Monday, December 31, 2012

UFC 155 results: Junior dos Santos becomes the new poster boy for punch face

Junior dos Santos was battered and bruised all around the cage at UFC 155 last night (Dec. 29, 2012) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cain Velasquez took it to him and in doing so, made "Cigano" the new poster boy for punch face.

Junior dos Santos showed the heart of a champion last night (Sat., Dec. 29, 2012) in the main event of UFC 155 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, enduring a sustained beating from the newly crowned heavyweight king Cain Velasquez, who took home the decision victory in a landslide.

It started with a dominant first round and never let up. Velasquez hit "Cigano" so hard and so often, it was originally thought that the Brazilian had suffered a broken jaw. He was so beaten and dejected that he immediately took a trip to the hospital instead of showing up for the post-fight press conference.

Safety first.

What Velasquez really did, though, was turn Dos Santos into the new poster boy for punch face. The photos coming out of this fight have all been unbelievable illustrations of Velasquez's most dominant performance to date.

Check 'em out above.

And for more on Velasquez's victory over Dos Santos click here, here, here, and here.

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Source: http://www.mmamania.com/2012/12/30/3818194/ufc-155-results-junior-dos-santos-becomes-the-new-poster-boy-for-punch-face

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Source: http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/291

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Nobel scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini dies in Rome at 103

ROME (AP) ? Rita Levi-Montalcini, a biologist who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, died at her home in Rome on Sunday. She was 103 and had worked well into her final years.

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, who announced her death in a statement, called it a great loss "for all of humanity." He praised her as someone who represented "civic conscience, culture and the spirit of research of our time."

Italy's so-called "Lady of the Cells," a Jew who lived through anti-Semitic discrimination and the Nazi invasion, became one of her country's leading scientists and shared the Nobel medicine prize in 1986 with American biochemist Stanley Cohen for their groundbreaking research carried out in the United States. Her research increased the understanding of many conditions, including tumors, developmental malformations, and senile dementia.

Italy honored Levi-Montalcini in 2001 by making her a senator-for-life.

A petite woman with upswept white hair, she kept an intensive work schedule well into old age. "At 100, I have a mind that is superior ? thanks to experience ? than when I was 20," she said in 2009.

Levi-Montalcini was born April 22, 1909, to a Jewish family in the northern city of Turin. At age 20 she overcame her father's objections that women should not study and obtained a degree in medicine and surgery from Turin University in 1936.

She studied under top anatomist Giuseppe Levi, whom she often credited for her own success and for that of two fellow students and close friends, Salvador Luria and Renato Dulbecco, who also became separate Nobel Prize winners. Levi and Levi-Montalcini were not related.

After graduating, Levi-Montalcini began working as a research assistant in neurobiology but lost her job in 1938 when Italy's Fascist regime passed laws barring Jews from universities and major professions.

Her family decided to stay in Italy and, as World War II neared, Levi-Montalcini created a makeshift lab in her bedroom where she began studying the development of chicken embryos, which would later lead to her major discovery of mechanisms that regulate growth of cells and organs.

With eggs becoming a rarity due to the war, the young scientist biked around the countryside to buy them from farmers. She was soon joined in her secret research by Levi, her university mentor, who was also Jewish and who became her assistant.

The 1943 German invasion of Italy forced the Levi-Montalcini family to flee to Florence and live underground. After the Allies liberated the city, she worked as a doctor at a center for refugees.

In 1947 Levi-Montalcini was invited to the United States, where she remained for more than 20 years, which she called "the happiest and most productive" of her life. She held dual Italian-U.S. citizenship.

During her research at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, she discovered nerve growth factor, or NGF, the first substance known to regulate the growth of cells. She showed that when tumors from mice were transplanted to chicken embryos they induced rapid growth of the embryonic nervous system. She concluded that the tumor released a nerve growth-promoting factor that affected certain types of cells.

The research increased the understanding of many conditions, including tumors, developmental malformations, and senile dementia. It also led to the discovery by Stanley Cohen of another substance, epidermal growth factor, which stimulates the proliferation of epithelial cells.

The two shared the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1986.

Levi-Montalcini returned to Italy to become the director of the laboratory of cell biology of the National Council of Scientific Research in Rome in 1969.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nobel-scientist-rita-levi-montalcini-dies-rome-154440935.html

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snowflakes app by hado labs for iPad & iPhone

generating more than 9,000 artistic and beautifully realistic snowflakes, the app renders intricate, icy details. The post snowflakes app by hado labs for iPad & iPhone appeared first on designboom .

Read the original ... snowflakes app by hado labs for iPad & iPhone
This entry was posted in Aggregated, Blogs, Design. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://squa.re/2012/12/29/snowflakes-app-by-hado-labs-for-ipad-iphone/

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Bipartisan senators propose curbing filibusters (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273650451?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Google Removed 50 Million ?Pirate? Search Results This Year ...

Google Removed 50 Million ?Pirate? Search Results This Year

  • Ernesto
  • December 28, 2012
  • google
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Over the past year copyright holders have asked Google to remove 51,395,353 links to infringing webpages, a dramatic surge compared to previous years. The search giant is currently processing half a million ?infringing? links per day, and this number is increasing week after week. At the same time, Hollywood and the major record labels want Google to increase its anti-piracy efforts.

googleIn common with many other websites on the Internet Google has an obligation to remove infringing content upon receiving a valid DMCA request from copyright holders.

To give the public insight into the scope and nature of this process, Google started to publish all takedown requests online in their Transparency Report.

Since then, the number of URLs Google is being asked to remove has grown rapidly. Last week Google received takedown requests for a record-breaking 3,502,345 URLs, which is 15 times more than the amount received in January.

Google doesn?t report yearly figures, but we added up all the weekly reports and found that in 2012 Google was asked to remove 51,395,353 links to infringing webpages. Nearly all of these webpages are no longer showing up in Google?s search results.

The data further reveals the RIAA is the most active sender. The music group asked Google to remove links to 7,816,766 allegedly infringing webpages this year.


DMCA URL takedown requests per week

Looking at the websites that Google received the most takedown notices for, we see that the file-hosting search engine FilesTube tops the rankings with 2,273,280 links. While this is certainly a significant number, it?s less than one percent of all FilesTube pages indexed by Google.

Google was further asked to remove 554,613 links to The Pirate Bay, which puts the most notorious BitTorrent site in 16th place.

While copyright holders are entitled to protect their content, the avalanche of takedown requests also has a downside. Not all of the requests are correct and this quite regularly leads to the takedown of legitimate content.

Google itself also raised concerns about this worrying trend.

?As policymakers evaluate how effective copyright laws are, they need to consider the collateral impact copyright regulation has on the flow of information online,? Google?s Legal Director Fred Von Lohmann said earlier this month.

For their part, the MPAA uses the data to point out how much pirated content they have to deal with online. The Hollywood group sees Google as one of the main facilitators of copyright infringement.

?There is a staggering amount of copyright infringement taking place every day online and much of it is facilitated by Google, as their own data shows,? the MPAA noted a few weeks ago.

?We couldn?t agree more with Google that this data shows that our current system is not working ? for creators, or for Google. But we can?t lose sight of the fact that it also confirms the important role that Google has to play in helping curb the theft of creative works while protecting an Internet that works for everyone,? the Hollywood group added.

MPAA?s comments are shared by other copyright holders, who all want Google to step up its anti-piracy efforts.

Last year a behind-closed-doors meeting revealed that the copyright industry is pushing Google to completely de-list popular file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, and give higher ranking to authorized sites.

Thus far Google has not de-listed any websites, but in August the search engine did start downgrading ?pirate? sites for which they receive a relatively many DMCA takedown notices. Whether this has a significant effect on the availability of pirated content is unknown.

It will be interesting to see how much the number of DMCA notices increases in the coming year, and if Google announces more anti-piracy changes.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/google-removed-50-million-pirate-search-results-this-year-121228/

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Blood found on borrowed car in missing girl case

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Blood was found inside a car borrowed by a Las Vegas Strip card dealer last seen with a missing 10-year-old girl and later arrested in the razor blade slashing of a co-worker at the posh Bellagio resort, a prosecutor said Friday.

Brenda Stokes Wilson was identified in court Friday as the prime suspect in the slaying, although prosecutor Robert Daskas told a judge that authorities haven't positively identified the girl found dead Thursday in an undeveloped housing tract in North Las Vegas.

"It's no secret the defendant is the suspect in the murder of 10-year-old Jade Morris," Daskas said as he convinced Senior Clark County District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure to increase Wilson's bail from $60,000 to $600,000 pending the filing of kidnapping and murder charges.

Daskas said a weapon was used in the slaying, but he didn't elaborate.

Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy said it could be Friday afternoon before DNA testing is complete and he can positively say the body is Jade Morris. The girl was last seen by her family Dec. 21, when Wilson picked her up to go Christmas shopping. She never returned.

Wilson, 50, was arrested later that night after she was wrestled to the ground with razors in each hand following a face-slashing attack on a female co-worker, Joyce Rhone, at the Bellagio.

Wilson has been jailed on felony battery with a weapon, burglary and mayhem charges that could get her decades in prison. Police said she has offered no help in the search for the missing girl. Murder and kidnapping charges could get her life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

Wilson stood in court flanked by eight police officers as her lawyer, Tony Liker, clutching a Bible and a copy of the charging documents, asked the judge to postpone arraignment until Wednesday to give him time to meet with Wilson.

Liker declined comment outside court.

Police went public with the search for Jade Morris on Christmas Day, and the case received increasing attention after the relationship between the girl and Wilson became known. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson watched the proceedings in court Friday and called the case important for the community.

Wilson, who had been identified by police and prosecutors as Brenda Stokes, told the judge Friday that her full name was Brenda Stokes Wilson.

She used to date the missing girl's father, Philip Morris, and had a long and trusted relationship with Jade Morris, according to the missing girl's grandfather, Philip Tucker.

Philip Morris was removed from court Wednesday by armed court officers after shouting questions about his daughter's whereabouts to Wilson. He did not attend Friday's hearing.

Tucker said Philip Morris lived in Billings, Mont., and worked at a Flying J truck stop for more than a year. He would stay with Wilson when he visited Las Vegas, Tucker said.

Tucker said Rhone was Wilson's best friend and also knew Philip Morris.

Authorities have not disclosed a motive for the slaying. But Tucker said Wilson appeared to believe that Rhone and Philip Morris had become romantically involved. Tucker said he didn't know if Wilson's jealousy was well-founded.

"But whatever was going on with them didn't concern Jade," Tucker said. "How do you take a kid who loves you so much and hurt her?"

Jade Morris' family last saw the girl when Wilson picked her at about 5 p.m. Dec. 21. About two hours later, Wilson returned to another friend the red 2007 Saab sedan that she borrowed for the shopping trip.

Wilson allegedly had a razor in each hand when she attacked Rhone as Rhone dealt blackjack about 9:30 p.m.

Daskas said police have the vehicle and are testing blood found on the driver's door and steering wheel to see if it matches Jade Morris. Stokes later got a ride with a friend to the Bellagio, police said.

Rhone, 44, was hospitalized with deep cuts on her face, including one from her ear to the edge of her mouth. A police arrest report said Rhone also had several smaller cuts around her right eye.

Tucker said Rhone called him Saturday, speaking with difficulty and expressing surprise at the attack.

"She said, 'I can't believe she would do something like this to me,'" Tucker recalled. "I said, 'Was Jade with her?' She said she didn't know Jade was involved."

A police report said Wilson told investigators following her arrest that she visited her doctor last week, seeking to be admitted to a hospital "due to feeling like she wanted to hurt someone."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blood-found-borrowed-car-missing-girl-case-165912112.html

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Guest post: How Workplace Safety Contributes to Business Success ...

Workplace safety is a transformative habit. Take, for instance, the Aluminum Company of America (or Alcoa) which in 1987 had a very poor safety record. Paul O?Neill took the helm as CEO. In a speech to investors and stock analysts he discussed only one thing: making Alcoa a safe company for workers. He didn?t talk about business cost reduction, supply chain optimization or profit margins. He didn?t talk about any of the things one expects from a CEO.

Within a year of his declaration the company?s profits hit a record high. When he left 13 years later, the company had more than quadrupled its annual net income. All because of a focus on worker safety.

Importance of Workplace Safety

Workplace safety is imperative to business success on so many levels. Long-term consequences of unsafe behavior can include litigation and remediation. Lost-time accidents affect profits and morale. A workplace without a focus on safety is often one with poor communication and management which are reflective of other inefficiencies of process.

Risks

Many workplaces require the use of chemicals or potentially hazardous substances. While every workplace must display appropriate literature for the chemicals used, like Material Safety Data Sheets, not every workplace thoroughly trains workers to handle and dispose of hazardous materials properly. Aside from the obvious safety risks for the workers handling these substances, the long-term consequences of improperly handled waste can be financially ruinous.

If a company causes a plot of land to be hazardous to the point of being rendered useless they will be held financially responsible for site clean-up and remediation. The Environmental Protection Agency then pursues an environmental lawsuit and Sevenson Environmental, or another third-party company, takes over the site. What might seem like a reasonable short-term cost cutting safety risk can really be a long-term fiscal death sentence for a company.

Effects of Improper Safety Precautions

Lost time accidents are one of the most high-profile workplace safety issues. In fact, that was the first safety issue O?Neill addressed in 1987. Lost-time accidents are tracked, and the statistics often displayed prominently with a ?This site has gone X days without a lost time accident? sign.

A high volume of lost-time accidents leads to reduced productivity or higher overall payroll expenses, both of which affect the bottom line. Furthermore, workplace injuries can create, or contribute to, a culture of frustration and indifference. If employees aren?t actively engaged in pursuing success and safety daily, they certainly aren?t solving higher level problems like cost savings or strategic sourcing.

Simple Prevention?Could Save a Life

Many risks workers take happen because of the perceived rules, as opposed to the actual rules. In the case of Alcoa, the strongest example is a fatality that occurred less than a year into O?Neill?s tenure as CEO. A young plant worker who had been with the company only a few weeks had attempted a repair on a machine with a piece of aluminum stuck in it. The young man had crossed over a yellow safety wall and pulled out the scrap of metal. Fixed, the machine restarted and the swinging arm crushed his skull, killing him instantly.

As the accident was recreated and analyzed in an emergency meeting only hours later, several contributing factors were identified that could have prevented the accident. Two managers saw but did not stop the employee; the employee was never instructed to seek out a manager before attempting any repair; no sensors were present that could automatically disable the machine when someone (or something) was present in the pit; and during training it was never made clear that the employee would not be held responsible for a breakdown.

For Alcoa, this was a landmark event. New policies were written up, safety areas were repainted for additional emphasis, and workers at every level could now voice opinions and suggestions for safety and proactive maintenance and remediation. Workers on the floor could suggest ideas for procurement or controlling manufacturing costs. And they did. The singular emphasis on safety opened up lines of communication and employees throughout the company elevated their performance for the greater good.

?

Author bio
After she received her degree in business from Brookline Business School, Alana Shine decided to become a consultant for small- to medium-sized businesses. She finds her work to be exhausting at times, but very rewarding.

Source: http://amandahaddaway.com/guest-post-how-workplace-safety-contributes-to-business-success/

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Top Tips For Generating Business On The Web ... - Businesses

Online marketing has the potential to be very lucrative. There are many different ways in which Internet promotion can be utilized. It can be hard to decide how to start your first project. The tips you will read here can get you ready for any challenge.

When people enjoy reading your ads, they are likely to equate that positive feeling with your products. Pick a few key points about the product or service you provide, and make them known in a short but catchy way. Useful phrases are ?speedy downloads?, ?quick confirmations?, and ?secure checkout?.

Submit free materials to the various online directories who will list them without charging you. For example, if you write a free e-zine, submit it to different e-zine directories. You can also find free articles, e-books and site directories as well.

TIP! Provide something that is unique to your site and focused on a niche market. You will be more likely to drive traffic to your site if they are looking for your niche.

You can read studies that been done on the psychological impact of web design and it?s effects on Affiliate marketing. Psychological factors can drastically effect the way that someone perceives your brand, based on the color, outlay and theme of your site. You should have a basic understanding of this information in order to ensure your overall profit is maximized.

Make a webpage specifically built for public relations. You can put any publications there or anything that has been in the news. It is a simple, yet very effective, strategy to generate more publicity for your business.

The internet has made doing business an anonymous affair. Small businesses tend to get more sales because of personal selling as well as relationship marketing. You do not want to cut that off from your website.

TIP! For help with marketing on the Internet, you might want to create some sort of customer management database. Keep track of what people buy and collect their contact information.

The purpose of Online marketing is to recognize a problem in which you should fix. It is important to address problems first thing in the day. If you help other people with their issues, then they will purchase your products and tell others about it, that is what you want.

Online marketing can be highly beneficial, as well as highly challenging. Adopt a strategy that is adapted to your audience and to your products, but do not let the amount of possibilities intimidate you. Hopefully the knowledge you?ve gained from this article will make the process a little bit easier.

Source: http://elektrotehnickifakultet.com/top-tips-for-generating-business-on-the-web-2.html

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Friday, December 28, 2012

UFC 155?s Derek Brunson was a cheerleader before he started fighting

Long before he put together a 9-2 record and earned a spot against Chris Leben at UFC 155, Derek Brunson was a cheerleader. As he shows in his audition video for "The Ultimate Fighter," Brunson was an accomplished tumbler and stunter. Skip to the 2:10 mark to see him toss his partner up into one-handed stunts and throw a double-twisting flip.

He talked about his cheerleading past with MMA Fighting, and pointed out how difficult cheerleading can be.

"I can do flips, and I was like tossing girls in the air. That's where I got my strength from, just controlling girls in the air. You get core strength, your chest gets all big. It makes you really strong, like you look on steroids, but you don't have to take steroids because of cheerleading."

Though Brunson wrestled in college, he said he did have scholarship offers for cheerleading. Wrestling and eventually MMA won out. Brunson admitted that MMA is more dangerous than cheerleading, but it's still tough.

"Cheerleading is definitely hard on your body. That's why I decided to wrestle in college, not cheerlead."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-155-derek-brunson-cheerleader-started-fighting-145151565--mma.html

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Westinghouse 110-inch 4K TV to ship alongside 65, 55 and 50-inch models in Q1

Westinghouse 110inch 4K TV to ship in Q1 alongside 65, 55 and 50inch models

Westinghouse has yet to become the premium HDTV manufacturer it one day hopes to be, and if the past is any indication, flooding the market with low-cost sets won't drive you to the top. But the promise of high resolution might at least yield a modest bump. The company's 2013 lineup is set to be dominated by 4K models, each packing 3840 x 2160-pixel panels for an "amazing" and "affordable" experience. The company's flagship rings in at a massive 110 diagonal inches and will be available for custom order beginning sometime in Q1. 50, 55 and 65-inch versions will also ship within the same timeframe, offering the same resolution and a modest 120Hz native refresh rate. We're still waiting to hear back on pricing and a hint of where you might be able to pick one of these UHDTVs up beginning early next year, but if the press release after the break is any indication, we're about to be inundated with high-res, low-cost televisions at next month's CES.

Continue reading Westinghouse 110-inch 4K TV to ship alongside 65, 55 and 50-inch models in Q1

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Starbucks to Congress: 'Come together' on fiscal cliff

23 hrs.

Starbucks Corp will use its ubiquitous coffee cups to tell U.S. lawmakers to come up with a deal to avoid going over the "fiscal cliff" and triggering automatic tax hikes and spending cuts.?

Chief Executive Howard Schultz is urging workers in Starbucks' roughly 120 Washington-area shops to write "come together" on customers' cups on Thursday and Friday, as U.S. President Barack Obama and lawmakers return to work and attempt to revive fiscal cliff negotiations that collapsed before the Christmas holiday.?

Starbucks' cup campaign aims to send a message to sharply divided politicians and serve as a rallying cry for the public in the days leading up to lawmakers' January 1 deadline to deliver a plan to avert harsh across-the-board government spending reductions and tax increases that could send the United States back into recession.?

"We're paying attention, we're greatly disappointed in what's going on and we deserve better," Schultz told Reuters in a telephone interview.?

The CEO said he has joined a growing list of high-powered business leaders, politicians and financial experts in endorsing the Campaign to Fix the Debt, (www.fixthedebt.org) a well-funded nonpartisan group that is leaning on lawmakers to put the United States' financial house in order.?

Starbucks plans to amplify its "come together" message via new and old media, including Twitter and Facebook posts, coverage on AOL's local news websites and advertisements in The Washington Post and The New York Times.?

"If (talks) do not progress, we will make this much bigger," Schultz said of the messaging campaign.?

Schultz is no stranger to using the world's biggest coffee chain as a platform to advocate for more political cooperation in Washington.?

During the debt ceiling debate in August 2011, he made a splash by calling for a boycott of political contributions to U.S. lawmakers until they struck a fair and bipartisan deal on the country's debt, revenue and spending.?

"We are facing such dysfunction, irresponsibility and lack of leadership" less than two years after the debt ceiling crisis, Schultz said.?

Washington narrowly avoided a U.S. government default, but not before down-to-the-wire wrangling prompted the country's first-ever debt rating downgrade.?

"There is something so wrong that we can be here again and not have the ability to put party aside for the betterment of the country," said Schultz. "We have the same language and rhetoric. Unfortunately we aren't learning much."?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/starbucks-congress-come-together-fiscal-cliff-deal-1C7661430

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Five questions that will be answered by UFC 155

The UFC's end-of-the-year cards are usually stacked. Despite injuries, UFC 155 is no different. It features intriguing bouts that will answer some burning questions.

Did a knee injury hold back Cain Velasquez the first time he fought Junior dos Santos? When the two first met up last November, Velasquez reportedly had a badly injured knee. He was knocked out in 64 seconds. This time a (seemingly) healthy Velasquez will get to show if he deserves the heavyweight belt.

Has Chris Leben returned to form, for really real this time? Since Leben was on the original "Ultimate Fighter," he has been a man who wrestled with his demons. Most recently, those demons took the form of a banned pain killer which resulted in a one-year suspension from the UFC. Against Derek Brunson, Leben can show he's again the man who knocked out Wanderlei Silva.

Can Tim Boetsch be the next guy to challenge Anderson Silva? Though his original bout with Chris Weidman was called off because of an injury to Weidman, Boetsch still has another opportunity to show he can beat up opponents. He wants a chance to beat up Silva,* and this bout with Costa Phillippou is an opportunity for Boetsch's fighting to shine.

Or should Alan Belcher be the man to take on Silva? It's been more than three years since Belcher lost a fight. His last four fights have been stoppage wins. An impressive win over Yushin Okami could put him in line to fight for the middleweight belt.*

Is Todd Duffee still the knockout artist who once graced the octagon? Back in 2009, Duffee knocked out Tim Hague in a mere seven seconds. After that, the hype train was running behind him full steam. It was derailed when Mike Russow came back to knock Duffee out in the third round of their bout. Duffee was cut from the UFC, and is getting another shot at the octagon on Saturday. He'll fight Philip De Fries on the Facebook preliminaries, and get a chance to show if he can still knock people out very quickly.

*Assuming the next middleweight belt is based on competitiveness and earning a title shot by fighting, not by calling opponents out. Considering what has happened recently in the UFC welterweight and light heavyweight divisions, there are no guarantees.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/five-questions-answered-ufc-155-221719074--mma.html

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Children, many ill, would be victims of Russia ban on U.S. adoption

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Family Christmas cards and smiling snapshots of children sent by their adoptive American parents fill Galina Sigayeva's office in Russia's second city St Petersburg.

Many of them were crippled by illness and in desperate need of medical care before her agency helped organize their adoption into U.S. families, she recalls.

Children's rights campaigners say kids like these will suffer most if President Vladimir Putin approves a law barring American adoptions that has been rubber-stamped by Russian lawmakers. The act retaliates against a new U.S. law that will punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

Critics of the bill say Russian orphanages are woefully overcrowded and the fate of vulnerable children should not be used as a bargaining chip in a bilateral feud.

"These children are not even offered to foreigners until they get a certain number of (adoption) refusals from Russians," said Sigayeva, a neatly-styled brunette who heads the New Hope Christian Services Adoption Agency.

"These are children with complicated diagnoses, really complicated. They are very ill children."

She smiled as she flipped through photos of children embraced by their adoptive parents, playing with family pets and enjoying presents and other trappings of holiday cheer.

"What surprises me is that here they all look so healthy, so fantastic, but you should see what they look like when they are taken from here," Sigayeva said.

"Some had to be carried to the border. We had a girl with hepatitis whom we helped from the emergency room."

Both sides in the heated debate surrounding the bill agree Russia's orphanage system is overwhelmed, riddled with corruption and mostly failing to place children in families.

More than 650,000 children are considered orphans in Russia - though some were rejected by their parents or taken from dysfunctional homes. Of that total, 110,000 lived in state institutions in 2011, according to the Ministry of Science and Education.

By contrast, in the United States - which has more than twice Russia's population - about 58,280 children were living in group homes and institutions last year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Adoptions by Russian families remain modest, with some 7,400 adoptions in 2011 compared with 3,400 adoptions of Russian children by families abroad.

Russian politicians say it is an embarrassment that the country cannot care for its own, and supporters of the measure argue it will help stimulate reform and domestic adoptions.

"Foreign adoption is a result of the state and society's lack of attention to orphans ... It is, if you will, a result of our indifference," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told officials at a ruling party congress last week.

American families adopt more Russian children - 956 last year - than those of any other country. Of the children adopted by Americans in 2011, 9 percent - or 89 - were disabled, according to official Russian figures.

Opponents of the legislation - who include senior officials such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - say politicking should not deprive orphans of this chance at better life.

"Russia is not able to provide for all its orphans," Boris Altshuler, director of the Moscow-based Rights of the Child advocacy group, said. "Although 1,000 is a small fraction - it was a help."

Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets has said the ban would violate international treaties on child rights, and the Kremlin's own human rights council called it unconstitutional.

"AMERICAN ROULETTE"

The ban responds to a U.S. law known as the Magnitsky Act which punishes Russians suspected of being involved in the death in custody of anti-graft lawyer Sergei Magnistky in 2009, and of other human rights violations, by barring them from entering the United States.

In a pointed echo of the Magnitsky Act, Russia's legislation is named the Dima Yakovlev law, after a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke after his American adoptive father left him locked in a sweltering car.

His death and that of 19 other Russian-born children in the hands of U.S. citizens in the last decade has helped drive support for the bill and for tougher adoption rules in a deal with the United States in June.

"It's American roulette," said Pavel Astakhov, Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner and a supporter of the ban.

"One handicapped girl from Russia got lucky. She was Jessica Long - a Paralympic champion. Another did not. She was Masha Allen ... who was raped by her pedophile adoptive father."

DISABLED CHILDREN

If Putin signs it into law, the ban will come into force on January 1, most immediately affecting the fate of children whose adoption is in the works.

The placement of 46 children with American families will be cancelled, Astakhov told the Interfax news agency on Wednesday.

Sigayeva said a six-month halt on American adoptions until a new bilateral deal entered force in November showed how it would aggravate problems in Russia's strained child-protection system.

"Hospitals were overwhelmed. There was no room in orphanages or hospitals for children whom their parents had rejected. So what's next then?" said Sigayeva, whose agency has helped place some 200 children in American families since 1992.

Advocates who work with disabled children say a reform proposal drafted by Astakhov ignores their plight. They say it calls for a reduction in the number of institutions caring for children with disabilities without explaining how they will find foster homes and medical care.

"No concrete measures are being suggested. Nothing exists but a lot of children's pain, which will only increase now," said Sergei Koloskov, a campaigner for children with Down's Syndrome.

"They are being left parentless in addition to being ill."

(Additional reporting by Alexander Chizhenok in St. Petersburg; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/children-many-ill-victims-russia-ban-u-adoption-123222651.html

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Obama Hawaii Vacation Home: First Look!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/12/obama-vacation-home-first-look/

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Five killed in Yemen clashes, brigadier shot dead

SANAA (Reuters) - At least five militants were killed and three soldiers wounded in Yemen on Tuesday in fighting near a damaged oil pipeline east of the capital Sanaa, a defense ministry official and residents said.

In a separate incident, two gunmen riding a motorbike shot dead Brigadier Fadel Mohammed Ali, an adviser to the minister of defense, outside the ministry's offices in Sanaa, a police source said. Further details were not immediately available.

The fighting in turbulent Maarib province broke out when government troops backed by air strikes tried to secure the pipeline and repair damage inflicted last month by local militants, the official said.

Yemen's oil and gas pipelines have repeatedly been sabotaged by Islamist fighters or tribesmen since an uprising erupted last year, causing fuel shortages and slashing export earnings for the impoverished country.

The country's stability is a leading security goal for the United States and Gulf Arab allies because of its strategic position next to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.

Under an agreement reached earlier this month between tribal chiefs and the government, tribes in Maarib were meant to stop militants from attacking the pipeline in return for a halt to air strikes in the area.

A local official said troops were deployed on Tuesday after tribesmen failed to secure the pipeline or to hand over fighters involved in the killings of 17 army officers and soldiers in an ambush earlier in December. They were killed while inspecting the pipeline.

The affiliation of the militants in Maarib is unclear. Local sources said some had links to al Qaeda, while others were involved in kidnapping foreigners to pressure the government to release jailed kinsmen.

OFFICER WOUNDED IN CAPITAL

Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has mounted operations in Saudi Arabia and attempted attacks against the United States, which has stepped up strikes by drones.

In a separate development, the ministry of defense said one man was arrested in Sanaa on Tuesday for planting a bomb in the car of an officer at the Central Security Forces. The attempt to blow up the car was foiled, the ministry said.

In another sign of growing lawlessness in the capital, Colonel Sameer al-Gharbani, an officer in the Republican Guard, was critically wounded in Sanaa in an attack by unidentified gunmen, a source at the Guard told Reuters.

Elsewhere in the city gunmen opened fire at the house of Transport Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, wounding two of his guards, a transport ministry official said.

The string of attacks happened less than a week after President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi overhauled the armed forces as part of Gulf-brokered power-transfer plan that helped ease former President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in February.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush and William Maclean; Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/five-killed-yemen-clashes-brigadier-shot-dead-112810772.html

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Report: Nokia's Windows RT Tablet Will Have a Surface-Like Keyboard Cover

According to a report from The Verge, Nokia's going to out its own Windows RT tablet early next year. That's fine; it would be weirder if they weren't. But what's a little less expected is that the company's elves are hard at work on creating a keyboard cover of their very own. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/W6oKQyfySAs/report-nokias-windows-rt-tablet-will-have-a-surface+like-keyboard-cover

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Kate Middleton Baby Names: What Should She Name Royal Heir(ess)?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/12/kate-middleton-baby-names-what-should-she-name-royal-heiress/

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One in US, one in Russia: Young brothers divided

Courtesy Thomas family

John and Renee Thomas with their son, Jack, 7, who was adopted from Russia at the age of 3. Jack is hoping for his brother, Nikoly, now in a Russian orphanage, to join him in the United States.

By Kari Huus, NBC News

This Christmas, the best gift 7-year-old Jack Thomas could get would be the arrival of his little brother, Nikoly, who lives in an orphanage in Kursk, Russia.

"When Jack is asked about his family, he talks about his brother," said his father, John Thomas, speaking from the family?s home in Minnetonka, Minn. "He always asks, 'When is he coming home?' We just tell him we?re waiting for the call."

Jack has been waiting several years, a long time for a little boy. What he doesn?t know is that a feud between politicians in Moscow and Washington could destroy his chance to grow up with his brother.

On Friday, Russian lawmakers passed a bill that would prohibit Americans from adopting Russian children, and if that bill is signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, it would cast doubt on even those adoptions already in the pipeline.

For John Thomas and his wife, Renee ? and very likely hundreds of other expectant American families and Russian children ? the latest political shift could mean?a delay, a new hurdle or a brick wall.


The?U.S. State Department and some high-level officials in Moscow have lambasted the legislation as punishing Russian children?who need families in an effort to retaliate against Washington.

But the bill has gained ground amid a wave of nationalism, fueled by anger over a U.S. human rights bill singling out Russia and by several highly publicized?cases of U.S. adoptions that ended tragically.

Since the end of the Soviet era in 1991, Americans have adopted about 60,000 children from Russia, making it one of the main countries of origin for non-domestic adoptions in the United States, according to U.S.?government statistics.?At the?peak of the trend in 2004, Americans brought?5,862 children into their homes. In 2011, the number was down to 962 ? a product of well-intentioned policy shifts, bureaucracy, corruption and other difficulties.

See the US Action Plan on Children in Adversity

European Children Adoption Services

Jack Thomas, at the age of 3, just before he was adopted from Kursk, Russia, by Americans John and Renee Thomas. He is now 7 years old and growing up in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis.

Even with foreign adoptions, which are allowed after giving Russians priority, Russia has an estimated 700,000 children living in institutions, nearly 80,000 of them orphaned, and the rest abandoned or taken away by the state because the parents were judged unfit to take care of them.

The?Thomases have experienced the painful, stop-start nature of the Russian adoption process in their quest for Nikoly.

It was in December 2008, when they were finalizing their adoption of 3-year-old Eduard, whom they named Jack, that they learned he had a baby brother. They started the adoption application process for Nikoly as soon as they could, after a required waiting period.

Compliments of the Thomas family

Renee Thomas in December 2010 meeting Nikoly at an orphanage in Kursk, Russia. He was 18 months old at the time, and Thomas says she expected he would join the the family within a matter of months. Nikoly is now 4 and remains in institutional care in Russia.

A year later, John and Renee Thomas, who work as an attorney and a building contract negotiator, again flew to Moscow and then went by rail to Kursk to meet Nikoly, whom they call Theodore or Teddy. He was?18 months old. Renee Thomas says she thought it would take about the same amount of time to adopt him as it had with Jack, and expected to travel to Kursk sometime in the spring of 2010 to get him.

The Thomases?are?still waiting.

One of the reasons for delay, they say,?is the horror caused by a woman in Tennessee who put her 7-year-old son, whom she had adopted in Russia, on a one-way flight to Moscow in 2010, with the explanation that the child was "mentally unstable" and she could no longer take care of him.

In another delay that Renee Thomas believes cost their adoption another year, the Russian government shut down adoptions for review and re-accreditation of all adoption agencies that work in Russia.

European Children Adoption Services

Nikoly in an undated photo taken at an orphanage in Kursk, Russia. (The red splotches on his face are believed to be a type of antiseptic.)

In addition, the Thomas? dossier has gone before a series of judges in Russia, some of whom have rejected it without a stated reason, and others setting forth requirements that they are not able to meet under U.S. law. Even so, there are Russians trying to help them run the gauntlet, and they figured the problems would get ironed out.

"We expected to be traveling soon" to get Nikolai, said John Thomas. ?

Just last month, when a newly negotiated bilateral adoptions agreement came into effect, designed to smooth out the process and help safeguard adopted children, things appeared to be looking up.

Watch the Top Videos on NBCNews.com

"These adoptive parents have really been through the ringer," said Johnson. "This was a bilateral treaty signed by our two governments. We really celebrated it. I thought we could turn our attention to other countries. But we?re really back to Russia again."

Kids pay in human rights spat
The ban that passed the Russian parliament grew out of a dispute over human rights.

On Nov. 16, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act passed by a landslide in the U.S. House and Senate. Magnitsky was a 37-year-old lawyer who exposed massive fraud allegedly committed by a group of Russian officials. He was arrested and died in police custody 11 months later under suspicious circumstances. Among other things, the bill denies visas and freezes assets of the Russian officials implicated by Magnitsky.

The new U.S. law sparked an angry reaction from Moscow and fueled popular anti-American sentiment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims the U.S. is "poisoning ties" between the two countries with a law that bans Russians who abuse human rights and is backing a Russian draft law banning adoption by Americans. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

Vladimir Putin said that the law singling out Russia "contaminates our relations."

Russian legislators then drafted a bill to counter the U.S. law, with provisions restricting organizations and individuals linked to the United States.

Just before the first vote in the Duma, the proposed ban on American adoptions of Russian children was tacked on as an amendment. The legislation was named after 21-month-old Dima Yakovlev, a Russian boy who died in Virginia after his adoptive father left him alone in a hot SUV for nine hours.

Americans may lose right to adopt Russian kids

After the Duma approved the legislation on Friday, the U.S. State Department registered its disapproval.

"If Russian officials have concerns about the implementation of (the adoption) agreement, we stand ready to work with them to improve it and remain committed to supporting inter-country adoptions between our two countries," said acting State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell. "The welfare of children is simply too important to be linked to political aspects of our relationship."

The bill is now heading for Putin?s desk for his signature.

Compliments of the Thomas family

John Thomas and his son, Jack, who was adopted from Russia at the age of 3, in an undated picture taken at their home in Minnetonka, Minn.

Opponents of the ban are still hoping that the president will veto the bill, despite his comments while campaigning for re-election that?U.S. adoptions should no longer be allowed. More recently he has remained silent on the issue.

Over the past week, Russian opponents of the ban have launched petitions and small protests at the parliament building, and several high-level officials have registered strong opposition to it, including Russia?s foreign minister and education minister.

Johnson of the National Council for Adoption says he?s hoping the domestic opposition will dissuade Putin from signing the adoption ban into law.

"One good thing that?s happening ? is a movement brought on by Russian citizens and the foreign minister who has spoken out against this legislation ? saying it?s not the right way to stick it to America,? he said. "Hopefully more politicians will feel comfortable speaking out."

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

Barring that, he said, he hopes Russia will at least make provisions to finalize the adoptions that are already in process.

"There is a precedent ? to negotiate pipeline cases," he said, citing examples in Guatemala and Kyrgystan. "But given the animosity that Russians feel towards this, I hope that?s not a conversation we have to have."

For the Thomases,?despite politics, the adoption effort is now in overdrive. They understand that Nikoly, who turned 4 in June, could be moved at any time ?? and in fact may have been moved already to a Russian institution for children as old as 18.

"That's major," said John Thomas. "That's where bad things start to happen."

For Renee Thomas, her greatest fear is that the boys will not be allowed to grow up together.?But she tries to stay positive for Jack.

"????This morning as I was making him breakfast, he said 'Mom, wouldn't it be great if we woke up Christmas morning and Santa left presents and Teddy under the tree?' My response was 'Let's hope for next year.'"

Follow Kari Huus on Facebook

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/24/16077076-boys-christmas-wish-adoption-of-little-brother-caught-in-us-russia-spat?lite

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