Pakistan: Suicide bomber targeting police kills 6

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A suicide bomber targeting a police van killed six people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, including the son and nephew of an Afghan official involved in peace negotiations with the Taliban, officials said.

The bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, detonated his explosives as the police patrol drove by in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said city police chief Liaqat Ali Khan.

The two Afghans who were killed ? Qazi Mohammad Hilal Waqad and Mohammad Idrees ? were working at their country's consulate in Peshawar, said Afghan Consul General Syed Mohammad Ibrahim Khel in Islamabad.

However, it did not appear they were the target of the attack, Khel said.

Waqad's father, Qazi Amin Waqad, is a member of the Afghan High Peace Council, a group appointed by the Afghan government to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban, said an official at the consulate in Peshawar, Shakir Qarar.

The peace council member was in Afghanistan when the attack occurred, while Waqad and Idrees were driving to work when the bomber struck, Qarar added.

Three policemen were among over 30 people who were wounded by the blast, said the police chief, Khan. Many of the dead and wounded were from a nearby passenger bus, which bore the brunt of the attack.

Local TV footage showed the wreckage of the bus and the motorcycle, as rescue workers rushed wounded people to hospitals in the city.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion will likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban. The group has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years and has stepped up attacks ahead of next month's parliamentary election.

Also Monday, two gunmen riding a motorcycle attacked a campaign office of an anti-Taliban political party in the city of Nowshera in northwestern Pakistan, killing a worker there, Khan said.

On Sunday, the Taliban killed 11 people in bomb attacks on a political rally and two campaign offices in the northwest, part of their quest to disrupt the election. The group has killed at least 60 people in attacks on politicians and party workers since the beginning of April.

The Taliban have specifically targeted more secular political parties that have supported military offensives against the militants in the northwest. The Taliban have largely spared Islamic parties and others who believe the government should strike a peace deal with the militants, rather than fight them.

There is a concern that the violence could benefit the parties that take a softer line toward the militants because they are able to campaign more freely ahead of the May 11 election.

"Unless the government, the country's independent election commission and security forces ensure that all parties can campaign freely without fear, the election may be severely compromised," Ali Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said in a statement issued Monday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-suicide-bomber-targeting-police-kills-6-111054623.html

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my teen daughter's drug supplier - Talk About Marriage

Today, 05:33 AM ? #5 (permalink)

Forum Supporter

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Join Date: Dec 2010

Posts: 4,672

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You'll be wasting your time trying to incriminate the dealers as if your daughter wants MJ chances are she'll find another dealer really quickly even if the one you reported got raided.

MJ is a socially acceptable drug that ALOT of people smoke in their leisure time, which is also why it's very easy to find replacement dealers, and also why it can be hard to quit. In parties, in gatherings, there's always going to be the temptation.

Even if your daughter goes through this program, there's nothing really stopping her from having a smoke once she goes out. But MJ is mild, I would be more worried if she went on heavier drugs. Hence I recommend education, encouragement, and support for your daughter rather than trying to make MJ usage forbidden/getting her in trouble for it. She has to learn personal responsibility, that's the only real defence that one has in the face of drugs.

?

Source: http://talkaboutmarriage.com/family-parenting-forums/72351-my-teen-daughters-drug-supplier.html

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End for Herschel space telescope

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Europe's flagship space telescope has stopped working.

The billion-euro Herschel observatory has run out of the liquid helium needed to keep its instruments and detectors at their ultra-low functioning temperature.

This equipment has now warmed, meaning the telescope cannot see the sky.

Herschel, which was sensitive to far-infrared and sub-millimetre light, was launched in 2009 to study the birth of stars and the evolution of galaxies.

Its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments made it the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space.

The end of operations is not a surprise. Astronomers always knew the helium store onboard would be a time-limiting factor.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

The telescope gathered images and information in such volume that astronomers have barely scratched database?

End Quote Prof Matt Griffin Cardiff University, UK

The "blind" satellite is currently located about 1.5 million km from Earth on the planet's "night side".

Controllers at the European Space Agency's (Esa) operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, will run some final tests on the spacecraft in the coming weeks before putting it in a slow drift around the Sun.

"We will push it out into a heliocentric orbit and passivate it," said Micha Schmidt, the Herschel spacecraft operations manager.

"We will switch off the transponder and the spacecraft will go silent."

Herschel should not come anywhere near the Earth again for several hundred years.

Data legacy

The telescope will be remembered for its great vistas of gas and dust; the billowing clouds and threading filaments that trace the locations where future stars will form.

Over the course of the mission, it gathered thousands of such images. It also acquired detailed spectrographic data on many of its subjects, revealing their chemistry.

All of the information is now being assembled into a public archive.

Jonathan Amos inspected Herschel just before its launch in May 2009

This will become an important resource for future study and a starting point to plan follow-up observations with other astronomical facilities.

This is already happening with the recently opened, ground-based Alma telescope in Chile, which views the sky at frequencies that overlap those pursued by Herschel.

A US-German telescope called Sofia, which is mounted on a converted Boeing 747, can also see some of Herschel's frequencies.

"But the amazing thing about Herschel is that its maximum productivity in science terms probably won't be reached for another five years yet," said Prof Matt Griffin, the principal investigator on Herschel's Spire instrument.

"The telescope gathered images and information in such volume that astronomers have barely scratched the database," the Cardiff University, UK, scientist told BBC News.

Engineers issued an alert early in March warning astronomers that observations were coming to an end.

Herschel used special light detectors in its instruments known as bolometers. Although supremely efficient at capturing light, the technology must be kept close to absolute zero (-273C) to work properly.

This was achieved with the aid of 2,300 litres of liquid helium that was held in a giant flask, or cryostat.

But as the mission progressed, the cryogen gradually boiled away, and, on Monday, the Darmstadt controllers received telemetry from Herschel confirming every last drop was gone.

Continue reading the main story

Herschel Space Telescope

• Herschel was one of the largest space telescopes ever launched; its 3.5m diameter mirror perfectly captured infrared light
• It clocked more than 1,430 days of operations; making 22,000 hours of scientific observations; resulting in 600 scholarly papers... so far
• Infrared shines through gas and dust clouds that can block visible light - Herschel could see deep into dusty, star-forming regions
• The telescope was named after the astronomer William Herschel, who discovered infrared radiation while studying the Sun in 1800
• The Earth's atmosphere is an infrared absorber, so Herschel was launched in 2009 to get a clear view of the long-wavelength Universe

Herschel's demise occurred close to the time forecast at the start of operations nearly four years ago.

If anything, astronomers got a few months' more observations than they were expecting.

Herschel's cryostat approach to cooling was evolved from a previous Esa mission - the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), which operated in the 1990s.

This approach is described as a "passive" system because once initial conditions are set inside the flask, a continuing presence of helium and good insulation is all that is required to maintain those conditions.

An "active", or mechanical, cooling system was considered for Herschel in the initial feasibility studies. This would have involved a chain of Stirling units that use a cycle of compression and decompression in a fluid to get to low temperatures.

Theoretically, mechanical coolers could have given Herschel more life, but engineers considered such a design to be too risky.

"There was a competitive concept but it involved a lot of stages, a lot of machines," recalls Jean-Jacques Juillet, the director of scientific programmes at Thales Alenia Space, the company that led the industrial development of Herschel.

"If one of those stages had failed, it could have been a disaster for the continuity of the mission. The cryostat option was the safest option," he told BBC News.

With the cryostat path adopted, engineers then set about constructing the largest possible helium vessel they could fit inside an Ariane launch rocket.

Esa hopes to join a future far-infrared telescope project called Spica. This is a Japanese venture that could fly in the early 2020s.

Europe would provide important components, including the primary mirror and a spectrograph. Unlike Herschel, Spica is likely to use mechanical coolers.

Continue reading the main story

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21934520#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Is This the Closest We'll Ever Get To Seeing a Back to the Future Hoverboard Fly?

Everyone wants a hoverboard. Everyone. Don't even try to disagree. But while you can buy a lame-o, non-working Back to the Future-style 'board, it's just not the real thing. Crazy optimists can hold out hope for 2015, but in the meantime, this clever little picture by Fran?ois Dourlen is probably the best we can do. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/fRjmNKttFVk/is-this-the-closest-well-ever-get-to-seeing-a-back-to-the-future-hoverboard-fly

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Pale Plague

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It began 40 years ago. A plague which turns man and beast into monstrous beings. Somehow, many humans survived the plague, but it continues to spread. Now, only the Plague Doctors can help.

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Pale Plague?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "Pale Plague"

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The people shouldn't be afraid of their government.
The government should be afraid of their people.

LuminousKing

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Italian court rejects Nomura seizure order: sources

SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian judge has rejected an order to seize around 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) of assets from Japanese bank Nomura as part of a probe into suspected fraud involving troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena, legal sources said on Saturday.

Assets worth 140 million euros that were already seized from the Japanese bank have been released under the judge's ruling, which was made on Friday, the judicial source said.

A spokeswoman for Nomura in Italy declined to comment.

Prosecutors in Siena investigating lossmaking derivatives trades made under Monte Paschi's previous management ordered the seizure of around 1.8 billion euros of assets from the Japanese bank on April 16, but the court has rejected their request to have the order endorsed.

The trades under scrutiny include a structured deal with Nomura known as 'Alexandria', as well as a similar trade with Deutsche Bank called 'Santorini' and a smaller deal called 'Nota Italia' with JP Morgan.

It was not immediately clear whether under the judge's ruling Monte Paschi has to resume collateral payments on the Alexandria deal, which had been frozen by the prosecutors order.

On Friday Nomura's chief financial officer, Shigesuke Kashiwagi, said in a note that his bank intended to engage with Italian prosecutors to find a solution.

Monte Paschi was forced earlier this year to book losses of nearly 1 billion euros after disclosing details of the complex derivatives deals.

The bank had already been weakened by the euro zone crisis and has been forced to accept help from the state in the form of 4 billion euros of state bonds to meet tough capital requirements set by European regulators.

The investigation is also politically sensitive in Italy as the Tuscan bank had strong links with local center-left party leaders.

($1=0.7676 euros)

(Reporting by Silvia Ognibene and Danilo Masoni; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-court-rejects-seizure-nomura-assets-monte-paschi-095954292.html

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Big brands rejected Bangladesh factory safety plan

A Bangladeshi woman weeps as she holds a picture of her and her missing husband as she waits at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. The death toll reached hundreds of people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

A Bangladeshi woman weeps as she holds a picture of her and her missing husband as she waits at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. The death toll reached hundreds of people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

A Bangladeshi woman weeps as she holds a picture of her and her missing husband as she waits at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. The death toll reached hundreds of people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

A Bangladeshi woman weeps as she waits at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. The death toll reached hundreds of people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? As Bangladesh reels from the deaths of hundreds of garment workers in a building collapse, the refusal of global retailers to pay for strict nationwide factory inspections is bringing renewed scrutiny to an industry that has profited from a country notorious for its hazardous workplaces and subsistence-level wages.

After a factory fire killed 112 garment workers in November, clothing brands and retailers continued to reject a union-sponsored proposal to improve safety throughout Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry. Instead, companies expanded a patchwork system of private audits and training that labor groups say improves very little in a country where official inspections are lax and factory owners have close relations with the government.

In the meantime, threats to workers persist. In the five months since last year's deadly blaze at Tazreen Fashions Ltd., there were 41 other "fire incidents" in Bangladesh factories ? ranging from a deadly blaze to smaller fires or sparks that caused employees to panic, according to a labor organization tied to the AFL-CIO umbrella group of American unions. Combined, the recent incidents killed nine workers and injured more than 660, some with burns and smoke inhalation and others with injuries from stampedes while fleeing.

Wednesday's collapse of the Rana Plaza building that killed more than 300 people is the worst disaster to hit Bangladesh's fast-growing and politically powerful garment industry. For those attempting to overhaul conditions for workers who are paid as little as $38 a month, it is a grim reminder that corporate social responsibility programs are failing to deliver on lofty promises.

More than 48 hours after the eight-story building collapsed, some garment workers were still trapped alive Friday, pinned beneath tons of mangled metal and concrete. Rescue crews struggled to save them, knowing they probably had just a few hours left to live, as desperate relatives clashed with police.

"Improvement is not happening," said Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh, who said a total of 600 workers have died in factory accidents in the last decade. "The multinational companies claim a lot of things. They claim they have very good policies, they have their own code of conduct, they have their auditing and monitoring system," Amin said. "But yet these things keep happening."

What role retailers should play in making working conditions safer at the factories that manufacture their apparel has become a central issue for the $1 trillion global clothing industry.

The clothing brands say they are working to improve safety, but the size of the garment industry ? some 4,000 factories in Bangladesh alone ?means such efforts skim the surface. That opaqueness is further muddied by subcontracting. Retailers can be unwittingly involved with problematic factories when their main suppliers farm out work to others to ensure orders are filled on time.

"We remain committed to promoting stronger safety measures in factories and that work continues," Wal-Mart said in a statement after the Rana Plaza collapse. The world's largest retailer says there was no authorized Wal-Mart production in the building. One of the Rana Plaza factories, Ether Tex, listed Wal-Mart as a customer on its website.

Labor groups argue the best way to clean up Bangladesh's garment factories already is outlined in a nine-page safety proposal drawn up by Bangladeshi and international unions.

The plan would ditch government inspections, which are infrequent and easily subverted by corruption, and establish an independent inspectorate to oversee all factories in Bangladesh, with powers to shut down unsafe facilities as part of a legally binding contract signed by suppliers, customers and unions. The inspections would be funded by contributions from the companies of up to $500,000 per year.

The proposal was presented at a 2011 meeting in Dhaka attended by more than a dozen of the world's largest clothing brands and retailers ? including Wal-Mart, Gap and Swedish clothing giant H&M ? but was rejected by the companies because it would be legally binding and costly.

At the time, Wal-Mart's representative told the meeting it was "not financially feasible ... to make such investments," according to minutes of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

After last year's Tazreen blaze, Bangladeshi union president Amin said he and international labor activists renewed a push for the independent inspectorate plan, but none of the factories or big brands would agree.

Siddiqur Rahman, former vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, denied the factories are responsible for killing the plan, saying the problem was that buyers did not want to pay for it.

"We welcome anything that is good for the garment industry and its workers here," Rahman said. He also disputed several union groups' figures of dozens of factory fires since November, saying there had been only one.

Global Solidarity, the AFL-CIO group, said its staff in Bangladesh compiled the list of 41 "fire incidents" from local media and counted any incident that caused injury or evacuation as an indication of compromised safety.

This week, none of the large clothing brands or retailers would comment about the proposal.

Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner did not directly answer questions about the unions' safety plans in replies to questions emailed by The Associated Press. H&M responded to questions with emailed links to corporate social responsibility websites.

In December, however, a spokesperson for the Gap ? which owns the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains ? said the company turned down the proposal because it did not want to be vulnerable to lawsuits and did not want to pay factories more money to help with safety upgrades.

H&M also did not sign on to the proposal because it believes factories and local government in Bangladesh should be taking on the responsibility, Pierre B?rjesson, manager of sustainability and social issues, told AP in December.

H&M, which places the most apparel orders in Bangladesh and works with more than 200 factories there, is one of about 20 retailers and brands that have banded together to develop training films for garment manufacturers.

Wal-Mart last year began requiring regular audits of factories, fire drills and mandated fire safety training for all levels of factory management. It also announced in January it would immediately cut ties with any factory that failed an inspection, instead of giving warnings first as before.

And the Gap has hired its own chief fire inspector to oversee factories that produce its clothing in Bangladesh.

But many insist such measures are not enough to overhaul an industry that employs 3 million workers.

"No matter how much training you have, you can't walk through flames or escape a collapsed building," said Ineke Zeldenrust of the Amsterdam-based Clean Clothes Campaign, which lobbies for garment workers' rights.

Private audits also have their failings, she said. Because audits are confidential, even if one company pulls its business from a supplier over safety issues, it won't tell its competitors, who will continue to place orders ? allowing the unsafe factory to stay open.

The Tazreen factory that burned last year had passed inspections, and two of the factories in the Rana Plaza building had passed the standards of a major European group that does factory inspections in developing countries. The Business Social Compliance Initiative, which represents hundreds of companies, said the factories of Phantom Apparels and New Wave Style had been audited against its code of conduct which it said focuses on labor issues, not building standards.

"The audits and inspections are too much focused on checklists," said Saif Khan, who worked for Phillips Van Heusen, the owner of brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, in Bangladesh until 2011 as a factory compliance supervisor.

"They touch on broader areas but do not consider the realities on the ground," he said.

___

Johnson reported from Mumbai, India. AP reporter Farid Hossain contributed from Bangladesh. AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York and AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong also contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-26-Bangladesh-Building%20Collapse-Inaction/id-61e60c59a51c4f62ab3814c4d9c3b15c

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93% No

All Critics (97) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (90) | Rotten (7)

"No" is a picture that perches precariously on the cusp of a paradox.

A cunning and richly enjoyable combination of high-stakes drama and media satire from Chilean director Pablo Larrain.

A mesmerizing, realistic and often hilarious look at the politics of power and the power of ideas ...

A political drama, a personal drama, a sharp-eyed study of how the media manipulate us from all sides, No reels and ricochets with emotional force.

It's a funny look at the way the media warp public opinion, and a curiously hopeful one.

On every level, "No" leaves one with bittersweet feelings about democracy, love and the cost of compromise.

... features a fine performance by Gael Garc?a Bernal as young ad exec Ren? Saavedra, who didn't, at first, quite realise what he was in for when he decided to assist in the bringing down of military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

No is a great historical document as to how one very important revolution started with a commercial.

The understated performance by Bernal was inspiring, as was the pic.

It's not easy material but it's truly fascinating, and expertly done.

An extremely perceptive and intriguing examination of the effect that media hype and spin have on the political process.

...a bitter and knowing meditation on media manipulation and political subversion.

Larrain deftly mixes social satire and historical drama.

All historical and little drama.

Larrain does a fine job of making No look and sound authentic to its time period, although the VHS-quality photography, all washed-out with colors bleeding together as camcorders did in the '80s, is an occasional irritant.

Silliness is on the side of the angels in a brilliant and highly entertaining film that's part political thriller, part media satire.

It's clear that the language of advertising has become universal, and that political commodities can be sold like soap. But toppling a dictatorship? Now there's a story.

A reflection of a moment in time, made in the image of that moment.

Bernal deftly explores the layers of the character's complexity, including his political apathy.

"No" is filmmaking of the first order.

Old technology plus the packaging of a revolution add up to a Yes

Freshens up a decades-old story with vibrant humor and a good sense of storytelling.

No continually impresses for its slyness and savvy -- rarely has such an eyesore been so worth watching.

No quotes approved yet for No. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/no_2012/

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Fit Planet Week 29th April ? 3rd May | Woodhead Primary School

Next week our children will be taking part in a variety of indoor and outdoor activities to promote their fitness, health and wellbeing. They will also be taking on ?eco challenges? to raise awareness of environmental issues. There will be healthy eating workshops, Bollywood dancing, a mobile adventure course, fencing and cycle tracks to try. Make sure your child comes to school with a waterproof jacket incase it rains when they are outside on activities. We are looking forward to a whole lot of fun!

Source: http://www.woodhead-primary.org.uk/fit-planet-week-29th-april-3rd-may/

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Farm Food: Nice salad, cobber | Surf Coast Times ? Bellarine Times ...

Last week I travelled to New York. It was a completely unplanned journey to see a close friend; he and his family live an hour?s drive from New York.

The New England area is beautiful and you could almost feel the trees about to burst into their spring life. Much of the countryside is showing the devastation caused by cyclone Sandy last year. It really is quite dramatic.

I ate at a variety of places including some up market restaurants in New England, a couple of steak houses in New York and of course American diners. I?m not the first to notice the incredibly large serving portions in the US. Most times I was served enough food for two. Meals are often served with fries and you really have to watch the amount of food you eat.

The American diner is a wonderful tradition. I ordered a cheese burger, fries and a chocolate milk shake; it was really good simple fare. The steak places in New York were amazing. One had dried aged steak as a display in the front window. It was a cool room with hundreds of sirloins from which to choose. I ordered the smallest steak on the menu and it was enormous. Served with French fires and beautiful asparagus, the meat was perfect.

The restaurants in New England are similar to ours. People dress for dinner. I asked my hosts what I should wear on one occasion; they mentioned it was casual so I put on some casual trousers and a polo top. Everyone in the restaurant was wearing a sports coat and tie and the women were dressed to the nines.

The menu was incredibly extensive and had everything from Maine lobster to Russian beluga caviar. I ordered a calamari entr?e and a Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing. The calamari was cooked in a seafood bisque with chilli and lime and was delicious.

The highlight, however, was a simple Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing. The interesting ?food history? website describes the origin of the Cobb salad as follows.

?One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, then owner of The Brown Derby, prowled hungrily in his restaurant?s kitchen for a snack. Opening the huge refrigerator, he pulled out this and that: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing. He started chopping, added some crisp bacon and the Cobb salad was born.?

The salad I had was served with eye fillet of beef instead of chicken. It was beautifully put together and I was surprised how well everything combined.

On the flight from LA to Melbourne, I started talking to my fellow traveller thinking she looked familiar. Turns out she was a customer of ours and lived ? you guessed it ? in Torquay!

Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing

Ingredients
200g crumbled blue cheese (use half in dressing and crumble remainder in salad)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
4 rashers bacon, chopped
2 eye fillet steaks
Cos lettuce, chopped
Cherry tomatoes, halved
1 avocados peeled and chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered

Method
Process dressing ingredients in a food processor until well combined. Cook bacon in a large nonstick fry pan over medium-high heat until crisp, about five minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towel and pour off all but one tablespoon fat from skillet. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Cook to your liking. Combine lettuce, tomatoes, remaining cheese, beef, and dressing in a serving bowl. Top with salad with crisp bacon, avocados, and eggs.

Source: http://www.surfcoasttimes.com.au/entertainment/foodanddrink/2013/04/26/farm-food-nice-salad-cobber/

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Optimus G Pro for AT&T leaks out ahead of LG's US press event

Want a glimpse of what LG may have in store for the US market come the first of May? Chances are this latest render (pictured above) from @evleaks could very turn out to be AT&T's Optimus G Pro variant. From the looks of things, not much has changed design-wise since we reviewed the 5.5-inch global model, with the removable, high-gloss backplate still sporting that sub-surface pattern first introduced on the Optimus G. Even the arrangement of the rear camera, flash and speaker appear to have remained the same -- the only noticeable difference is the AT&T globe situated none too subtly below. Whether or not LG's reworked its internals remains to be seen, but with the event now less than a week away, we'll have all the answers soon enough.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, AT&T, LG

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Source: EVLeaks (Twitter)

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What Does the Obama Budget Mean For Small Business Owners?

2012 was the political year of small business. The election was a big reason for that. An even bigger reason is the fact that small business accounts for 60% of jobs in this country.

However, economic uncertainty and a lack of capital are currently discouraging hiring. As long as small business owners lack the cash flow for growth, the economy will remain stagnant. Fortunately, Washington is finally starting to catch on.

President Obama recently revealed his $3.8 trillion 2014 budget proposal and it contains several provisions that are designed to support small business owners. But it also contains other stipulations that could potentially hurt small business. Below are the main things that small business owners need to know about the Obama budget:

Taxes

The budget proposes a tax credit for small business owners who hired new employees and gave raises to current employees in 2012. The one-time credit would apply to companies that paid less than $20 million in wages in 2012 and would be equivalent to 10% of the amount paid to new workers and/or the raises given to current employees. The credit would cap at $5 million.

Would you benefit from the proposed credit?

President Obama has also proposed a minimum tax rate of 30% for households earning $1 million or more annually. Small business interest groups are protesting this proposal on the grounds that many small business owners pay pass-through taxes on their business income.This would place them in the proposed 30% tax bracket ? higher than is appropriate for their actual personal income.

Minimum Wage

President Obama?s State of the Union proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9/hour from the current $7.25/hour made it into the budget. Expect Republicans and small business owners alike to rally against this one.

Entitlements

In an effort to compromise with conservatives in Congress, Obama has proposed cuts to some entitlement programs including Social Security and Medicare. The cuts would trim $1.2 billion from spending on these programs over the next ten years. Many former small business owners rely heavily on these programs during their retirements and are opposed to the cuts.

They are joined in their criticism by members of the President?s own party.

The SBA

Perhaps the most significant of the proposed budget changes are related to the Small Business Administration (SBA). The plan will chop 12% or $109 million from the SBA budget, bringing the total budget down to $810 million.

But the SBA would get an additional $4 million to hire 32 government contract specialists to work towards facilitating more small business government contracts. The proposal also includes measures to streamline the application process for SBA loans and to increase the number of lenders working with the SBA. Fees for small business loans under $150,000 would be waived, which will help maintain cash flow for the smaller businesses who typically apply for loans of that size.

What are your thoughts on President Obama?s proposed budget? Do you think these changes would help or hurt small business?

Obama Photo via Shutterstock

About Rohit Arora

Rohit Arora, CEO and Co-founder of Biz2Credit, is one of the country's leading experts in small business finance. Since its founding in 2007, Biz2Credit has arranged $800M in small business loans and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs. Rohit was named Crain's NY Business "Entrepreneur of the Year 2011."

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/04/obama-budget-small-business-owners.html

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PFT: Geno Smith won't be back in building for Round 2

AP

Five trades occurred in Round One of the 2013 NFL Draft on Thursday. Here are the terms of those deals:

The Dolphins acquired the Raiders? first-round choice (No. 3 overall), with Oakland receiving Miami?s first- and second-round choices?(Nos. 12 and 42) in return. The Dolphins selected Oregon defensive end Dion Jordan with the No. 3 overall pick, with the Raiders taking D.J. Hayden 12th.

The Rams traded for the Bills? first- and third-round choices?(Nos. 8 and 71), with Buffalo getting St. Louis??first-, second-, third- and seventh-round choices?(Nos. 16, 46, 78, 222). With the No. 8 pick, the Rams drafted West Virginia wide receiver Tavon Austin. At No. 16, the Bills selected?Florida State quarterback E.J. Manuel.

The 49ers traded up with Dallas, acquiring the?Cowboys? first-round choice?(No. 18) for San Francisco?s first- and third-round choices (Nos. 31 and 74, the latter of which once belonged to Carolina). At No. 18, the 49ers?drafted?Louisiana State safety Eric Reid. The Cowboys took Wisconsin center Travis Frederick 31st.

The Falcons traded their first-round pick (No. 30) as well as third- and sixth-round choices (Nos. 92, 198) for?the Rams? first-round choice (No. 22 overall and formerly Washington?s Round One pick) and a conditional 2o15 seventh-round pick.?The Falcons drafted?Washington cornerback Desmond Trufant at No. 22. The Rams, meanwhile, selected Georgia linebacker Alec Ogletree at No. 30.

The Vikings, who had already exercised two earlier first-round picks (Nos. 23, 25), traded back into Round One, acquiring the Patriots? first-round pick (No. 29) in exchange for second-, third-, fourth- and seventh-round picks (Nos. 52, 83, 102, 229). (Pick No. 102 was originally Detroit?s selection.) The Vikings drafted?Tennessee wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson at No. 29.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/26/geno-smith-says-he-wont-be-back-on-friday/related/

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Reese Witherspoon's Mug Shot Pose Explained

There's something strange about Reese Witherspoon's mug shot -- besides the fact that it exists in the first place. After being arrested for disorderly conduct in Atlanta, the actress, who has admitted to having "one drink too many," posed for the obligatory photo. Her husband Jim Toth, who was arrested for DUI, stares straight ahead in his photo. But Reese isn't even looking at the camera. Isn't that a little odd?

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/reese-witherspoons-mug-shot-pose-explained/1-a-534221?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Areese-witherspoons-mug-shot-pose-explained-534221

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Kerry seeks to boost Afghan, Pakistan ties (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301213878?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Cautious relief in Peoria as water levels fall

Mike Branchik returns to dry land using a make shift walkway from his home as the Illinois River floods homes Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Peoria Heights, Ill. Floodwaters are rising to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Mike Branchik returns to dry land using a make shift walkway from his home as the Illinois River floods homes Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Peoria Heights, Ill. Floodwaters are rising to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

A water pump house is surrounded by water as the Illinois River rises out of it's banks Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Peoria Heights, Ill. Floodwaters are rising to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. Communities in Illinois and Missouri are hoping to hold back surging rivers swollen by days of drenching rain. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

The Illinois Valley Yacht and Canoe Club is surrounded by water as the Illinois River rises out of it's banks flooding businesses and homes Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Peoria Heights, Ill. Floodwaters are rising to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Heavy machinery moves sandbags as other sit staged, ready for possible use in the fight against floodwaters Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Dutchtown, Mo. The tiny community of Dutchtown is doing what it can to prepare ahead of any possible flood. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Water covers the intersection of Illinois State Route 100 and Route 3 in Grafton, Ill. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. More rain on Tuesday was the last thing flood fighters across the Midwest wanted to see, adding more water to swollen rivers that are now expected to remain high into next month. (AP Photo/Belleville News-Democrat, Derik Holtmann)

PEORIA HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) ? Floodwaters began a slow, inch-by-inch retreat Wednesday in inundated Peoria, Ill., offering hope to residents who watched helplessly as the Illinois River reached a 70-year high and swamped their homes and businesses.

In downtown Peoria, tens of thousands of white and yellow sandbags stacked 3 feet high lined blocks of the scenic riverfront, holding back waters that already had surrounded the visitors' center and restaurants in the 114-year-old former train depot. Across the street, smaller sandbag walls blocked riverside pedestrian access to the headquarters of heavy equipment maker Caterpillar and the city's arts and culture museum.

The flood will take its toll economically on Peoria, but authorities watching the receding waters expressed relief that, so far, no lives have been lost.

Elsewhere, there were no reports of other significant Midwestern population centers in peril, but officials were urging caution because of predictions that waterways will remain high through early May and sustain pressure on earthen levees.

Concerns persist along the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri, where smaller levees had been overtopped or breached, especially in Lincoln and Pike counties. But sandbag levees in the unprotected towns of Clarksville, Mo., and Dutchtown, Mo., were holding ahead of expected crests later in the week.

Officials in Peoria said the Illinois River finally crested Tuesday at 29.35 feet, eclipsing a 70-year record.

Because the water made numerous roads around the city impassable, firefighters had been especially concerned about being able to battle blazes since the water made numerous roads around the area impassable.

Their closest call came late Tuesday when an above-ground gasoline storage tank at a former boat repair business broke loose, raising concerns of potential disaster if it got swept south into downtown Peoria.

Peoria Heights Fire Chief Greg Walters and others managed to lasso it and wrangle it to shore.

"That's the only real issue we've had at this point," Walters said. "We're fortunate in that respect. I'm feeling blessed. Fingers crossed."

Blair Pumphrey also hoped for good luck, but he wasn't so fortunate. On Wednesday, he was moving out of his small, brick rental home ? its basement flooded to the rafters and the garage swamped. His backyard resembled a lake, with an occasional goose swimming by.

A small wall of sandbags he put up with friends days earlier held off the river for a time, but it proved futile.

"Once the basement started leaking, there was no stopping it," said Pumphrey, 29, an electrician and member of the Illinois Air National Guard. "Then when the river came around the front, there was nothing I could do."

Among those still in their homes was Mark Reatherford. The 52-year-old unemployed baker has lived for decades in his split-level, which has a view of a small park and the Illinois River. By Tuesday afternoon, as a chilly rain fell, the river had rolled over the park and reached Reatherford's home, creating a 3-foot-deep mess in the basement.

He cleared out the basement furniture and was hoping the main floor would stay dry. But he hadn't dismissed the idea of abandoning his home in Peoria Heights, about 150 miles southwest of Chicago.

"You can't get a better view than what we've got here," he said, acknowledging "I'm getting too old to deal with this."

Nearby, retired Caterpillar crane operator Roland Gudat spent much of Tuesday afternoon on his porch swing, marveling at the river, which had swamped houses down the street but largely spared his home of 46 years. The 73-year-old said he had pumped from his basement hundreds of gallons of water that had seeped up from the saturated ground.

Gudat remarked that he'd never seen the river so high, but nonetheless could not tolerate the gawkers that were using neighborhood driveways to turn around.

"I told them this isn't a damn cul-de-sac," he said. Gudat and his neighbors placed saw horses in their driveways, forcing sightseers to reverse back down the road.

"If they knock those saw horses over, I'm gonna turn their keys off and call the cops. Don't come here and bug people in misery," he said.

In southwestern Indiana, floodgates have been installed to keep the Wabash River from overrunning Vincennes, which was founded in 1732. Some strategic spots in the state's oldest town have been reinforced with sandbags. The weather service projected a crest on Saturday about 12 feet above flood stage, the highest in nearly 70 years.

The Grand River at Grand Rapids, Mich., which reached record levels recently has receded about 2 feet. Weather officials said it was expected to fall below flood stage Thursday, but it was unclear when the hundreds of people evacuated could return to their homes.

___

Salter reported from St. Louis. Associated Press writer Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-24-Spring%20Flooding/id-9a02e475e58a4adf9e94e985ca6d25cf

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Samsung Galaxy S4 versus HTC One: The editors face off

The UK's Alex Dobie and the USA's Phil Nickinson take on two of the year's hottest phones

With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Android smartphone battle lines are drawn. Samsung’s new flagship will go up against the HTC One, and it’s sure to be a fierce fight. Samsung needs to maintain the lead it established in 2012; for HTC, the future of the company depends on the success of the HTC One.

So which one should you buy? As always, it’s never as simple as recommending one device over the other. That’s why we’re launching into a little discussion with Alex and Phil, where we’ll try to spell out exactly where each device is strongest.

Join us after the break as we go back and forth on the HTC One versus Galaxy S4. There’s also a good old-fashioned video comparison, if you’re into that sort of thing.

More: Samsung Galaxy S4 review

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Q9Tq4-60L6g/story01.htm

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Visual Mobile App Builder Tiggzi Relaunches As Appery.io, Adds New Enterprise Features

Exadel’s Tiggzi online mobile app development service for iOS, Android and Windows Phone launched almost exactly a year ago and today, the company is officially rebranding it as Appery.io. The reason for this change, the company told me, is to “reflect the evolution of Appery.io as well as to support where [the] platform is headed. ” The service always stood out from its competition because it focused strongly on connecting apps to existing RESTful APIs, making it more flexible than most similar visual drag-and-drop app building tools on the market. In addition, Appery.io also offers its own set of backend tools for app developers. Existing Tiggzi users and their apps will be automatically migrated to the new system and all existing apps will continue to function. Appery.io will use the same visual editor as Tiggzi.com and most of the major changes have happened on the backend, where the team added a number of new tools and features. In this new incarnation, Appery.io continues to put an emphasis on enterprise and business apps, but there is no reason why you couldn’t also use it to build and text- and data-heavy application for small and medium-sized businesses. For enterprise users, however, the service offers a number of specialized features. The integration with Exadel’s RESTxpress, for example, now makes it easy for developers to securely connect apps to existing enterprise databases (including support for Oracle databases, for example) and business application. The service allows apps to connect to applications that have to be installed behind the firewall and then makes this data available through a REST API for off-premise apps. Support for Salesforce.com and a number of similar enterprise systems is already built into the service. For developers, connecting an app to these APIs should only take a few minutes, thanks to Appery.io’s easy to use interface. Indeed, building apps is pretty easy with Appery.io, though because the tool is definitely meant for professional programmers, there is a bit of a learning curve here. ?Exadel has a broad footprint in the enterprise development space, and we recognize that mobile requires a different approach,? said Exadel CEO Fima Katz in a canned statement today. ?With mobile, customers can?t wait for long development cycles to be completed; agility and time to market are extremely important. With Appery.io enterprises can rapidly innovate and easily onboard developers of all skill levels as all the tools are visual

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-RLG86Zvusg/

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