Friday, May 31, 2013

Internet Marketing | How to Turn Off Potential Clients Online ...

By: Jeannie Spiro (see my bio)
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The main reason why car salespeople have such a bad reputation is because we as consumers hate being sold to.

Have you ever noticed how a sale goes much smoother when you?re actually active in the process and prepared to handle it?

Take for example a time when you wanted to buy a new computer. You went to Best Buy, marched into the computer department and started looking at the difference between all of the available models. When it was time for the sales representative to approach you, you actually didn?t cringe. Why? Because you were prepared, you were ready for it?the sales process was welcome and you were expecting the money conversation to happen.

As a business owner working to market and sell your business online you need to avoid developing a poor reputation. The last thing you want to do is be blocked or reported. So instead of coming across too strong online, develop a style that is conducive to future conversations and or sales.

We?ve all seen it happen?.the unwelcome Facebook post on your business page telling you to come to their page and like theirs too. Then there?s the constant promotion of their stuff and every Facebook post is a promo and every tweet is an ad.

How about when someone ?friends? you on Facebook and then the next minute they send you an invitation to ?like? their page and a lengthy Facebook message all about why they can help you? It turns you off doesn?t it?

The problem with these techniques is that it?s social media cold calling ? there?s no warm up period and the hidden agenda is completely visible. It makes you cringe when someone tries to sell to you without you giving them permission to do so doesn?t it?

There?s a much better way to sell on social media and it?s as simple as cultivating relationships.

That?s it all it really is.

So don?t constantly promote your stuff ? do it about 20-30% of the time.

Get to know people on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn ? take the connection offline and have a conversation.

Never post a link to your page on someone else?s page unless they?ve invited you to do so ? it?s simply not cool!

Can you see the importance of social media sales etiquette? It absolutely makes a difference to your bottom line.


A licensed Life and Health Insurance Consultant and Certified Life Coach and Career Coach, Jeannie Spiro grew her business, using her 20+ years in corporate sales and marketing, while working full time and raising two children. Her Mompreneur tips have been featured on TheGrindstone.com and LifeBusinessGrowth.com.? Visit her at http://jeanniespiro.com

Source: http://www.solo-e.com/blog/2013/05/turn-potential-clients-online.html

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Syrian regime says it has Russian missiles

FILE - This Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009 file photo shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, seen, during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, at the presidency in Tehran, Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the U.S. and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - This Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009 file photo shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, seen, during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, at the presidency in Tehran, Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the U.S. and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows Syrian forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad at the Dabaa military air base, in Homs province, Syria, Thursday, May 30, 2013. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported ongoing clashes in the town on Thursday. The Observatory called for urgent aid to the injured inside the town, most of which is now controlled by Assad?s troops, including the Dabaa military air base just outside Qusair. (AP Photo/SANA)

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows Syrian forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad at the Dabaa military air base, in Homs province, Syria, Thursday, May 30, 2013. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported ongoing clashes in the town on Thursday. The Observatory called for urgent aid to the injured inside the town, most of which is now controlled by Assad?s troops, including the Dabaa military air base just outside Qusair. (AP Photo/SANA)

(AP) ? Syrian President Bashar Assad said the regime has received the first shipment of sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missiles, and the main Western-backed opposition group announced Thursday that it will not participate in peace talks ? a double blow to international efforts to end the country's devastating civil war.

Assad's comment on the arrival of the long-range S-300 air defense missiles in Syria, which was made in an interview with Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned TV station, could further ratchet up tensions in the region and undermine any efforts to hold any peace talks.

However, American officials said they have no evidence that the Assad regime has received a shipment of S-300s. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Israel's defense chief, Moshe Yaalon, said earlier this week that Russia's plan to supply Syria with the weapons was a threat and that Israel was prepared to use force to stop the delivery.

"Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets," Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV quoted Assad as saying. The Syrian leader added: "All our agreements with Russia will be implemented and parts of them have already been implemented."

The station released Assad's comments on the Russian missiles in print, through its breaking news service Thursday morning. An official at Al-manar confirmed to The Associated Press that the remarks were from the exclusive interview the TV was to air in full later Thursday.

The shipment of the missiles, if confirmed, comes just days after the European Union lifted an arms embargo on Syria, paving way for individual countries of the 27-member bloc to send weapons to rebels fighting to topple Assad's regime.

The developments raise fears of an arms race ? not just between Assad's forces and the opposition fighters battling to topple his regime, but also in the wider Middle East.

Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent months that are believed to have destroyed weapon shipments bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group that along with Iran and Russia is a staunch Assad ally. It is not clear whether Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace in these attacks.

With the Russian missiles in Syria's possession, the Israeli air force's ability to strike inside the Arab country could be limited since the S-300s would expand Syria's capabilities, allowing it to counter airstrikes launched from foreign airspace as well.

The S-300s have a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) and the capability to track and strike multiple targets simultaneously. Syria already possesses Russian-made air defenses, and Israel is believed to have used long-distance bombs fired from Israeli or Lebanese airspace.

When Israeli warplanes struck near the capital of Damascus, targeting purported Iranian missiles intended for Hezbollah earlier this month, Syria did not respond.

But on Wednesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV that Damascus "will retaliate immediately" if Israel strikes Syrian soil again.

It was the regime's most serious warning to Israel since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011 but it was not clear if there was a link between al-Moallem's remark and the Russian shipment.

Israel had no immediate reaction on the Russian shipment but Silvan Shalom, a Cabinet minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party, told Israel Radio that the Jewish state will "take actions" to make sure advanced weapons don't reach rogue groups.

Meanwhile, the Syrian National Coalition's decision not to attend U.S.-Russian sponsored talks with representatives of the Assad regime torpedoes the only plan for trying to end Syria's two-year conflict that the international community had been able to agree on.

"The talk about the international conference and a political solution to the situation in Syria has no meaning in light of the massacres that are taking place," a spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, Khalid Saleh, told reporters in Istanbul, where the opposition has been holding week-long deliberations on a strategy for the Geneva talks.

He said the group will not support any international peace efforts in light of Iran's and Hezbollah's "invasion" of Syria.

Saleh was referring to the increasingly prominent roles of Iran and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group in backing Assad's forces on the ground.

"The National Coalition will not participate in an international conference and will not support any efforts in light of Iran's malicious invasion of Syria," he added.

The opposition's announcement came just a day after al-Moallem said the government would attend the planned peace conference in Geneva but laid out terms that made it difficult for the opposition to accept.

Al-Moallem said Assad will remain president at least until elections in 2014 and might seek another term, and that any deal reached in such talks would have to be put to a referendum.

Russian news agencies reported Thursday that U.S., Russian and U.N. diplomats will meet Wednesday in Geneva to discuss preparations for the Syria conference. The reports, citing an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry official, were published before the coalition announced it would skip the talks.

The U.S. strategy has been to try to launch a dialogue between the regime and the opposition that would set a timetable for Assad's removal, said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center. "That policy is now in tatters," he said.

In Syria, Assad's forces backed by Hezbollah fighters fought pockets of resistance in the strategic town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government controls most of Qusair following a fierce, 12-day battle with opposition forces.

Thursday's sporadic clashes came as government troops were mopping up in northern and western parts of Qusair, said the Observatory, which relies on information from a network of activists on the ground.

The Syrian army on Wednesday took control of nearby Dabaa air base, dealing a major blow to the rebels in Qusair, an overwhelmingly Sunni town in western part of the country that has been controlled by the opposition since early last year.

The government launched an offensive on Qusair on May 19 and Hezbollah militants joined the battle, drawing the Lebanese Shiite group deep into the civil war next door.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the 26-months-old Syrian conflict that has had increasingly sectarian overtones. Members of Syria's Sunni Muslim majority dominate the rebel ranks and Assad's regime is mostly made up of Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Both sides in the conflict value Qusair, which lies along a land corridor linking two Assad's strongholds, the capital of Damascus and an area along the Mediterranean coast that is the Alawite heartland. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon, just 10 kilometers (six miles) away.

The Coalition on Thursday launched an urgent appeal for relief efforts to rescue what it said were over 1,000 wounded people in the Syrian town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon.

"It is not reasonable, it is not logical that people and civilians are getting killed minute by minute while the international community continues in a standstill," Saleh said, speaking to reporters in English.

___

AP writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Karin Laub in Beirut contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-30-ML-Syria/id-908ec033f2de4ca8b817b7ef2a310d3c

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NASA's Aqua Satellite Finds More than Faces in the Clouds

Even schoolchildren understand the basics of the water cycle?ocean water evaporates into clouds, rains down over land, and flows back into the sea?but in our era of rapidly changing weather, just knowing the basics doesn't cut it. To figure out how the water cycle operates on a global scale and how its variations affect life on this planet, NASA relies on the Aqua satellite.

Aqua is the second satellite in the Earth Observing System (EOS), a major international scientific research mission. Preceded by the Terra satellite in 1999 and followed by the Aurora satellite in 2004, the Aqua launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket in May of 2002. The Aqua flies a globe-spanning polar orbit at the head of the Afternoon Constellation group of satellites, also known as the A-Train, and covers the breadth of the planet every 16 days.

NASA's Aqua Satellite Finds More than Faces in the Clouds

During the Aqua's two week revolution, it tracks, measures, and quantifies virtually every aspect of the water cycle in acute detail?whether that water is liquid, vapor, or ice. It sees everything from the rate of oceanic evaporation to the relative reserves of land and sea ice to surface temperatures and soil moisture. In addition, the Aqua is outfitted with the capability to measure radiative energy fluxes, atmospheric aerosols, vegetative cover on land and phytoplankton populations in the ocean.

The satellite employs a group of six observational instruments from a variety of international sponsors to produce the system's approximately 89GB of daily data. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer?Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) from JAXA measures precipitation rate, water vapor, surface moisture content, sea ice and snow extent, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder NASA Atmospheric temperature and humidity, land and sea surface temperatures, cloud, radioactive energy spikes; the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) also from NASA measures atmospheric temperature and humidity as well as radiative energy. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) by Raytheon provides further broadband survey capabilities both over land and the sea. And the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB) measures the humidity. In Brazil.

Twice a day, the Aqua will download its data trove via a secure S-band link to a ground station located in Svalbard and Alaska. These ground stations then relay the data to the Goddard Space Flight Center. And while the Aqua mission was only slated for six years of service originally, the craft has been performing nearly flawlessly for more than a decade and is expected to remain active until at least early next decade.

[Aqua Project - NASA - Wikipedia - NSIDC - Images: NASA]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/nasa-aqua-finding-more-than-faces-in-the-clouds-510176180

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American Mary, sculptor with a scalpel | Movie Review | Chicago ...

Female filmmakers are marginalized in every genre, but horror is a particularly male domain. Tod Browning, James Whale, Val Lewton, George Romero, John Carpenter?from the silent era onward, men have shaped the horror movie, often around the sound of a woman screaming. According to Mubi.com, women have directed only about three dozen horror features, the most notable being Kathryn Bigelow's gloomy 1987 vampire thriller Near Dark (Bigelow went on to win an Oscar for The Hurt Locker). Rarer still are horror movies with a genuinely female perspective, which is what makes American Mary, opening Friday for a week-long run at Facets Cinematheque, so unusual. Canadian twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska (who made their feature debut in 2008 with something called Dead Hooker in a Trunk) share with Browning (Freaks) a fearful fascination with human deformity. But American Mary, about an impoverished young medical student who gets sucked into the body modification underground, filters this through a distinctly feminist ideal of controlling one's own body.

They've certainly found a great body in Katharine Isabelle, playing the title character; the opening sequence, scored with a soprano singing Schubert's "Ave Maria," shows Mary Mason in a low-cut black slip and black gloves as she takes a scalpel to the dimpled white skin of a turkey and sutures it back up again. Isabelle, a busy TV actress in Canada, is not only smoking hot but a smart, deft performer; her dry line readings go a long way toward putting across the twins' perverse humor. Mary is the sharpest student in her surgery class, mercilessly picked on by her macho professor, Dr. Grant (David Lovgren), and way behind on her bills. Applying for a job as a stripper, she shows up at a local club in her best lingerie, but her interview takes an unexpected turn when the owner, Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo), offers her five grand in cash to stitch up one of his boys, who's been blinded and carved up by some thugs. Before long, Mary's name gets out, and she receives an unwelcome visit from a woman named Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk) who asks her to help "a nice girl who wants an unconventional operation."

Beatress is the sort of bizarro that Lon Chaney might have played back in the 1920s: obsessed with the old Betty Boop cartoons by Max Fleischer, she's gotten plastic surgery on her lips, nose, cheeks, and brow to make herself look more boop-oop-a-doop. She dresses like the character as well, and speaks in the same squishy-squeaky voice. Beatress promises Mary ten grand to operate on her friend, and Mary, having just lost her waitress job, reluctantly agrees to meet them after hours at an animal hospital where they'll have sterile conditions. The patient, Ruby Realgirl (Paula Lindgren), is a doll-like blond who wants to take this resemblance to its logical endpoint and have her nipples and vulva removed. "A doll can be naked and never be sexualized or degraded," explains Ruby. After granting Ruby's wish, Mary orders Beatress not to give her name to anyone, but before long Mary has become a legend in the "body-mod" community and launched a thriving surgical practice out of her apartment. "Bloody Mary," they call her online.

The earliest body-mod movie I can recall is Browning's creepy circus tale The Unknown (1927), whose hero (Chaney) falls for a woman with a deep-seated phobia of men's hands and elects to have his arms amputated by a corrupt surgeon. The Soskas generally celebrate the idea of radical cosmetic surgery, though they're not above satirizing it. Body mods are portrayed as the ultimate narcissists (as Ruby says to Mary, "I don't think it's really fair that God gets to decide what we look like on the outside"). The Soska sisters make a cameo appearance as haughty Russian twins so devoted to one another that they want to exchange their respective left arms. Needing another surgeon for the complicated procedure, Mary appeals to Billy Barker and is paired with an older gentleman who burbles at her in German and at one point references "Dr. Mengele." Yet the twins are overjoyed with the results, as are all of Mary's clients.

Mary takes genuine pride in helping people realize their ideal selves, splitting people's tongues and implanting horns in their foreheads, and this generosity of spirit makes her an anomaly of sorts among horror-movie surgeons. In the male tradition, they're usually mad doctors imposing their wild dreams upon others?who can forget the title character of Frankenstein (1931), stitching together a man from random body parts, or the deranged Dr. Moreau of The Island of Lost Souls (1932), creating weird man-beast hybrids, or the haunted Dr. Genessier of Eyes Without a Face (1960), hoping to graft another woman's face onto that of his disfigured daughter? People are usually trying to escape from these guys, not track them down. By making the surgeon an instrument of self-determination, the Soskas slyly assert that people's bodies are their own, a key argument in prochoice activism.

Unfortunately, there's another story line in American Mary that proves less imaginative and adventurous. (Spoilers follow.) Shortly after Mary operates on Ruby Realgirl, she's invited to attend a social gathering by Dr. Walsh (Clay St. Thomas), who's supervising her residency at a local hospital. Dressed to the nines (in a revealing green gown she's received from Ruby), Mary arrives at what turns out to be a predatory sex party for older professional men at which Dr. Grant drugs and rapes her. This is one of those sleazy scenes that exploit the very cruelty they're supposed to be condemning, which makes the Soskas' outrage seem a little contrived when they roll out the consequences: Mary, hungry for revenge, pays Billy Barker to kidnap Grant, and the movie turns into that most unnecessary of items, a Saw rip-off, as she holds him captive and subjects him to a series of surgical alterations. Playing Grant, David Lovgren gets more dramatic mileage from piteous whimpering than from all his previous dialogue.

You have to wonder why the Soskas felt compelled to choose the well-rutted road of torture porn and spoil such an indelible protagonist. Maybe peer pressure is to blame: in the indie-horror underground, the guys won't take you seriously unless you're extreme, which usually means graphic depictions of human suffering. The last time Grant appears on screen, he's hanging from two hooks sunk into the skin of his back and all his limbs have been amputated; snot pours from his mouth and nose as Mary snaps photos of him for her Web site and delivers one of those cool, casual monologues that movie sadists never tire of. I suppose women have an equal right to be monsters too, but American Mary is a lot more memorable when its heroine is full of grace.

Source: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/american-mary-jen-sylvia-soska-facets-cinematheque/Content?oid=9871072

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Myanmar can quadruple economy by 2030, report says

BANGKOK (AP) ? Blessed with natural resources, including significant gas reserves and precious gems, Myanmar has the potential to more than quadruple the size of its economy by 2030 if it manages to diversify, build infrastructure and maintain political stability, a report said Friday.

The McKinsey Global Institute said Myanmar has the land, manpower and resources to expand the size of its economy from $45 billion in 2010 to more than $200 billion by 2030.

Growth potential rests mostly four key areas ? energy and mining, agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure. Of these, manufacturing is by far the most important since companies could conceivably relocate to Myanmar from China and other Asian countries where wages are rising, said the report by MGI, the research arm of management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

"Myanmar is coming of age in the digital era. If it uses technology fully and innovatively ? in banking, government, health care, agriculture, education, and retail ? Myanmar could leapfrog interim development phases to become one of the world's fastest-growing economies," Fraser Thompson, an MGI senior fellow, said in the report.

Myanmar's gross domestic product is now less than 1 percent of Asia's GDP or roughly equivalent to cities such as New Delhi and Johannesburg. It is the poorest country in Southeast Asia, its economy stunted by decades of international sanctions and strict import controls imposed by its former military junta.

Labor productivity is 70 percent lower than other countries in the region, and the population has only an average of four years of schooling. Only 4 percent of Myanmar's population has enough income for discretionary spending, compared with 35 percent of the global population, the report said.

But the potential is high for growth. Myanmar has arable land, water and a large but unskilled workforce, the report said. What the country needs now to fulfill its potential for sharp growth is political stability, infrastructure development, and the rule of law.

Myanmar had one of the region's strongest economies in the 1950s but plunged into a decline after a coup in 1962 instituted military rule with a socialist bent. Myanmar, then called Burma, was declared a least-developed nation by the United Nations in 1987. The status is given to countries with the lowest indicators of socio-economic development according to the U.N.'s Human Development Index.

The country began undertaking political reforms in 2011 after the country's military junta handed power to a nominally civilian government. But new freedoms of speech and assembly have provided opportunities for some groups to disseminate radical views, sparking violence between religious and ethnic groups. Buddhist-Muslim tensions are particularly high.

Still, foreign investors have been rushing in. In April, Ford Motor Co. announced its entry into Myanmar, saying it plans to open its first sales and service showroom for new vehicles by August. The U.S. automaker joins PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, GE, Caterpillar and Danish brewer Carlsberg, which have all signed distribution deals in Myanmar.

Longtime ally China has been one of Myanmar's biggest international backers for years, pouring billions of dollars into the extraction of gems, timber, oil and gas. Thailand has also been a significant investor. Japan, meanwhile, is stepping up its investment and has canceled billions in old debt and is doling out new low-interest loans.

"For much of the 20th century, Myanmar largely missed out on the spectacular growth seen across most of the global economy and most recently in its Asian peers," Richard Dobbs, a McKinsey director, said in the report. "It now has the potential to be one of the fastest-growing economies in emerging Asia."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-31-AS-Myanmar-Economy/id-7994ee2a55274a6fb9f3f8e9863a4087

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U.S. soldier to admit Afghan massacre

SEATTLE (AP) ? Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was "crazed" and "broken" when he slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby.

Next week, Bales will recount what happened next ? the slaughter of 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war. He'll give specific details in open court as he pleads guilty to the massacre to avoid being put to death.

His attorney, John Henry Browne, told The Associated Press that although his client's state of mind should be considered in sentencing, it didn't rise to the level of a legal insanity defense.

Browne said Bales as "crazed" and "broken" the night of the attack.

He said his client, who was on his fourth combat deployment, was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury. He continued to blame the Army for sending him back to war in the first place.

"He's broken, and we broke him," Browne said.

The outcome of the case carries high stakes. The Army had been trying to have Bales executed, and Afghan villagers have demanded it. In interviews with the AP in Kandahar last month, relatives of the victims became outraged at the notion Bales might escape the death penalty.

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

"A prison sentence doesn't mean anything," said Said Jan, whose wife and three other relatives died. "I know we have no power now. But I will become stronger, and if he does not hang, I will have my revenge."

Any plea deal must be approved by the judge as well as the commanding general at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where Bales is being held. A plea hearing is set for June 5, said Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, an Army spokesman. He said he could not immediately provide other details.

"The judge will be asking questions of Sgt. Bales about what he did, what he remembers and his state of mind," said Browne, who told the AP the commanding general has already approved the deal. "The deal that has been worked out ... is they take the death penalty off the table, and he pleads as charged, pretty much."

A sentencing-phase trial set for September will determine whether Bales is sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

Browne previously indicated Bales remembered little from the night of the massacre, and he said that was true in the early days after the attack. But as further details and records emerged, Bales began to remember what he did, the lawyer said, and he will admit to "very specific facts" about the shootings.

Browne would not elaborate on what his client will tell the judge.

Bales, an Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash., had been drinking contraband alcohol, snorting Valium that was provided to him by another soldier, and had been taking steroids before the attack. He slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost at Camp Belambay early on March 11, 2012, and attacked compounds.

Testimony at a hearing last fall established that Bales returned to his base between attacking the villages, woke up a fellow soldier and confessed. The soldier didn't believe him and went back to sleep, and Bales left again to continue the slaughter.

Most of the victims were women and children, and some of the bodies were piled and burned. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan. It was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.

The massacre raised questions about the toll multiple deployments were taking on American troops. For that reason, many legal experts believed it that it was unlikely that he would receive the death penalty, as Army prosecutors were seeking. The military justice system hasn't executed anyone since 1961.

The defense team, including military lawyers assigned to Bales as well as Browne's co-counsel, Emma Scanlan, eventually determined after having Bales examined by psychiatrists that he would not be able to prove any claim of insanity or diminished capacity at the time of the attack, Browne said.

"His mental state does not rise to the level of a legal insanity defense," Browne said. "But his state of mind will be very important at the trial in September. We'll talk about his mental capacities or lack thereof, and other factors that were important to his state of mind."

Browne acknowledged the plea deal could inflame tensions in Afghanistan and said he was disappointed the case has not done more to focus public opinion on the war.

"It's a very delicate situation. I am concerned there could be a backlash," he said. "My personal goal is to save Bob from the death penalty. Getting the public to pay more attention to the war is secondary to what I have to do."

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

___

AP's special regional correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kathy Gannon, contributed from Kandahar.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-soldier-admit-afghan-massacre-202930434.html

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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Germans irked as Hollande says EU cannot dictate French reforms

By Mark John and Andreas Rinke

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande pledged on Thursday to carry out long overdue reforms of France's pension system and labor markets but said it was up to Paris, not the European Commission, to determine how they are implemented.

At a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Hollande defended his comment that the EU executive cannot "dictate" reforms to member states - a defiant, nationalist tone that angered Germany's ruling conservatives.

The two leaders agreed to propose that the 17-nation euro zone appoint a full-time president and hold more frequent summits to coordinate economic policy. They also promised to speed up the disbursement of 6 billion euros in EU funds to fight youth unemployment.

Hollande said France would stick to its objective of balancing its budget in structural terms by 2017 and meet new interim targets set by Brussels, but he bristled at detailed suggestions from the Commission at what to do or avoid.

"The details, procedures and way of going about this are the responsibility of the government and the state, otherwise there would be no national sovereignty," the French leader said.

"There must be sovereignty over the implementation. The Commission makes recommendations, it does not say in place of the member states what they must do."

Merkel, who referred to Hollande as "Francois Mitterrand" before correcting herself, did not comment directly on the controversy but said France had been given two extra years to meet its deficit reduction target in return for implementing reforms.

"These go hand in hand," she said, noting pointedly that Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Ireland had already undertaken deep structural changes.

Unveiling reform recommendations for the 27-nation European Union on Wednesday, the Commission urged Hollande to rein in French public spending, revamp pensions and cut labor costs in return for a two-year reprieve on budget deficit targets.

PROMISES

With concern growing in EU economic powerhouse Germany that the euro zone's second largest economy is slipping deeper into decline, Merkel allies warned that Hollande's attitude could undermine efforts to bolster the euro zone economy.

On the day of her Paris visit, new figures showed French unemployment had risen to a record 3,264,400 in April after two unbroken years of monthly rises. Hollande stuck to his promise to reverse the trend by year end despite economists' skepticism.

"It can't work when a big country like France says it can do what it wants," said Michael Fuchs, deputy parliamentary leader of Merkel's Christian Democrats.

"If a country in the EU and euro zone thinks it needn't keep promises, that is worrying," he added.

Norbert Barthle, the party's spokesman on budgetary matters, accused Hollande, whose poll ratings have fallen faster than for any modern French president as the economy has slid into recession, of playing to a domestic audience.

He said the EU Commission had already been too generous in giving France a further two years to bring its deficit below the bloc's 3 percent ceiling after Paris conceded it would miss the target this year.

"France won't be able to bank on such indulgence again," he said.

Paris says it expects to bring its deficit back under the upper limit well in time for the new 2015 deadline and is already preparing to reform its generous pension system.

Wary of upsetting negotiations on the issue, Hollande said this month the French people should expect to have to work "a bit longer". In Merkel's presence, he said the reform would be pushed through this year.

However, he appeared to rule out a new overhaul, urged by the EU executive, of special early retirement deals for groups such as train drivers, saying they had already been reformed.

French officials were also irked that the Commission warned Paris against raising pension contributions to balance the system by 2020 on the grounds that it would make high French labor costs even less competitive.

Hollande is looking to increase the contribution period for a full pension, and possibly the rate, rather than lift the statutory retirement age or cut final benefits.

The Commission specifically listed an increase in the retirement age as a measure that France should examine.

RELATIONS "AS NORMAL"

Merkel and Hollande were at pains to insist that Franco-German cooperation, one of the historic drivers of EU integration, is working well.

A joint paper on future euro zone governance to be sent to fellow leaders ahead of next month's EU summit went somewhat further than expected, while remaining within the limits of the current EU treaty.

Officials on both sides had played down expectations of any major European policy initiative before Germany's September election when Merkel will seek to win a third term.

Merkel said the currency area needed more economic policy coordination because recently tightened budget rules were still insufficient to prevent a repeat of the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis. She did not repeat past calls for treaty change.

Merkel's visit, to end with a private dinner, has also come with Paris and Berlin at odds over whether the EU should risk a trade dispute with China by imposing duties on its solar panel exports in the coming days - a move Germany has opposed.

(Editing by Paul Taylor and Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germans-irked-hollande-says-eu-cannot-dictate-french-180251480.html

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Sexy and I Know It

Emily Yoffe. Emily Yoffe

Photo by Teresa Castracane.

Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

Got a burning question for Prudie? She'll be online at Washingtonpost.com to chat with readers each Monday at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the live discussion.

Dear Prudence,
I'm recently engaged to the most honest, thoughtful, and loving man I've ever met. He has supported me through many hard times, including losing my job and being assaulted. Here's the but about him: He makes no money. He has ambitions, and he's smart, but will likely only bring a middle-class income at best. I have an OK job and I'm self-sufficient. Now here's the but about me: I'm really, really pretty. My whole life people have told me I could get any man I want, meaning a rich man, and are shocked that I'm engaged to my fianc?, nice though he is. I?ve never dated a rich man, but it does make me curious. So part of me thinks I'm squandering my good looks on this poor man, and the other part of me thinks that I'm so shallow that I don't even deserve him or anyone else. Am I a fool for thinking that a poor man can make me happy, or an idiot for believing a sexist fantasy?

Dear Sincerely,
It?s a delicate thing to sing ?I Feel Pretty? and keep the audience charmed. Many people will be repelled by your acknowledged superficiality and wish that a string of rich men use you, then dump you when you start to lose your looks. But surely your fianc? delights in the fact?and surely his friends have noted?that he?s nabbed one the prettiest girls in the room. When considering possible life partners, people should bluntly assess each other?s intangible and tangible qualities. Of course character is central, but if the person you?re dating is a wholly admirable person who doesn?t attract you physically, that?s a serious problem. So, too, is being with someone who gives you pleasure in and out of bed, but who?s hiding from creditors. You have asked an unattractive question about monetizing your beauty. But I think there?s a more accurate way to look at what?s troubling you.

You?re really wondering whether you can be happy in the long run with a guy who treats you great, but who?ll never satisfy you financially. ?Middle class? is a very elastic term, but I assume you mean that while you and your fianc? will be able to meet your basic needs, you?ll mostly be living paycheck to paycheck. You say he?s smart and ambitious, and I?m assuming you both are young, so you haven?t made it clear why these two qualities can?t propel him further professionally. Maybe he?s prone to pipe dreams the marketplace rewards with minimum wage. It's fair to want a fully contributing partner in life, but if you think the bulk of a couple's earning should come from the man, you either need to re-examine your assumptions, or clue in your fianc?.?You and he need to discuss what kind of life you?d both like to lead and how each of you can map out career choices that will make this possible. Of course there are no guarantees of financial success, just as there are no guarantees that good looks will lure a guy with a bulging wallet (or that he?ll stick with you into middle-age). But if you?re filled with dread over the certainty that marrying your boyfriend will consign you to forever dreading when the bills come, this will tarnish your perception of his sterling qualities. You?re not a shallow fool for thinking that a life of scraping by won?t be so pretty.

Dear Prudence: Pining for Mr. Wrong

Dear Prudence,
I feel like a complete oddity, but I am a male who hates sex. I feel dirty and gross during and after the process. When I?m with a partner I do my best to help satisfy their needs and desires, but I almost always have to rush to the shower afterward. Some times I simply can't even be touched without jerking away and having a panic attack. But I do love going on dates, making dinner together, snuggling while watching movies. I've tried therapy and anti-anxiety meds, but two years of seeing a psychiatrist hasn't helped much and the meds just make me feel even more disconnected. Help!

Dear Asexual,
About half the husbands who write to me with marital problems would say their wives are looking for a guy just like you. Someone who wants to help in the kitchen! Someone who wants to get cozy during a movie! Someone who wants to get into bed in order to read and fall asleep! It?s interesting that while you recoil from the sex act, and sometimes even from another?s touch, at other times you are happy to cuddle. Given your distress about your situation, of course I would have suggested therapy. But you?ve been in it for two years with no improvement. You went to your doctor with a specific goal, and when it became clear no progress was being made the plug should have been pulled. Not every problem can be fixed, but it might be worth it to at least try a therapist with a different approach, one who will agree to a treatment timeline. But let?s say that whatever you do, you remain repelled by the physical act, yet desirous of a warm, loving partnership. I think you should take a look at the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network and see if it speaks to you. Humans are infinitely variable, and you may simply be someone who for whatever reason falls on the far end of the sexuality spectrum. AVEN even has a Meetup Mart, for people to connect (within limits!) to others who share their perspective. It may be a relief to you to no longer have to please partners whose needs so profoundly conflict with your own.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2013/05/dear_prudence_i_m_too_pretty_for_my_fiance.html

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Aww! Beckham, little Harper caught on Kiss Cam

Celebs

16 hours ago

Celebrity buddies David Beckham and Tom Cruise joined their families rinkside at the Los Angeles Kings hockey game Tuesday night, and Beckham and daughter Harper stole the show on the Staples Center Kiss Cam.

Image: Beckhams, Cruises

Noel Vasquez / Getty Images

Tom Cruise and his son Connor, in front, join the Beckhams, from left, Romeo, Cruz, Victoria, Brooklyn, David and Harper at the NHL playoff game between the San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center on Tuesday.

The newly retired soccer great is seen smiling and looking up at the big screen as the arena's famed Kiss Cam zeroes in. Harper sees herself on the screen, too, and David doesn't miss a beat and plants a kiss on the cheek of his 22-month-old daughter. Hearts, if not ice, are left to melt during the NHL playoff game against the San Jose Sharks.

Image: Harper Beckham, David Beckham

Noel Vasquez / Getty Images

David Beckham kisses his daughter Harper for the Kiss Cam.

Cruise and son Connor, seated in front of the Beckhams, are also caught smiling at the action, along with Victoria Beckham and sons Romeo, Brooklyn, and Cruz.

Beckham, 38, announced on May 16 that he was retiring from professional soccer.

Image: Harper Beckham

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Harper Beckham gets a closer look at Los Angeles Kings right wing Dustin Brown, as actor Tom Cruise looks on.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/david-beckham-caught-kiss-cam-daughter-harper-6C10110726

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How turtles got their shells: Fossil of extinct South African reptile provides clues

May 30, 2013 ? Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings, reported on May 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of an extinct South African reptile known as Eunotosaurus.

"The turtle shell is a complex structure whose initial transformations started over 260 million years ago in the Permian period," says Tyler Lyson of Yale University and the Smithsonian. "Like other complex structures, the shell evolved over millions of years and was gradually modified into its present-day shape."

The turtle shell isn't really just one thing -- it is made up of approximately 50 bones. Turtles are the only animals that form a shell through the fusion of ribs and vertebrae. In all other animals, shells are formed from bony scales on the surface; they don't stick their bones on the outsides of their bodies.

"The reason, I think, that more animals don't form a shell via the broadening and eventually suturing together of the ribs is that the ribs of mammals and lizards are used to help ventilate the lungs," Lyson says. "If you incorporate your ribs into a protective shell, then you have to find a new way to breathe!" Turtles have done just that, with the help of a muscular sling.

Until recently, the oldest known fossil turtles, dating back about 215 million years, had fully developed shells, making it hard to see the sequence of evolutionary events that produced them. That changed in 2008 with the discovery of Chinese Odontochelys semitestacea, a reptile about 220 million years old, which had a fully developed plastron -- the belly side of the shell -- but only a partial carapace on its back.

Eunotosaurus takes the turtle and its shell back another 40 million years or so. It had nine broadened ribs found only in turtles. And like turtles, it lacked the intercostal muscles running between its ribs. But Eunotosaurus didn't have other features common to Odontochelys and turtles, including broad spines on their vertebrae.

Lyson says he and his colleagues now plan to investigate various other aspects of turtles' respiratory systems, which allow them to manage with their ribs locked up into a protective outer shell. "It is clear that this novel lung ventilation mechanism evolved in tandem with the origin of the turtle shell," he says.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/ZLvLd3u8cIM/130530132431.htm

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Floyd Mayweather: Canelo Alvarez Fight Is Next, Scheduled For Sept. 14, 2013

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Robert Guerrero exchange punches in the fifth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Robert Guerrero exchange punches in the sixth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero, right, listens to his father and trainer Ruben Guerrero as he sits in his corner after the ninth round against Floyd Mayweather Jr. during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, lands a blow to the body against Robert Guerrero Jr. in the eighth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. reacts after defeating Robert Guerrero by unanimous decision in a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. reacts after defeating Robert Guerrero by unanimous decision in a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, throws a left jab at Robert Guerrero in the eighth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a left jab against Robert Guerrero in the fifth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero sits in his corner after the fifth round against Floyd Mayweather Jr. during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. lands a left jab against Robert Guerrero in the fourth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., right, dodges a punch by Robert Guerrero in the third round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, throws a jab at Robert Guerrero in the fourth round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, throws a jab to the body of Robert Guerrero in the third round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, throws a jab at Robert Guerrero in the third round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero, right, throws a jab against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the third round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, ducks a punch by Robert Guerrero in the third round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. reacts after defeating Robert Guerrero by unanimous decision in a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Robert Guerrero exchange punches in the first round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, and Robert Guerrero exchange punches in the first round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. reacts to fans as he sits atop the shoulders of Leonard Ellerbe after defeating Robert Guerrero during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Robert Guerrero exchange punches in the first round during a WBC welterweight title fight, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. steps into the ring to defend his WBC welterweight title against Robert Guerrero, Saturday, May 4, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, faces off with Robert Guerrero after their weigh-in, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the WBC world welterweight title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero waves to boxing fans as he arrives for the weigh-in for the WBC welterweight title fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for Mayweather's title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. waves to boxing fans after the weigh-in for the WBC world welterweight title fight against Robert Guerrero , Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, faces off with Robert Guerrero after their weigh-in, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for Mayweather's WBC welterweight title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. waves to boxing fans as he arrives for the weigh-in for the WBC world welterweight title fight against Robert Guerrero, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero waves to boxing fans as he arrives for the weigh-in for the WBC welterweight title fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the latter's title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Robert Guerrero, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Robert Guerrero steps up on the scale during the weigh-in for his WBC world welterweight championship fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Robert Guerrero

    Robert Guerrero poses for photos as he steps up on the scale during the weigh-in for his WBC world welterweight championship fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather squares off against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr., Robert Guerrero

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., left, faces off with Robert Guerrero after their weigh-in, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the WBC world welterweight title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. steps up on the scale during the weigh-in for his WBC world welterweight championship fight against Robert Guerrero, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Oscar De La Hoya waves to the crowd before the weigh in between Floyd Mayweather against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Floyd Mayweather Jr. steps up on the scale during the weigh-in for his WBC world welterweight championship fight against Robert Guerrero, Friday, May 3, 2013, in Las Vegas. Guerrero will challenge Mayweather for the title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather weighs in at 146 pounds for his fight against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather squares off against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero plays to the crowd after weighing in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero plays to the crowd after weighing in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero plays to the crowd after weighing in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather plays to the crowd after weighing in for his fight at 146 pounds against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather weighs in at 146 pounds for his fight against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Ruben Guerrerro, Father of Robert Guerrero waves the Mexican flag during the weigh in against Floyd Mayweather the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather weighs in at 146 pounds for his fight against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero weighs in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero weighs in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Robert Guerrero plays to the crowd after weighing in at 147 pounds for his fight against Floyd Mayweather for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr. v Robert Guerrero - Weigh-In

    LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 03: Floyd Mayweather squares off against Robert Guerrero for the WBC and Vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight titles at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 3, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Oscar de la Hoya, Ruben Guerrero

    Oscar de la Hoya, left, steps back to the microphone as Ruben Guerrero, father and trainer of Robert Guerrero, walks back to his seat while calling Floyd Mayweather Jr., a "wife beater" during a boxing news conference, Wednesday, May 1, 2013, in Las Vegas. Robert Guerrero is scheduled to challenge Mayweather for the WBC world welterweight title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Floyd Mayweather Jr.

    Floyd Mayweather Jr., speaks during a boxing news conference, Wednesday, May 1, 2013, in Las Vegas. Mayweather is scheduled to attempt to defend the WBC world welterweight title against Robert Guerrero on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Ruben Guerrero, Oscar de la Hoya

    Oscar de la Hoya, center, pushes Ruben Guerrero, father and trainer of Robert Guerrero, right, away from the microphone after Ruben called Floyd Mayweather Jr., a "wife beater" during a boxing news conference, Wednesday, May 1, 2013, in Las Vegas. Robert Guerrero is scheduled to challenge Mayweather for the WBC world welterweight title on Saturday. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

  • Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/floyd-mayweather-jr-canelo-alvarez-fight_n_3356692.html

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    Etece, A Spanish TaskRabbit, Raises ?450K Series A To Expand To Four More Local Cities

    etece.esEtece, a Spanish TaskRabbit style startup offering an online platform for people who need a job doing but don't have the time to do it themselves, has just closed a ?450k Series A funding round, with investment from Mola Capital, Faraday Ventures Partners and Starcaps Ventures. The company, which was founded in Madrid six months ago, had previously raised ?500k from three European entrepreneurs.

    Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1H4Ltje9zjQ/

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    Put A Nyan Cat (Or Any Other GIF) in Your Bike Spokes

    Put A Nyan Cat (Or Any Other GIF) in Your Bike Spokes

    Reflective clothing, flashing tails, and and a bright headlight are essential to riding your bike safely at night. Similarly, a pair of GIF-flashing Monkey Light Pros are essential to riding your bike at night?like a boss.

    Read more...

        


    Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/hTeCT5FPdk0/put-a-nyan-cat-in-your-bike-spokes-510156358

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    World-class tax evaders need a global response

    If you find filling out a tax return difficult, try being the leader of a rich nation these days in needing to set new tax policy.

    On the one hand, you want to lower corporate tax rates in a global competition to attract foreign investment. Yet in an age of austerity, you also seek more revenue by chasing down your own companies that shift profits to low-tax ?havens? in other countries.

    The attempt to resolve this dilemma helps explain a flurry of recent actions in Europe and the United States aimed at curbing legal tax evasion across borders while preventing a race to the bottom among nations in lowering their corporate tax rates.

    On June 17, for example, President Obama and other leaders will meet at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Northern Ireland with the topic of tax avoidance high on the agenda. Britain, as summit president, hopes to strike a deal on the beggar-thy-neighbor tax competition and also make it easier for nations to share information on tax-avoiding multinationals.

    MONITOR'S VIEW: Why American can 'make stuff' again

    The principle at stake is transparency. ?Without a level playing field we will see a transfer of financial activity to ones that lack transparency,? says British treasurer George Osborne, whose own country includes such tax havens as the Channel Islands.

    In recent weeks, several big multinational companies have suffered reputational shock for their legal tax evasion. Apple faced a hostile Senate hearing in May, while the tax tactics of Google, Starbucks, and Amazon recently created a public outcry in Britain.

    ?Some forms of avoidance have become so aggressive that I think it is right to say these are ethical issues,? said British Prime Minister David Cameron in January.

    Yet it is governments that must change their ways to reduce the number of companies that globe-trot for lower rates. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, describes international tax rules as ?irrational.? Sir Roger Carr, president of the CBI employers? group, said in a recent speech: ?As governments seek to win the affections of companies by ever lowering tax in a competitive global race, it is hard to argue that paying less tax is somehow socially irresponsible.?

    That is one reason why another ?club? of wealthy nations, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has been able to convince more countries to sign an agreement that allows easier exchange of information on tax matters between governments, especially about tax cheaters.

    MONITOR'S VIEW: Washington's rare moment of self-reform

    The agreement is ?an important milestone on the road to closer cooperation and more transparency ? to making the international system fair to all taxpayers,? the OECD?s Secretary-General Angel Gurr?a said. The OECD also wants to curb ?hybrids,? or the practice by some companies of exploiting different tax policies between countries for their best tax advantage.

    Even Switzerland, once the icon of bank secrecy for tax evaders, has been swept up in all this global reform on taxes. It relented this week to US pressure and agreed to allow Swiss banks to cooperate with foreign tax authorities.

    With open, honest, and consistent rules, more nations might be able to ease the competition on corporate tax rates and retrieve more tax revenue from their domestic companies.

    Related stories

    Read this story at csmonitor.com

    Become a part of the Monitor community

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-class-tax-evaders-global-response-192416198.html

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    Wednesday, May 29, 2013

    OTR App Is Like Snapchat For Co-Workers - Business Insider

    O.T.R.

    O.T.R. lets you send private messages with coworkers

    Here's a new app that wants to do for coworkers what Snapchat did for sexting.

    It's called O.T.R., which stands for Off The Record, and it lets you send private photos and messages to your coworkers.

    The app lets you view the message or picture for a few seconds and then deletes it.

    One big difference with O.T.R. versus Snapchat is that O.T.R. is not a mobile app. It's currently available as a browser add-on for Google Chrome, with IE and Firefox extensions coming soon and an app for Yammer. The idea is that most people are still using PCs while at work, not their smartphones.

    The app was created last year at the TechCrunch Hackathon by the team from Lamplighter Games, a three-person New York startup best known for the iPad game Trivia Party.

    The hack won a top prize from Yammer and now the app is available to everyone.

    You can download it for your Chrome Browser here.

    Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/otr-app-is-like-snapchat-for-co-workers-2013-5

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    Mad Men, Season 6

    Jon Hamm as Don Draper, January Jones as Betty Francis, and Mason Vale Cotton as Bobby Draper Jon Hamm as Don Draper, January Jones as Betty Francis, and Mason Vale Cotton as Bobby Draper

    Courtesy of AMC

    Where you see indecision, Hanna, I see bifurcation. This episode was titled ?The Better Half??partly a reference to Betty?s appearance at Henry?s campaign event, but also a nod to all the doubling and doppelg?nging going on. If last week?s episode was Freudian, this week?s was aligned with the work of his student: the duality of man, the Jungian thing.

    The tipoff comes when Megan plays identical twins?she is simultaneously Corinne the dark-haired maid and Colette the blond husband-stealer. Recall Betty?s brief foray into brunettitude (seemingly resigned to her role as a plump housewife) followed by a triumphant return as a stunning blonde (with replenished sexual capital). Note that Peggy is also pushed to take sides with either fair Ted or dark Don. And of course Don hops out of blond Betty?s bed and heads straight to a balcony kiss with raven-tressed Megan.

    But it?s a more internal duality?the one in our heads? that has always been the focus of Mad Men. This season?s billboard art is an illustration of a dark-suited Don encountering a light-suited Don as they pass on the street. One Don holds a briefcase, the other the hand of an unseen woman. We are all many people at once (Bobbys 1 through 5, if you will), and this season seems increasingly a chronicle of Don?s struggle to reconcile the splintered shards of himself. Can he integrate Don the unknowable, damaged lone wolf with Don the middle-aged, domesticated husband and father?

    Paul, you mentioned how ?remarkably unmysterious? Don appeared as he sang that camp song with Bobby. Indeed, this was Don as dork, dropping his Sphinx act to engage with the banal but lovely stuff of parenthood. At the same time, Betty used this rustic interlude to reassert her long-dormant side?not the Betty in the quilted housecoat who carps and laments, but the Betty ?in those shorts? who is the center of attention, wielding potent sexuality. She is once again basking in the desire of every man she meets.

    Watching Don and Betty turn each other on, circling each other with bad intentions, made me realize I?d missed the raw chemistry of Jon Hamm and January Jones. These are a pair of beautiful animals who know it, and can choose to exist together on a higher plane of heightened cool. Has there been a sultrier moment on TV this year than the one in which Don purrs, ?I?m waiting for you to tell me to stop??

    And now that it?s ended, should we be impressed, bewildered, or amused by the fact that Matthew Weiner?for ages!?hid perhaps the most stunningly beautiful actress on TV beneath layers of prosthetics? Is this just more Weinerian expectation-thwarting?akin to Alfred Hitchcock killing off Janet Leigh in the first act of Psycho? Hanna, you previously upbraided Henry Francis for paying Betty ?pallid compliments.? Was his panting lust in the back of that limo what you were looking for?

    It occurs to me that we?ve been watching the late ?60s unfold mostly through the eyes of yuppie office workers. Not a lot of students and activists make major appearances in Mad Men. Lately, it?s been Peggy?s boyfriend Abe who?s served as the show?s progressive, countercultural voice. This week, as the other characters went on with their lives, oblivious to the upheaval in Paris and Prague, it seemed that selfless Abe died for their sins. Did you notice that once Peggy stabbed him with that impromptu spear, he was suffering both the stigmata and the torso wound of the crucified Nazarene? Consider that as Peggy?s knife plunges in, Abe shouts, ?Jesus!? Abe would like to turn the other cheek to the toughs in their neighborhood, but Peggy?s got a much more Old Testament sensibility.

    As for Roger: Hanna, you?re right; that seemed a bit of an overreaction to a well-meaning mistake. Seems hard to believe Roger?s grandson is now so ?afraid of fur? that they?ll have to ditch the family dog. I think this is plot machination, heralding the return of Mona Sterling?I note that Roger?s daughter declared he can only see the boy when Mona is present.

    How jaunty was that closing music, the Lou Johnson version of ?Always Something There to Remind Me?? And it contained a message to all the better halves of these dual-minded characters: ?You?ll always be a part of me.?

    Do you feel my attention to business has been dilute?
    Seth

    Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=c85113ffbe50fda5df5b47d139499785

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    Tuesday, May 28, 2013

    Mimobot USB Flash Drives


    Anyone on the hunt for a USB flash drive has surely stumbled across a few novelty drives. We've reviewed a few as well, like the Dane-Elec Marvel Avengers USB Drives and Dane-Elec Marvel Universe USB Drives. Generally speaking, while these drives may not wow anyone with blazing fast performance or top-of-the-line features, they are the drives that people actually notice, and add to their own wish lists. Mimoco has made its name in the novelty drive category, with drives depicting characters and historical figures as varied as Batman and Albert Einstein. In a recent batch of Mimobot drives, we've been presented with favorites figures from history, pop culture, and current cartoons?Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, rock star Elvis Presley, and My Little Pony fan-favorite Rainbow Dash.

    Design
    The Mimobot design is pretty standard?a big, elongated head, which doubles as the USB plug cap, and a small body at one end. In the Mimobot Legends series, these figures are all roughly based on actual people. Included in this review are Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, as well as rock icon Elvis Presley.

    Washington is decked out in regimental dress, white powdered wig, and a removable Colonial-era Tricorn hat, with a cluster of cherries in one hand. On the back of the drive is an image of Washington's own signature.

    Lincoln is depicted in, to quote Mimoco, "his classic mid-19th century theater-going duds," complete with vest and bow-tie (I realize the Lincoln assassination was a while ago, but this still seems to be in poor taste). Again, the back of the drive features Lincoln's signature.

    Slightly different is the Mimobot Legends Elvis Aloha from Hawaii, which features The King in full jumpsuit regalia. Inspired by the rhinestone studded jumpsuit worn in the Elvis Aloha from Hawaii satellite broadcast in 1973, his outfit includes a Hawaiian lei. Elvis' lip curls in his signature snarl, and he's got considerably more hair on his head than Lincoln does.

    The fourth drive sent by Mimoco is from the Mimobot Pop Culture line-up?it's Rainbow Dash from the new version of My Little Pony. Being a pony, Rainbow Dash has no outfit to speak of, but the basic design is the same, with a little body at one end and an elongated head at the other. Rainbow Dash is blue, with a suitably multicolored mane and tail. Mimoco also says that the drive is full of speed, spunk, and "undeniable charisma," but such claims are difficult to verify, even in our testing lab.

    Though I could probably make a couple of suggestions about the designs?Washington gets a tricorn hat but Lincoln's famed stovepipe top hat is missing??they all look pretty good.

    Bonus Content
    All of the Mimobot drives also come with bonus content, centered on the character or figure of the drive. Presidents Washington and Lincoln both offer the same content?a collection of wallpapers for computer, tablet, and smartphone, as well as custom icons and avatar images, all featuring one or both of the presidents. While some of these were interesting, it was a little disappointing that all of these images feature pictures of the drive, rather than any of the more realistic portraits of the actual historical figures.

    This same complaint could not be made of the Elvis Aloha from Hawaii drive. In addition to the wallpapers, icons, and avatars, the drive includes two extensive photo albums, one centered around the Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii special?and includes more than 50 photos, documents, and behind the scenes glimpses of that iconic event?and the other centered around Elvis' military service, complete with publicity photos, shots of Elvis in training for combat, and even his honorable discharge papers. There are also two video interviews. All in all, it's an impressive collection of content, and worthwhile for any Elvis fan.

    The Rainbow Dash drive also comes with My Little Pony-themed wallpapers, icons, and avatars, but adds sound, with character voices announcing when you've plugged in the drive or copied a folder. Obviously, these candy-colored, ultra-perky extras aren't for everyone, but Ponies and Bronies alike will probably be delighted.

    Pricing and Performance
    All four Mimobot drives are similar once the caps are pulled off and the drives are plugged in. Each drive uses a USB 2.0 connection, and is formatted in FAT32 for broad compatibility?Windows, Mac, even Linux should all work well with the drives. All four drives were 8GB in capacity, and sell for a list price of $24.95, which works out to roughly $3.11 per GB. While this is a bit pricey for a basic USB drive, the fan-favorite designs and bonus content will add value that most flash drives don't offer. The similar Dane-Elec Marvel Universe drives sell for a similar $3.37 per GB. Take away the fan appeal and these drives are comparable to other basic drives, like the Verbatim Store N' Go Clip-it USB Drive, a 4GB drive which sells for $1.83 per GB, or the LaCie PetiteKey (16GB), which sells for $1.43 per GB.

    Performance wasn't identical among the four drives, but it was similar. In timed data transfer tests George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Elvis all clocked in at roughly 27 MBps (Read) and 5 MBps (Write). Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, came up a bit different, with 23 MBps (read) and 5 MBps (write). To compare, the Marvel Universe drives had speeds of 30MBps (read) and 4MBps (write), the Verbatim Store N' Go Clip-it (15MBps read; 6MBps write) and the LaCie PetiteKey (14 MBps read, 6 MBps write).

    Whether you're looking to show people that you're a hunk of burning love, a fan of Honest Abe, or just a My Little Pony aficionado, Mimoco's novelty flash drives send the message loud and clear. All four Mimobot drives?Washington, Lincoln, Elvis, and Rainbow Dash?offer passable performance, made all the more appealing with eye-catching designs and fan-friendly bonus content. For the performance and feature minded, there's always the Editors' Choice Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ G2 (16GB), but for everyone else, there's Mimobot that's perfect for you.

    Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/6nXlQAmmuFE/0,2817,2419562,00.asp

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