eight senators working to craft a comprehensive immigration bill to enhance border security, streamline legal immigration, ensure employers don't hire illegal immigrants and provide eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants already here.

If it gets through the Senate, the legislation faces a potentially tough road with House Republicans skeptical of granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, and the meeting included at least one lawmaker known for taking a hard line on the issue.

"Sen. McCain was glad to have the opportunity to update key House members and get their advice and recommendations on this important effort. He looks forward to continuing these conversations as we move forward," said Brian Rogers, McCain's communications director.

Members present Thursday at the meeting organized by the House Republican Policy Committee included Rep. Steve King of Iowa and Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho.

King is known for decrying amnesty for illegal immigrants while Labrador has said he supports finding a way to legalize the status of illegal immigrants already here, while rejecting the idea of giving them a special pathway to citizenship.

McCain, Graham, Flake and others argue that Republicans must tackle comprehensive immigration legislation partly to win back support from Latino voters crucial to national election outcomes, but that argument is a harder sell to House members who often represent overwhelmingly white districts.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-01-US-Immigration/id-f58cc8e9fa3f4fa8b4c804585f7d0060

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Downton Abbey Season 4: Who's Returning?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/downton-abbey-season-4-whos-returning/

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Watch 15,000 Volts of Raw Power Burn Lightning Strikes into Wood

When lightning flashes across the sky, you only get a chance to glimpse its fractal form for a split second. But when you send 15,000 volts coursing through plywood, you get a much better look at how it grows. Melanie Hoff, a student at the Pratt Institute in New York City did just that, and the result is a timelapse where you can see the patterns slowly grow out and smolder, like lightning made from molasses. [Vimeo Staff Picks] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LnkPQFdgkc0/watch-15000-volts-of-raw-power-burn-lightning-strikes-into-wood

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Bonnie Franklin played a single mother on the sitcom 'One Day at a Time'

Bonnie Franklin played mom Ann Romano on the TV show 'One Day at a Time.' Bonnie Franklin was a veteran stage and television performer before she took her breakout role on 'Day.'

By Frazier Moore,?Associated Press / March 1, 2013

Bonnie Franklin played mother Ann Romano on 'One Day at a Time,' which first aired in 1975.

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

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Bonnie?Franklin, the pert, redheaded actress whom millions came to identify with for her role as divorced mom Ann Romano on the long-running sitcom "One Day at a Time," has died.

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Franklin was a veteran stage and television performer before "One Day At a Time" made her a star.

Developed by Norman Lear and co-created by Whitney Blake ? herself a former sitcom star and single mother raising future actress Meredith Baxter ? the series was groundbreaking for its focus on a young divorced mother seeking independence from a suffocating marriage.

It premiered on CBS in December 1975, just five years after the network had balked at having Mary Tyler Moore play a divorced woman on her own comedy series, insisting that newly single Mary Richards be portrayed as having ended her engagement instead.

On her own in Indianapolis, Ann Romano was raising two teenage girls ? played by Mackenzie Phillips, already famous for the film "American Graffiti," and a previously unknown Valerie Bertinelli. "One Day At a Time" ran on CBS until 1984, by which time both daughters had grown and married, while Romano had remarried and become a grandmother. During the first seven of its nine seasons on the air, the show was a Top 20 hit.

Like other Lear productions such as "All in the Family" and "Good Times," ''One Day at a Time" dealt with contemporary issues once absent from TV comedies such as premarital sex, birth control, suicide and sexual harassment ? issues that had previously been overlooked by TV comedies whose households were usually headed by a husband and wife or, rarely, a widowed parent.

Writing in her 2009 memoir "High On Arrival," Phillips remembered Franklin as hardworking and professional, even a perfectionist.

"Bonnie felt a responsibility to the character and always gave a million notes on the scripts," Phillips wrote. "Above all, she didn't want it to be sitcom fluff ? she wanted it to deal honestly with the struggles and truths of raising two teenagers as a single mother."

In her 2008 memoir "Losing It," Bertinelli noted that Franklin, just 31 when the show began, wasn't old enough to be her real mother.

Even so, wrote Bertinelli, "within a few days I recognized her immense talent and felt privileged to work with her. ... She was like a hip, younger complement to my real mom."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/RE3REPZfjOo/Bonnie-Franklin-played-a-single-mother-on-the-sitcom-One-Day-at-a-Time

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Mental illness: A difficult diagnosis with sometimes deadly ...

When something as horrific as the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings occurs, human nature tells us to seek rational explanation, to ask why. That question doesn't get us very far.

"I don't think anybody is an expert in this kind of thing," said Bonnie Nagel, a neuropsychologist at Oregon Health & Science University. "It dumbfounds us all."

A few strands of connective tissue tie the nation's recent mass shootings together. Gun access is one. Mental health is another.

In many massacres, the killer was a young man in his late teens or early 20s. He either suffered from a mental illness or exhibited symptoms of one before he killed. Even Clackamas Town Center shooter Jacob Roberts, though never diagnosed with a mental illness, behaved like a person grappling with depression and suicidal notions before he opened fire outside Macy's. He sold his belongings, quit his job and told friends he was leaving Portland for Hawaii.

"There's one commonality in most of these cases: They want to die," said Portland social worker Mark McKechnie.

That reality leads to other, better questions: How do we reduce the chances of another Virginia Tech, Aurora or Newtown? Are we doing enough to help young people, particularly young men, control their anger and manage their own mental health care?


Parent and support-group leader Margaret Puckette


School counselor Sarah Turner


Child psychiatrist Dr. Ajit Jetmalani


Neuropsychologist Bonnie Nagel

On this point, experts understand. Millions of children don't receive the mental health support they need. Those with potentially severe mental illnesses, the type that can morph into something deadly as adolescence evolves into young adulthood, aren't diagnosed early enough. They're not getting the compassionate, thorough care that will help them make smart decisions once they reach the age of consent.

"It makes me uncomfortable to sound like I'm on the same page as the NRA," said Dr. Stewart Newman, a Beaverton psychiatrist. "But we have to look at access to mental health if we're serious about modifying risk. Will it stop the next Adam Lanza? No. Will it improve lives? Absolutely."

MRI research

Scientists know what mental illness looks like. But researchers cannot pinpoint what in the complicated mix of tissue, blood vessels, synapses and neurons leads two people with the same basic hardware to go in radically different directions.

"Parents will say to me, 'Can you do an MRI of my child and tell me what's going on?' No. We're not there," said Nagel, an OHSU researcher who specializes in the development of adolescent brains. "We're not near the point where we can look at one kid and say, 'bipolar,' or 'schizophrenia.'"

In a typical study, Nagel and colleagues conduct MRIs on 300 or so 12-year-old test subjects, then follow up every few months to see whether the children have begun using drugs or alcohol or feeling depressed. They compare the MRIs from healthy children to those with mental health problems in the hope of identifying differences. Her team also uses DNA and hormone samples.

"Part of the challenge is that we're waiting on human nature to evolve," Nagel said. "It's not like an animal study in which we can manipulate scenarios. We have to wait for things to happen."

Child psychiatrists don't struggle to explain the elements that create a killer: "A critical absence of empathy and a critical lack of self-regulation," said Dr. Ajit Jetmalani, director of OHSU's child and adolescent psychiatry division.

Those are injuries that a doctor can diagnose, somewhat like cancer or a broken bone. But cancer is caused by cells multiplying, and a broken bone comes from blunt trauma. A lack of empathy can stem from so many potential sources: Was the patient abused? Did his parents' divorce hit him especially hard? Is his brain missing a certain correct mix of chemicals?

Figuring out how much of a mental illness is environmental and how much is biological helps determine the best course of treatment, say how much of a doctor's time should be spent finding the best possible medication vs. guiding the patient through talk therapy. Precise answers are a long way off: 10 or 20 years, Nagel says, not one or two.

"And I suspect it's always going to be more subtle than, 'Here's the sign of a kid in trouble. Here's how we know this is one to worry about,'" she said.

The teen years

Many mental illnesses that peak in a person's 20s begin to emerge in the teenage years. That's a time of dramatic physical and psychological changes for every child, posing another problem fending off future Newtowns:

How do you differentiate between normal adolescent angst, short-term stress and true, long-term mental illness that could turn a troubled youngster into a dangerous young man?

"This is the transition between childhood and adulthood. It's the first time the stakes are very high for kids, the first time grades matter, the first time they can do permanent damage to their records. And they're all going through all of these changes," said Sarah Turner, the seventh-grade counselor at Evergreen Middle School in Hillsboro.

Schools have kids from 8 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m., longer than many working parents see their children awake during the week. Administrators, teachers and counselors are often the first to spot signs of trouble, to identify an Adam Lanza or Jared Loughner in the making.

That's harder than it sounds, particularly given the differences between boys and girls. Girls often express their distress in more obvious ways. They're also far less likely to turn out to be killers.

"Base rates of depression are far higher in females than males. Is that really the case? Or are we just better adept at diagnosing in females?" said Nagel, the OHSU researcher. "We don't like to talk about sex and gender issues in mental health, but there's clearly something we've been remiss in not considering."

Turner and other school counselors and teachers say that during the past decade, their conversations have turned more toward the challenges facing boys.

"It's become really evident that we haven't set up our schools in a way that leads to success for boys. Boys are tactile, they need to engage and be moving," she said. "We haven't quite figured out how to structure schools in a way that maximizes the learning experience for boys and also helps us identify which ones may be suffering from something that requires care."

In schools that are as overcrowded and underfunded as many in Oregon, simply keeping order becomes the priority.

"We're a school of 800 kids, with classrooms that are anywhere from 34 to 37 kids. If you have two or three kids whose behavior is bubbling up, is external, those are the ones who are going to get the attention," Turner said. "You might not notice that you have a quiet kid who may have something very troubling going on under the surface."

In other words: The chair throwers get attention. The "internalizers" may not. Sometimes not until it's too late.

Assessing threats

Will Henson watched coverage of Newtown knowing that his phone was about to ring off the hook. He's a psychologist and special education consultant who works with school districts to assess potential threats and minimize risk.

His is a growth industry.

"It takes something like Newtown or Clackamas Town Center to make us all suddenly aware of the risk. That kid who seemed kind of vaguely creepy last week seems like someone you want to get help this week" he said. "We focus a lot on what I call 'day of' -- people jump to talking about limiting access to guns or putting armed guards in schools. I wish we had more conversations about crisis assessment before someone is actually in a crisis, because the system would look very different."

Henson recommends creating a broad network of adults to keep an eye on kids, and a well-defined, well-understood system for identifying true threats.

"Every kid out there who plays violent video games says things that don't sound good. We have kids who make hit lists when they're angry. Boys in particular love to draw guns, violent pictures, talk about the violent movies they've seen," he said. "I often find it more useful to go to a staff and tell them which risk factors we're not seeing. I can say, 'We've got no history of violence, no recent losses or major life stressors, no history of threats, a stable home life with supportive adults, no access to weapons. So I'm not seeing the kind of risk factors I'd be really worried about.'"

In Oregon, Hillsboro offers a model of the group approach experts such as Henson suggest. Seven years ago, the school district won a $9 million, three-year federal grant aimed at bringing public and private agencies together to better identify kids in need.

One way they do that is through attendance figures. A child who misses too much school gets put under the supervision of a "Care Team" that includes administrators, teachers, police officers, psychiatrists and social workers. They work with the student and his parents to figure out why the child hasn't been attending.

"What we found early on was that so many of the kids who were missing a lot of school had underlying mental health issues," said Leslie Rodgers, a social worker and care coordinator for the district. "Kids don't just stop going to class. They were being bullied, they were anxious about their work, they were depressed to the point that they couldn't get out of bed. Or their parents had their own mental-health problems and didn't notice what was going on with their child."

Rodgers and her coworkers meet with families, often at home rather than at school. They hold workshops for teachers: "We still have teachers who say, 'Suicide? I can't even mention the word in front of the class, because I'll give them ideas,'" Rodgers said. And in general, they try to create an atmosphere in which every adult feels responsible for keeping an eye on every child, even the quiet ones.

It's working. During the three-year grant period, attendance improved districtwide. Fewer dropouts meant more revenue, and Hillsboro leaders have continued to find money to pay for Rodgers and her colleagues. Yet every January, when budget-cutting season rolls around, they worry.

"We have jobs because we took mental health outcomes and tied them to attendance. Otherwise, how do you measure mental health? What are the statistics you use to prove that you've created a more positive, safer school culture and should thus stay employed?" she said.

Assigning a dollar value to mental health is a challenge for everyone. At OHSU, Nagel's grant applications often focus on targeting early indicators of drug abuse and alcohol addiction, not other mental illnesses. It's much easier to win research money for addiction, in large part because it's easier to calculate the financial costs of drug and alcohol abuse.

Finding a doctor, insurance

A big part of Rodgers' job is serving as a parental conduit for information and contacts. When the file of a high-needs kid hits her desk, she says a silent prayer that the child's family qualifies for the Oregon Health Plan.

"If they're on public insurance, I know I can at least guarantee them access," she said. "If they're privately insured, it could be a couple of months before they even get in to see a doctor."

Federal and state regulators have pushed "mental health parity," since the 1990s. Laws now require insurers to offer some mental health coverage and prohibit them from placing limits on psychiatric care -- say co-pays or caps on how many hours of therapy a patient can receive -- that go beyond those on medical and surgical coverage.

Still, middle-class Americans struggle to find doctors and persuade insurers to pay for care. Private companies insure a majority of Americans but account for only a quarter of what we spend each year on mental health, according to a 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation study.

The problem: Mental health care is different from other forms of medicine, yet the business model is the same. Billing codes and billable hours drive treatment.

"Insurance companies do not pay me to get on the phone and talk to a school counselor or a social worker. They don't pay me to stop at a patient's house to make sure a young man understands the reasons he needs to take his pills," said Newman, the Beaverton psychiatrist, who practices at Mind Matters, which was founded to serve middle-income families that don't qualify for public insurance. "There's no billing code for continuity of care."

The result: Simply finding a doctor, let alone one who'll provide nuanced, individualized, all-hours care, can be tough. Ninety-million Americans live in federally designated "mental health professional shortage areas," a far greater need than dentists (45 million people) or primary care physicians (57 million). A recent study estimated that for every child psychiatrist working today, the United States needs two more.

"I want to be able to get a referral from a pediatrician who is worried about a child on Friday and say, I can see you Tuesday morning," Newman said. "Right now, the best I can usually do is, 'I'll see you in three weeks.'"

Such lags can have fatal consequences for children with long-term mental health needs.

A child whose initial experience with the mental health care system is frustrating or uncomfortable is less likely to maintain that treatment when they turn 18, the magic number in our mental health system. After that, federal and state privacy laws prevent doctors from sharing information about a young adult's care and condition unless the patient has signed a release or the doctor believes there is an "imminent threat."

Many doctors and counselors interpret that to mean they cannot share any information with parents, even in cases in which a mother or father has been intimately involved in a child's care up to that point. Medicaid statistics show that mental health spending increases each year for children as they approach 18, then falls off sharply. Spending picks up again at 25.

"A lot of these shooters are between 18 and 25," said Jetmalani, the head of child and adolescent psychiatry at OHSU. "That's not a coincidence."

Leaders in the Oregon Psychiatric Association, the Oregon Council of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the National Alliance on Mental Illness want to convince other doctors and public institutions to broaden the way they interpret HIPAA and other privacy laws. Jetmalani and Newman, among others, say their profession should err on the side of averting tragedy rather than protecting confidentiality. They're working with Jerry Gabay, a Portland activist and former lawyer who has a painful and deeply personal understanding of why 18 matters.

Doctors first diagnosed his daughter, Susanna, with major depressive disorder at 17. She was hospitalized for a psychotic episode in the spring of 2010, while a junior in the honors program at the University of Oregon.

During that stay, she signed a disclosure form allowing doctors to talk to her parents. But Gabay and his wife had no idea how much distress she was in, and doctors did not seek their help when Susanna refused to try a new medication.

A month later, she committed suicide.

Parents as advocates

The mothers who meet every other Sunday afternoon at the Providence Child Center in Northeast Portland hear the clock ticking. The legal barriers that arise at 18 come up at almost every gathering of Talk It Over, a support group for parents of mentally ill children. It's one of the realities longtime attendees slide across a hospital conference table to new arrivals along with tissue boxes and tubs of Silly Putty to squeeze as stress relief.

Among support-group members, the Newtown killings didn't prompt cries of "why." These parents know the basic elements of tragedy: A troubled kid didn't get the help he needed. He grew into a troubled young man. Something set him off, turning all the worst-case scenarios they lay awake at night fearing for their children into a horrible reality we all share.

"See this?" Erin Quinton, a school teacher like Adam Lanza's mother, slaps a thick blue binder she carries almost everywhere. The three-ring notebook bulges with a collection of doctor's bills, patient notes, emails, letters and phone messages Quinton has collected. "This is my life."

Quinton bristles when news accounts refer to the 26 people who died in the Sandy Hook massacre. There were, she notes, 28 lost souls -- if you count Lanza and his mother.

"I call myself an advocate for my kid, but the truth is that I'm a pain in the neck, a note-taker, a list maker, somebody who takes every single piece of paper that has to do with my child and files it away in case I need it one day," Quinton said. "You start to feel kind of crazy yourself."

Her story is typical: Early warning signs -- blank stares, a lack of empathy, social struggles -- blossomed into something worse as puberty hit. Now she knows the difference between a child taking his or her medication and one who has stopped: "It's the difference between a text asking me how I am and one threatening to kill me. It's not subtle."

She's taken the seemingly extreme step that moms at Talk It Over routinely advise one another: When all else fails, call 9-1-1.

"It sounds horrible doesn't it?" said Margaret Puckette, who founded Talk It Over to help pass along lessons she learned with her daughter. "But think about the worst-case here: your child is bigger than you, so you can't force him to take his medication. He's on a waiting list for a hospital bed, but it's going to be a week or two. In the meantime, he's home, untreated, refusing help and threatening you.

"Sometimes, given all the problems with our system, calling the police is the only way to get help."

You do what you have to do. To protect your kid, yourself and everybody else.

-- Anna Griffin

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/03/mental_illness_a_difficult_dia.html

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Kerry: Divided Egypt needs political compromise

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looks down during a pause in a statement to the media with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr, not pictured, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looks down during a pause in a statement to the media with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr, not pictured, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

Egyptian activists burn a poster depicting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a protest outside the Egyptian foreign ministry in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian activist shouts slogans as she holds a poster depicting Egyptian Islamist President Mohammed Morsi doctored to resemble Adolf Hitler during a protest outside the Egyptian foreign ministry during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr leave after a news conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gives a statement to the media at the start of a meeting with business leaders in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Cairo is the sixth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip and begins the Middle East portion of his nine-day journey. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

(AP) ? Egypt's bickering government and opposition need to overcome their differences to create "a sense of political and economic viability" if the country is to thrive as a democracy, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

He urged them to compromise for the good of the country.

In meetings with Egypt's foreign minister and opposition politicians, some of whom plan to boycott upcoming parliamentary elections, Kerry said an agreement on economic reforms to seal a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan package was critical. Closing the IMF deal also will unlock significant U.S. assistance promised by President Barack Obama last year.

But Kerry's message to the liberal and secular opposition may have been blunted as only six of the 11 guests invited by the U.S. Embassy turned up to see the top American diplomat at a group meeting, and three of those six said they still intended to boycott the April polls, according to participants.

Undaunted, Kerry told reporters he had heard great passion from those who did attend and was convinced that they wanted to work in Egypt's best interests.

But after meeting with Foreign Minister Kamel Amr, he acknowledged the difficulty in overcoming the deep differences. He said he would make that point to President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist from the Muslim Brotherhood, in their talks Sunday.

"I say with both humility and with a great deal of respect that getting there requires a genuine give-and-take among Egypt's political leaders and civil society groups just as we are continuing to struggle with that in our own country," Kerry told reporters, in apparent reference to the current stalemate in Washington over the federal budget.

'There must be a willingness on all sides to make meaningful compromises on the issues that matter most to all of the Egyptian people."

Kerry spoke by telephone with Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate who heads the National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition calling for the election boycott.

He also met privately with Amr Moussa, a former minister under ex-President Hosni Mubarak who's now aligned with the Salvation Front. Moussa, an ex-Arab League head, ran for president last summer.

Neither ElBaradei nor Moussa attended the group meeting.

The Salvation Front says now is not the time for elections that will further polarize the country while violent clashes continue between protesters and security forces, further shaking the faltering economy.

Even as Kerry arrived from Turkey on the latest stop in his first official overseas visit as secretary of state, activists in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura said a 35-year-old protester was killed when an armored police vehicle crushed him to death during violent anti-Morsi protests Saturday.

In the restive Suez Canal city of Port Said, a police vehicle ran over five people Saturday after protesters marching along a main street refused to allow the car through.

The continuing political turmoil has scared away tourists and foreign investors, eroding Egypt's foreign reserves by nearly two-thirds of what it was before the uprising. Those reserves, which stand at less than $14 billion, are needed to pay for subsidies that millions of poor Egyptians rely on for survival.

Kerry told business leaders that the U.S. is not picking sides in Egypt, and he appealed to all sides to come together around human rights, freedom and speech and religious tolerance. Equally essential, he said, is uniting to undertake the reforms necessary to qualify for the IMF package. Those include increasing tax collections and curbing energy subsidies.

"It is clear to us that the IMF arrangement needs to be reached and we need to give the market place some confidence," Kerry said.

"It is paramount, essential, urgent that the Egyptian economy gets stronger, gets back on its feet and it's very clear that there is a circle of connections in how that can happen," he said. "To attract capital, to bring money back here, to give business the confidence to move forward, there has to be sense of security, there has to be a sense of political and economic viability."

Opposition politician Mohammed Abu Hamed said Kerry told the six attendees that Egypt must quickly end the turmoil to restore investor confidence and help the country get the loans it needs. But he said he was unmoved by Kerry's unity appeal and suggestion that if the opposition wanted its voice heard it should participate in the elections.

"He is coming with conviction that elections are the solution," Abu Hamed told The Associated Press after the meeting.

"Three of us insisted on our position to boycott elections and explained our opinion," he said. "The other three said they would take part, but that there needs to be guarantees of transparency and fairness in the elections."

One invitee who decided not to attend, Ahmed Maher, the founder of a group that helped spark the revolution that toppled Mubarak, said he didn't go because the meeting's goals were unclear, its allotted time of about an hour was not long enough and it lacked major opposition figures.

"It is clear that nothing has changed in Washington's shallow way of dealing with Egypt," he said. "There are no deep conversations. Everything is just being rushed through." He added that the elections will be a "one-sided game" because the Muslim Brotherhood is running Egypt.

Kerry finished his day with Kamel Amr at the foreign ministry. Before the meeting, several hundred people protested against Kerry's visit. They burned Kerry's pictures and chanted that Washington was siding with the Muslim Brotherhood; they dispersed before Kerry arrived.

The foreign minister said he was hopeful that the Obama administration would come through for Egypt.

"Of course, we expect from friends, especially the United States as a strategic partner, to stand by Egypt in this period, especially on the economic issues," he said.

Kerry is in Cairo on the sixth leg of a nine-nation trip to Europe and the Middle East.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-02-Kerry/id-670b22baf3634219ad89c3734b80f358

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Improved synchronicity: Preventive care for the power grid

Mar. 1, 2013 ? President Obama in this year's State of the Union address talked about the future of energy and mentioned "self-healing power grids" -- a grid that is able to keep itself stable during normal conditions and also to self-recover in the event of a disturbance caused, for example, by severe weather.

But as the national power-grid network becomes larger and more complex achieving reliability across the network is increasingly difficult. Now Northwestern University scientists have identified conditions and properties that power companies can consider using to keep power generators in the desired synchronized state and help make a self-healing power grid a reality.

The Northwestern team's design for a better power grid could help reduce both the frequency of blackouts and the cost of electricity as well as offer an improved plan for handling the intermittent power sources of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, which can destabilize the network.

"We will be looking at a completely different power grid in the future," said Adilson E. Motter, who led the research. "The use of renewable energy is growing. More people will be driving electric cars, and the power grid will be delivering this energy, not gas stations. We need a power grid that is more capable and more reliable. This requires a better understanding of the current power grid as well as new ways to stabilize it."

Motter is the Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

The crux of the challenge is that for the U.S. power grid to function the power generators in each of its three interconnections (Eastern, Western and Texas) must be synchronized, all operating at the frequency of 60 hertz. Out-of-synch power generators can lead to blackouts that affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars -- losses similar to those of the Northeast blackout of 2003.

Having a network that can synchronize spontaneously and recover from failures in real time -- in other words, a self-healing power grid -- could prevent such blackouts. To help achieve this, power companies could apply the Northwestern guidelines as they add power generators to the network or tweak existing generators.

A paper describing the researchers' mathematical model, titled "Spontaneous synchrony in power-grid networks," is published in the March 2013 issue of the journal Nature Physics.

When a problem develops in the power-grid network, control devices are used to return power generators to a synchronized state. Motter likens this to using medicine to treat someone who is ill. He and his colleagues are suggesting conditions to keep synchronicity in good shape so interventions are kept to a minimum.

"Our approach is preventive care -- preventing failures instead of mitigating them," said Motter, an author of the paper and an executive committee member of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). "The guidelines we offer could be very useful as the power grid expands."

The researchers derived a condition under which the desired synchronous state of a power grid is stable. They then used this condition to identify tunable parameters of the power generators that result in spontaneous synchronization. This synchronization can be autonomous, not guided by control devices.

"The blackout at this year's Super Bowl was caused by a device that was installed specifically to prevent blackouts," said Takashi Nishikawa, an author of the paper and a research associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern. "A large fraction of blackouts have human and equipment errors among the causes.

"Reduced dependence on conventional control devices can improve the reliability of the grid," he said. "Our analysis also suggests ways to design control strategies that potentially can improve the existing ones."

Power generators are very different from each other; some are large and others small. Motter and his colleagues identified a "body mass index" for power generators, which they suggest should be kept approximately the same (making, in essence, all generators look the same to the network) in order to strengthen spontaneous synchronicity in the system. If the body mass indices change, they should be changed in a coordinated way.

The researchers demonstrated their model using real power grids of hundreds of power generators, similar to the size of the Texas portion of the U.S. power grid.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Adilson E. Motter, Seth A. Myers, Marian Anghel, Takashi Nishikawa. Spontaneous synchrony in power-grid networks. Nature Physics, 2013; 9 (3): 191 DOI: 10.1038/nphys2535

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/66bNJO0KLNg/130302125404.htm

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3rd Annual Home Brew Competition ? This Wednesday | Strong Island

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The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webadmin@kundenserver.de and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Source: http://www.strong-island.co.uk/2013/03/02/3rd-annual-home-brew-competition-this-wednesday/

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After Newtown, states slow to embrace new gun laws - U.S. News

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

Months after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, new state-level restrictions on guns have been slow in coming, and they?ve mostly been concentrated in a handful of states that already have tough gun laws.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in at least a half-dozen other states have gone the other way, proposing and in some instances passing bills that would expand where and when a person can be in possession of a firearm.

But for residents in the vast majority of states, gun ownership looks unlikely to change much absent federal legislation.?

A person can still buy a pistol at a Nevada gun show without a background check or carry a rifle inside the New Hampshire state house, just as he or she could before Adam Lanza brought a Bushmaster .223 rifle into a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and opened fire.

?There has been activity in other states that one might not ordinarily think of -- Colorado, for example,? said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. But there remain ?the Idahos of the world, where really little has changed since Newtown.?

Gun-control advocates had high hopes that the Newtown tragedy would serve as a galvanizing moment for the country. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said at the time that he hoped it would be a ?catalyst to demand the sensible change.?

While recent mass shootings do appear to have moved public opinion ? a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found American support for stricter gun laws at its highest level in a decade ? there has not been a rush at the state level to embrace sweeping new gun laws.

And most of the dozen or so states where significant new restrictions have been proposed already have a ?C+? rating or above from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, putting them among the nation?s top states for gun control.

?Most of the viable proposals on the federal level and in most states would have very little impact on self-defense,? said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. ?But pretty much all the gun control proposals out there are not going to be terribly effective at combating criminals.?

In New Jersey, several lawmakers began calling for new gun laws in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shooting, even though the state already has an A- rating from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Legislators voted a raft of bills through the Democrat-controlled state assembly on Feb. 22, including a ban on .50 caliber weapons and a 10-round magazine limit. Those bills may still be held up by a hesitant Senate and Republican governor.

?We?re going to take a hard look at the bills the Assembly did,? New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney said in an interview with Philadelphia radio station 106.9FM. ?Some might be changed, some might not go through at all.?

At the same time, lawmakers in Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona all moved to loosen their controls on firearms, in many cases thumbing their nose at prospective federal legislation.

An Arkansas bill allowing holders of concealed-carry permits to bring their gun into churches was signed into law by Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, on Feb. 11.

First sponsored by state Senator Bryan King, the Church Protection Act passed the state?s Republican-controlled Senate by an overwhelming majority. In Kentucky, the state Senate voted 34 to 3 on Feb. 25 to approve a bill outlawing the enforcement of federal gun laws that do not yet exist.

The most aggressive gun-control legislative action so far has come in New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo championed one of the nation?s toughest bans on assault weapons, the first to come in the wake of Newtown. But the state already boasted gun laws that were among the nation?s toughest.

Even in states seared by recent tragedies, lawmakers have found their progress slowed.

After Connecticut lawmakers failed to coalesce around any of the gun laws offered in the days after Newtown, Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy introduced his own proposal and vowed to shove it through.

Lawmakers are trying to forge a bipartisan consensus but they are finding it difficult. ?I would hope that we would have a broadly supported bipartisan bill, but I think it?s more important that we have a strong bill that meets the need,? said Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, a Democrat.

In Colorado, home of the Aurora theater shooting, House lawmakers advanced gun-control bills after some last-minute lobbying from Joe Biden, drawing the wrath of Republicans.

The bills would mandate universal background checks, ban magazines with more than 15 rounds, and allow college campuses to prohibit concealed carry. With the Senate planning to vote soon, the magazine maker Magpul Industries threatened to abandon its plant 28 miles from Denver?if the proposed magazine limit is put into law.

?Colorado is in a unique position in that we have suffered these tragedies firsthand, so there is a drumbeat in Colorado,? said Colorado Senate President John Morse, a Democrat. ?I think the governor will be in support of all of these bills once we get them to his desk.?

Passing a bill expanding gun rights can be complicated, too, as Wyoming State Representative Kendell Kroeker, a Republican, found out.

He got a bill passed in the state House of Representatives that would have made it illegal for anyone to enforce any new federal law that placed restrictions on guns, ammunition, or other firearms accessories within the borders of the state.

That bill died amid questions of its constitutionality, Kroeker said. But the response from his constituents was ?overwhelmingly positive,? he added.

Whether gun ownership changes for most Americans may come down to actions taken on the national level, as hesitant state lawmakers wait for a cue from Washington. The Senate Judiciary Committee put a one-week hold on prospective federal gun bills on Thursday.

Related:

Gun stores running low on weapons as sales surge

Anger, violent thoughts: Are you too sick to own a gun?

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/02/17151151-after-newtown-states-slow-to-embrace-new-gun-laws

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Daily Kos: Congressional Democrats file brief arguing DOMA needs ...

Saying that "it was a different world for gay men and lesbians" in 1996 when the Defense of Marriage Act passed, Congressional Democrats have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that the law must be overturned.

The brief is submitted by the leadership of both the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, along with the co-chairs of the House LGBT Equality Caucus, on behalf of 212 Democratic members of Congress. That includes 25 members who voted for DOMA back in 1996. These members wanted the court to "hear the full story from Congress, and to explain why they believe that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional," and to inform the court that while the House majority Republicans have continued the defense of the case, the entire Congress is not in agreement. They argue:

When Congress enacted DOMA, gay and lesbian couples could not marry anywhere in the world. Some States still criminalized same-sex relationships, inviting further discrimination against gay men and lesbians in employment, family relations, and housing. Gay men and lesbians were still often portrayed as mentally unstable, sexually promiscuous, and morally deficient. In short, it was a different world for gay men and lesbians, and many were understandably reluctant to speak openly about themselves or their families. A number of Members, like the constituents we serve, did not personally know many (if any) people who were openly gay, and majority attitudes toward that minority group were often viscerally fearful and negative.

As a result, when the question of same-sex marriage arose in 1996, reflexive beliefs and discomfort about same-sex relationships dominated congressional debate. From our perspective?including those of us who voted for DOMA?debate and passage of the law did not necessarily arise ?from malice or hostile animus,? but instead from ?insensitivity caused by simple want of careful, rational reflection or from some instinctive mechanism to guard against people who appear to be different in some respects from ourselves.?

They argue that Section 3 of DOMA, the provision that same-sex marriages will not be recognized by the federal government for all federal purposes, (insurance benefits for government employees, Social Security survivors' benefits, immigration, and the filing of joint tax returns) is "a violation of the Fifth Amendment?s equal protection guarantee and should be struck down." Eight federal courts have agreed.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Fri Mar 01, 2013 at 01:39 PM PST.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

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Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/01/1190857/-Congressional-Democrats-file-brief-arguing-DOMA-needs-to-nbsp-go

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Hot or not: Who is making moves in MMA?

Who had a great week in MMA? Who just wants this week to be over so they can go home and take a bubble bath? Read up on Cagewriter's hot and not list.

HOT: Women's MMA ? Riding a wave started by Ronda Rousey's championship win over Liz Carmouche, female fighters are now in the spotlight. The Rousey-Carmouche result made it all over television, and print and internet press. This opened the door for other fighters to get some press, like this Canadian piece on women's MMA.

HOT: Jose Aldo ? The featherweight champion didn't like that he was fighting Anthony Pettis. He spoke up about it, ticked off UFC president Dana White, but then got his demand. If he wins, he'll get to jump up to lightweight for a chance at that belt. Pretty good tantrum, huh?

NOT: Matt Riddle ? Getting in trouble with the UFC over using a banned substance is never good, regardless of reasoning or doctor's approval. Doing it twice in a row when the promotion is looking to trim 100 fighters from its roster? It means Riddle is looking for a job.

HOT: South Dakota ? Legislators in the Mount Rushmore State -- yes, that's its nickname -- saw through misguided comments comparing MMA to child porn and voted to regulate MMA. It opens the door for more safety in fights in their fights.

NOT: Backwards thinking on MMA ? Between the South Dakotan government officials being soundly dismissed and an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel being laughed off, it appears that MMA is moving past the days where ignorant people made comments about a sport they didn't understand.

Still taking a temperature: Brian Stann and Wanderlei Silva ? Both men are looking to rebound off of losses as they face off at UFC on Fuel 8 in Japan on Saturday. Which one will end up on the hot list next week?

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/hot-not-making-moves-mma-170054973--mma.html

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Saturday, March 2, 2013

5 Important Tips To Save Money On Your Tax Bill

Tax Saving Tips For 2012 Tax ReturnApril 15th seems a long way off, but it will be here before you know it.

Now is the perfect time to start getting your paperwork in order.

Owning real estate can make a big difference on your tax return, so make sure that you?re taking advantage of all the deductions you?re entitled to.

We?ve outlined a few below:

Mortgage Interest

Unless you paid cash for your purchase, you probably took out a loan to buy your Chicago home.

Mortgage interest is one of the best tax deductions available, so be sure to hang on to that 1098 Mortgage Interest Statement from your lender.

You can almost always deduct the entire amount of interest paid per calendar year.

Real Estate Taxes

Depending on where your property is located, you are likely paying real estate tax, either to the state or to a local governing authority.

Taxes based on property value are generally deductible as well. You may have an escrow account to hold these funds during the year, so be sure that you only deduct the amount of taxes you actually paid.

Home Equity Line of Credit

You may deduct home equity line of credit (HELOC) debt interest as long as you are legally liable to pay the interest, the interest is paid in the tax year, and the debt is secured by your home.

The home equity debt has a limit of up to $100,000 ($50,000 if married filing separately).

Mortgage Insurance Premiums

Depending on how your loan is structured, you may have mortgage insurance. With the recently passed American Tax Relief Act of 2012, all mortgage insurance premiums are tax deductible for the 2012 and 2013 tax year. There are some qualifications, so check with your tax advisor.

Mortgage Interest on Land

If you purchased land with the intent to build, the interest you have paid may qualify as deductible mortgage interest as long as the structure becomes your qualified residence within a 24-month period.

This deductibility of bare land mortgage interest is a tricky one. You can see the?IRS explanation here.

Your home could be one of your greatest resources for reducing your tax liability. Most times these deductions are?itemized on a Schedule A (Form 1040) when you prepare your taxes.

A great next step is to call a qualified tax planning professional. ?Please feel free to contact us if you would like a referral.

Source: http://coolshax.mysmartblog.com/taxes/5-important-tips-to-save-money-on-your-tax-bill/

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A Moroccan Immigrant attempts self-immolation to renew residence ...

By Youssef Sourgo

Morocco World News

Casablanca, March 1, 2013

A Moroccan living in France attempted self-immolation because of his grave state of despair, apparently induced by his failure to obtain a residency permit

Aged 49 years old, a Moroccan attempted self-immolation on Wednesday before the prefecture of the Aples de Haute-Provence, in the town of Digne-les-Bains, according to the French daily Le Parisien.

The individual headed to the prefecture to renew his residency permit. To his acute disappointment, the service in charge rejected his request for renewal because his Moroccan passport had already expired since 2011.

Staggeringly enraged, the individual exited the prefecture. A few minutes later, he came back to the administrative building with a gasoline container in his hand, sprayed himself with the flammable liquid, and threatened to set himself ablaze holding a lighter in his hand. The police turned up in time to avert the tragedy.

?Self-immolation has become a fashioned recourse nowadays,? Mouhcine Benichou, a Moroccan psychiatrist based in Casablanca was quoted by the new site Yabiladi as saying. ?The surge of such extreme recourse is traced to Tunisia, with Mohamed Bouazizi, the greengrocer who passed away after setting himself on fire,? added Mr. Benichou.

He went to say that ?from that day on, resort to self-immolation propagated to reach Morocco, the Maghreb and Europe?. Since then, people deemed Bouaeiei?s tragedy as the key impetus that induced the uprising of the Tunisian peoples,? he added.

Awakening conscience and sparking change seem to be two central motives behind self-immolation. ?Those who immolate themselves seek to attract attention to them, presuming that their act renders them heroes in their own tragedy,? explained Mr. Benichou.

?Those who resort to self-immolation yearn to become remembered by means of their act, thus both leaving engraved traces behind them and also conveying a message to humanity at large,? further added Mr. Benichou.

Another apparent explanation for the extreme recourse to self-immolation by Moroccans in particular, and by immigrants in general, is the unbearable mental states of depression and pain that immigrants undergo whilst residing abroad.

It is, thus, their acute disheartenment, after confronting a reality that proves to be incompatible with their prior expectations before living abroad, that rationalizes their resort to self-immolation as a way to voice out their pains and concerns.

? Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/03/80649/france-a-moroccan-attempts-self-immolation-to-renew-residence-permit/

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LR Marathon Health & Fitness Expo Starts Friday

A runner's paradise is setting up shop in Little Rock this weekend.

More than 60 exhibits will be on display Friday morning at the 2013 Little Rock Marathon Health and Fitness Expo.

This year's theme, "Lucky in Little Rock," is illustrated by western displays.

At the expo, runners will find everything they need for the marathon.

"It's a good time. Great weather, great opportunity for people to come out and enjoy the city," says Roy Lamm.

You'll also be able to find fitness products that might come in handy during the marathon and packets for the more than 12,000 race participants.

The expo is free, just stop by the statehouse convention center on Main and Markham Friday morning at 10 or Saturday at 9.?

Source: http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext?nxd_id=641692

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Sprint aims for the low end with the Sprint Force

Sprint Force

Four-inch Android smartphone shouldn't wow anybody, but at least it's cheap

Sprint this morning announced the Sprint Force, a 4-inch low-end smartphone of dubious origin. The Force is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is powered by a 1.5-GHz dual-core processor. The display is a mere 480x800 is resolution. It's got a 5-megapixel camera on the back with flash, and a 1MP shooter out front. It'll serve as an LTE hotspot for up to eight devices and features Sprint ID.

The Sprint Force is available for $49.99 on a two-year contract, after $50 rebate.



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/uzY0wa6QMCk/story01.htm

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The Congress That's Never There

This lackadaisical work schedule galls not just because the public looks on at D.C. and wonders why Speaker John Boehner and President Obama don't bother to make a deal, but because the House Republicans have declared victory by showing up, cheering along as Boehner publicly declared he would not negotiate at all with Obama. Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise told?The New York Times' Ashley Parker: "I think Friday will be an important day that shows we?re finally willing to stand and fight for conservative principles and force Washington to start living within its means. And that will be a big victory." South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney told The?Times, "He?s doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and I think it?s working to our favor and to his." Idaho Rep. Ra?l R. Labrador said Republicans were happy their leader was no longer a pawn of the White House: "I think he realized the president of the United States was using him as a tool for his own benefit and was not actually in a partnership with him, and he also realized that we in the House were not happy with what was coming out of those negotiations."?NBC News' First Read observes, "A conspiracy theorist might conclude that politicians want the cuts to go through while not getting blamed for them."

RELATED: Why Isn't Obama Using Jedi Mind Tricks to Solve the Sequester?

According to the?Washington Times' Futility Index, the last congress was the least-productive ever. They had a lot of off-time, but they also wasted their on-time.?

At its peaks, Congress adopted more than 200 conference reports in a two-year session, the Senate met for nearly 3,000 hours while the House met for nearly 2,500 hours, and the chambers combined to enact more than 1,000 laws.

But in 2011 and 2012, Congress produced just 10 conference reports, the Senate met for little more than 2,000 hours and the House for 1,700, and the two chambers combined to enact fewer than 230 laws.?

One of the laws enacted was the Budget Control Act of 2011, which created a supercommittee tasked with coming up with a deficit-reduction deal that would replace the sequester. As the supercommittee approached its deadline, talks devolved into Republicans and Democrats fighting over how they would break the news they had failed: press conference or written statement?

RELATED: The Sequester Disaster for Partisan Fun and Electoral Profit

More nothingness is coming. Rep. Paul Ryan has promised to use the debt ceiling -- as in, not raise it to pay bills the U.S. owes -- to get more spending cuts for Obama. And if Congress does nothing at the end of this month, we'll have a government shutdown.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congress-thats-never-200629023.html

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New way to keep PCs cool: Submerge them in goo

The scourge of the hot computer isn't limited to lap-scalding notebooks. The enormous datacenters used by the likes of Facebook and Google generate immense amounts of heat and cost a fortune in air conditioning. But there's a new option: Dip the whole computer in heat-dissipating goo.

Most computers these days are air-cooled with fans. (You can often hear one spinning up if your computer is working hard on a task.)

Higher-end computers such as custom gaming rigs may resort to water cooling, which uses cool water in copper pipes to absorb and whisk away more heat than air alone. Even exotic materials like liquid nitrogen or hydrogen can be used in extreme circumstances.

But those aren't suitable for applying to the thousands of servers in a Facebook datacenter. Unfortunately, the most common solution seems to be huge air-conditioning and venting systems, along with using naturally cool locations ? a solution that could have ecological implications.

A company called Iceotope has what it thinks is the best of both worlds: putting the whole server "blade" (the individual hardware component of a server "farm") inside a container full of a special liquid called Novec. Made by 3M, it's specially engineered to dissipate heat, doing so 20 times faster than water ? and 1,000 times faster than air.

But the key is that Novec doesn't conduct electricity at all, meaning that a computer or any electronic device can sit in it and run, happy as a clam. The researchers who came up with the technique demonstrate the benefits of Novec this in the following video, which shows mobile phones being dunked and functioning perfectly well:

The server works at high capacity and produces lots of heat, which spreads out quickly through the Novec bath. The module's enclosure is made of aluminum, which also conducts heat well, outside of which is an array of running pipes, filled with cool water. This fast-moving water draws out the heat and then gets promptly pumped out.

As a result, the cost of keeping the datacenters cool is massively reduced (and they're quieter, to boot). A "rack" of servers might take several kilowatts of power for its fans and venting, but Iceotope's use only a small fraction of that ? 80 watts or less. And the outgoing water is easier to handle than hot air and could even be used for purposes such as residential heating.

The first to deploy the system is the University of Leeds, which helped test and develop the server modules. They'll be using it to run engineering students' computer models ? and routing the warmed water through radiators to heat the lab.

This sort of system is great for Google and its big-data ilk, but what about consumers? For now, the system is too specialized for use in laptops, or for that matter smartphones, which occasionally also get hot to the touch. It's not out of the question, but this magic liquid will probably take some time to trickle down, so to speak, to ordinary users.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/new-way-keep-pcs-cool-submerge-them-goo-1C8603909

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