wilmer crossness: January 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Brooks Palmer: Clutter Busting a Relationship That Doesn't Serve You

I was talking with someone who said that she felt it's hard as a woman to let go of a relationship that no longer serves her. She felt she was raised to think that a woman's role was to be a nurturer and put other people's needs first. She said she has some friendships where the people were constantly taking from her and giving nothing back. But she just couldn't seem to say no to them.

I said that it's hard to take one for the team. It takes a toll to put ourselves in harm's way. We can reason with ourselves that it's okay to be hurt. But I encouraged her to look deeper at the effects it produces on her both physically and psychologically.

She said the pain she endured from these relationships made her feel hallow, like her insides had been removed and she's just a machine. She said it made it hard for her to find joy in other parts of her life.

I said that's a huge toll to pay for pseudo companionship. A relationship supports us when it makes us feel connected. Our hearts relish that feeling of unity. But when we suffer to maintain a relationship, we lose that beautiful feeling of connection. It made sense she felt like a machine.

I said that I recently had a difficult relationship experience. The other person would occasionally become harsh and critical of my life. I let them know that I didn't like their behavior. They apologized and stopped being that way for a while. But then they went back to it. So I mentioned again that it was making me uncomfortable. They stopped. And then about a week later they left me a mean-spirited phone message. So I contacted that person and said that I no longer wanted to be friends with them. It felt good to take care of myself.

She said it was sobering to look matter-of-factually at her experiences. She felt deep down that there was a quiet and gentle part of herself that needed the nurturing she was giving to others who weren't kind to her.

Please write and tell me your experiences clearing relationships that are clutter; it helps inspire people when you share.

Brooks Palmer is the author of Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What's Holding You Back (New World Library, 2009) and Clutter Busting Your Life: Clearing Physical and Emotional Clutter to Reconnect With Yourself and Others (New World Library, 2012). To schedule an over-the-phone clutter busting session, go to http://www.clutterbusting.com.

For more by Brooks Palmer, click here.

For more on emotional wellness, click here.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brooks-palmer/relationship-friendship-advice_b_2568338.html

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What We're Reading - NYTimes.com - Diner's Journal - New York ...

The Daily Meal: Someone is selling a moldy Twinkie on eBay. Year-old. Unpackaged. A significant test of Twinkie shelf-life! ? Glenn Collins

Food Republic: Microwave popcorn has apparently been with us so long that some people (sadly) don?t know of any other kind. How else to explain these step-by-step instructions for old-fashioned stovetop popping? ? Patrick Farrell

The Washington Post: Some chefs are trying to turn the homely Chesapeake Bay snakehead into a swan of a main course. ? Maria Newman

Poetry Foundation: ?The drink storms through these men,? Robin Robertson writes in a great poem about fishermen. ? Jeff Gordinier

Bloomberg Businessweek: The sad, cautionary tale of the 81 percent sales decline of the diet drink Slim-Fast over the last decade ? while the booming replacement-meal category has spiked 27 percent over the last four years. ? Glenn Collins

Esquire: As caffeine-and-alcohol combinations go, trust us, you can do much better than that tacky mash-up of Red Bull and vodka. Consider this: rye paired with sweet vermouth that?s been infused with Earl Grey tea. ? Jeff Gordinier

The Washington Post: Students at the University of Maryland who collect leftover dorm food to donate to Washington shelters have spread their work to other campuses. ? Maria Newman

Wild Fermentation: A bright red paste you can make by fermenting tomatoes, provided you don?t mind a little ?spidery-looking mold.? ? Jeff Gordinier

The Wall Street Journal: You are not alone, you Wi-Fi warriors at Starbucks. For many in rural communities, after the library and the computer lab close for the night, there is only one place to turn for Internet access: McDonald?s, which has 12,000 wireless-equipped locations in the United States. (Subscription required.) ? Glenn Collins

Boston Magazine: An exhaustive guide to finding the best Asian food in Boston. ? Jeff Gordinier

The New York Times: Mark Bittman makes the case for turning lawns into gardens. ? Maria Newman

LA Weekly: A mochi shop in downtown Los Angeles is, remarkably, 110 years old. ? Jeff Gordinier

Source: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/what-were-reading-618/

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Late Lunch May Mean Less Weight Loss - Health News and Views ...

nutrition 40102 Late Lunch May Mean Less Weight Loss

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Jan. 29 (HealthDay News) ? People who like to eat lunch late in the afternoon may have more trouble shedding pounds than those who dine earlier, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of 420 people in a weight-loss program, the late-lunch crowd lost about 25 percent less weight than those who usually lunched before 3 p.m.

The findings, reported Jan. 29 in the International Journal of Obesity, come with caveats. The researchers cannot be sure that a late lunch itself thwarts people?s diets. And the study participants were from Spain, where lunch is the biggest meal of the day.

It?s not clear if the findings would translate to a country like the United States, where most people eat a lighter lunch and save their main meal for dinner, said senior researcher Frank Scheer, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

It is a common belief that it?s better to have your big meal earlier in the day. Scheer pointed to the popular advice to eat breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper. But there hasn?t been much scientific evidence that the timing of your main meal matters in the battle of the bulge.

?This is the first large-scale, long-term study to show that it is an important factor in weight-loss success for overweight and obese individuals,? Scheer said.

It?s uncertain why a late lunch would be related to slower weight loss. One possibility, though, is that at least some late lunchers were going too long between meals, which might have effects on metabolism.

Some studies have suggested that evenly spaced meals ? eating every three to four hours ? are helpful in weight control, noted Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

In this study, the late-lunch group was more likely to eat a light breakfast or skip breakfast altogether. Almost 7 percent of later lunchers did so, versus less than 3 percent of people who ate lunch earlier.

So the findings show a ?potential connection between going too long between meals and weight gain,? said Diekman, who was not involved in the study. ?But given the study design, more studies are needed to determine if there is a cause-and-effect connection.?

The problem is that people who hold off on lunch may differ from other dieters in many ways ? including ways that could hinder their weight loss.

Scheer?s team did account for some of those possibilities. They found that the early- and late-lunch groups ate a similar number of calories and burned a similar amount (based on their reported activity levels). The two groups also averaged about the same amount of sleep each night, which is important because sleep loss has been linked to a higher risk of obesity and less weight-loss success.

Still, that?s not enough to prove the late lunch caused the slower weight loss, Scheer and Diekman pointed out.

The findings are based on 420 overweight and obese Spanish adults who took part in a five-month weight-loss program. They were encouraged to follow a traditional Mediterranean diet, which includes plenty of fish, olive oil, vegetables and whole grains, but goes light on red meat and butter.

They got no advice, however, on the timing of their meals.

In the end, the half of the group that usually ate lunch after 3 p.m. lost an average of 17 pounds. That compared with 22 pounds in the early-lunch group.

As is typical in Spain, lunch was the biggest meal of the day. The dieters downed 40 percent of their daily calories at lunchtime, on average ? whether they ate early or late.

In contrast to the lunch findings, there was no evidence that the timing of people?s breakfast or dinner affected their weight loss. (Half of the group ate their dinner after 9:30 p.m.)

So in a culture where the biggest meal of the day is dinner, would it matter if you ate it at 9 p.m. or 6 p.m.? ?It?s hard to say, based on these data,? Scheer said. Further research is needed to answer that question, he added.

For now, the current findings are in line with animal research showing that meal timing seems to affect weight, Scheer said.

It may have to do with effects on the body?s circadian rhythms, which influence a range of functions, including the sleep-wake cycle and metabolism. There is a ?master clock? in the brain that coordinates those rhythms, but there are also ?peripheral clocks? in tissue and cells throughout the body, Scheer explained.

In animals, unusual feeding times seem to disrupt some of those peripheral clocks and throw them out of sync with the master clock. In theory, that clock ?decoupling? could affect weight control.

More research is still needed, though, to see whether the timing of a person?s main meal directly influences weight ? and how important that influence really is, Scheer said.

?We need to know if this has clinical relevance,? he said.

Diekman said the findings support the notion that meal timing matters, but she agreed that the ultimate importance to weight loss remains to be seen.

?As a registered dietitian, this study helps me feel comfortable with recommendations about the importance of meal spacing,? she said. ?But it does not give an answer to why or what impacts that might have on weight.?

More information

Learn more about weight-loss dieting from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/01/29/late-lunch-may-mean-less-weight-loss/

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Homeownership rate slips, rental vacancies up

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The share of privately owned homes edged down in the fourth quarter and rental vacancies rose, government data showed on Tuesday, underscoring the challenges still confronting the housing market recovery.

The homeownership rate slipped to 65.4 percent from 65.5 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said.

While the housing market recovery appears to be gaining traction, high unemployment and stringent lending standards are keeping many from owning a home.

The homeownership rate peaked at 69.2 percent in 2004 at the height of a housing market boom fueled by cheap credit.

In the fourth quarter, the home ownership rate was pulled down by a 1.4 percentage points decline in ownership among the 35-44 age group.

The residential rental vacancy rate ticked up to 8.7 percent from 8.6 percent in the third quarter. It peaked at 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

Owner-occupied housing units made up 56.6 percent of total housing units, while renter-occupied units made up 30.0 percent of the inventory in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Vacant units that were held off market comprised 5.5 percent of the total housing stock. The share of empty privately owned houses was steady at 1.9 percent.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/homeownership-rate-slips-rental-vacancies-164338594--business.html

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After gun crime, weapon history takes time to find

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the fictional world of television police dramas, a few quick clicks on a computer lead investigators to the owner of a gun recovered at a bloody crime scene. Before the first commercial, the TV detectives are on the trail of the suspect.

Reality is a world away. There is no national database of guns. Not of who owns them, how many are sold annually or even how many exist.

Federal law bars the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from keeping track of guns. The only time the government can track the history of a gun, including its first buyer and seller, is after it's used in a crime. And though President Barack Obama and numerous Democratic lawmakers have called for new limits on what kinds of guns should be available to the public and urged stronger background checks in gun sales, there is no effort afoot to change the way the government keeps track ? or doesn't ? of where the country's guns are.

And tracing a gun is a decidedly low-tech process.

"It's not CSI and it's not a sophisticated computer system," said Charles J. Houser, who runs the ATF's National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W. Va.

To trace a gun, the search starts with police sending all the information they have about the gun ? including the manufacturer and model ? to an office worker in a low-slung brick building just off the Appalachian Trial in rural West Virginia, about 90 miles northwest of Washington.

ATF officials first call the manufacturer, who reveals which wholesaler the company used. That may lead to a call to a second distributor before investigators can pinpoint the retail gun dealer who first sold the weapon. Gun dealers are required to keep a copy of federal forms that detail who buys what gun and a log for guns sold. They are required to share that information with the ATF if a gun turns up at a crime scene and authorities want it traced. Often, gun shops fax the paperwork to the ATF.

That's where the paper trail ends.

In about 30 percent of cases, one or all of those folks have gone out of business and ATF tracers are left to sort through potentially thousands of out-of-business records forwarded to the ATF and stored at the office building that more closely resembles a remote call center than a law enforcement operation.

The records are stored as digital pictures that can only be searched one image at a time. Two shifts of contractors spend their days taking staples out of papers, sorting through thousands of pages and scanning or taking pictures of the records.

"Those records come in all different shapes and forms. We have to digitally image them, we literally take a picture of it," Houser said. "We have had rolls of toilet paper or paper towels ... because they (dealers) did not like the requirement to keep records."

The tracing center receives about a million out-of-business records every month and Houser runs the center's sorting and imaging operations from 6 a.m. to midnight, five days a week. The images are stored on old-school microfilm reels or as digital images. But there's no way to search the records, other than to scroll through one picture of a page at a time.

"We are ... prohibited from amassing the records of active dealers," Houser said. "It means that if a dealer is in business he maintains his records."

Last year the center traced about 344,000 guns for 6,000 different law enforcement agencies. Houser has a success rate of about 90 percent, so long as enough information is provided. And he boasts that every successful trace provides at least one lead in a criminal case.

"It's a factory for the production of investigative leads," Houser said of the tracing center.

A 1968 overhaul of federal gun laws required licensed dealers to keep paper records of who buys what guns and gave ATF the authority to track the history of a gun if was used in a crime. But in the intervening decades, the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups lobbied Congress to limit the government's ability to do much with what little information is collected, including keeping track on computers.

"They (lawmakers) feel that the act of amassing those records would in essence go a step toward creating an artificial registration system," Houser said.

What the ATF can do is give trace information to the law enforcement agency that asked for it and in some cases uses the data to help point them in the direction of other crimes.

Houser said the "manually intensive process" can take about five days for a routine trace. In some cases, completing the trace can mean sifting by hand through paperwork that hasn't yet been scanned.

In more urgent situations, including the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting in Connecticut last year, ATF agents run a trace within about 24 hours. Oftentimes, that involves sending agents to the gun dealer that first sold the weapon to quickly find the paperwork listing its original buyer.

Despite having access to millions of records about gun purchases from dealers that have gone out of business, the ATF isn't allowed to create a database of what guns were sold to whom and when.

ATF does keep tabs on how many guns are manufactured and shipped out of the country every year, but only gun makers and dealers know for sure how many are sold. There are also strict limits on what the agency can do with the gun trace information. And that's just the way the gun lobby and Congress want it.

Various laws and spending bills have specifically barred the ATF from creating a national database of guns and gun owners. And due to the efforts of lawmakers, including former Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, ATF agents who trace the history of a gun can't share that information with anyone but the police agency that asked for it.

As it stands now, local law enforcement doesn't have access to regional data about gun traces. So if the police commissioner in New York City is trying to figure out where the guns are coming into the city from ? whether they're going to New Jersey first or upstate New York, for example ? that data is not available because of an amendment introduced by Tiahrt, said Mike Bouchard, a former ATF assistant director for Field Operations. ATF can tell police where most crime guns are traced from, by state. But it does not release information on gun shops or purchasers.

If police chiefs want that, they have to reach out to individual chiefs at other departments and ask.

"It's pretty ridiculous when we have an automated system that will do it for the chiefs," Bouchard said.

Tiahrt said he first proposed limiting access to trace data to make sure the information wasn't available under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It was an issue of keeping undercover police, informants and innocent gun buyers and sellers out of the public eye, Tiahrt said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Knowing who legally buys guns won't prevent gun violence, the former Republican congressman said.

"We're chasing these wisps of smoke that won't solve the problem," Tiahrt said. "Get to the root cause. Put out the fire. Deal with mental illness. Deal with situational awareness."

Houser said he would prefer the tracing center's operations to be expanded and a center built that would use some technologies to help more easily trace a gun. But until the law changes, his staff will continue removing staples, turning pages right-side-up and taking digital pictures of records.

"Our job is to enforce the laws that are passed to us," Houser said. "What they give us is what we are required to work with."

___

Associated Press reporter Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-29-Tracing%20Guns/id-1b675fe7bbf34451a2c2d624d34038ca

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US consumers less optimistic after tax increase

WASHINGTON (AP) ? An increase in Social Security taxes is leaving Americans with less take-home pay ? and a more negative outlook for the U.S. economy.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its index of consumer confidence plunged 8.1 points in January from December to 58.6. That's the lowest reading in 14 months and the third straight decline.

Congress and the White House reached a deal in January to keep income taxes from rising on most Americans. But the agreement did not extend a temporary cut in the Social Security taxes.

The tax increase will leave a household earning $50,000 a year with about $1,000 less to spend in 2013. A household with two high-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less.

The private research group said the tax hike was the key reason consumers felt less confident in January. The survey was conducted through Jan. 17, at which point most people began to realize their paychecks were lighter.

"It may take a while for confidence to rebound and consumers to recover from their initial paycheck shock," said Lynn Franco, the Conference Board's economist.

Consumers also said they felt less optimistic about their job prospects over the next six months.

Taxes are rising at a time when hiring is limited and wages are barely growing. The combination is expected to hurt consumer spending and slow economic growth.

"Perhaps more important than the shock to confidence, the hit to income is also likely to show up in a slower pace of consumer spending in the first half of this year," said Thomas Feltmate, an economist at TD Economics, in a note to clients.

The index has declined for three straight months since hitting a nearly five-year high of 73.1 in October 2012. It's still above the post-recession low of 40.9 reached in October 2011.

Consumers began to feel less optimistic at the end of the year when it appeared congressional Republicans and President Barack Obama were at an impasse over sharp spending cuts and tax increases.

Obama reached a deal with Republicans on Jan. 1 that kept most Americans from seeing higher income taxes. But they postponed decisions on spending cuts and raising the nation's debt limit until later in the year. And they allowed the Social Security tax cut to expire.

"All the negative news about the dysfunction in Washington surrounding the fiscal cliff negotiations contributed to the December plunge, and ongoing shenanigans concerning the debt ceiling and fiscal sanity in general continued to weigh in January," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., in a note to clients.

Many economists predict economic growth slowed in the October-December quarter to an annual rate of around 1.2 percent. That would be much weaker that the 3.1 percent rate in the July-September quarter.

Most economists say the tax increase will hold back growth in the first quarter of 2013.

The decline in confidence comes as the economy is signaling improvement elsewhere.

A recovery in housing market is looking more sustainable and is expected to strength this year.

A separate report Tuesday showed home prices accelerated this fall, pushed higher by rising sales and a tighter supply of available homes. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.5 percent in November compared with the same month a year ago. That's the largest year-over-year gain in six years.

The U.S. auto industry and financial sector are also picking up.

Auto sales reached a five-year high of 14.5 million in 2012. Analysts expect sales will climb even higher this year, to 15.5 million.

Stocks are near their all-time highs. The Standard and Poor's 500 has more than doubled from its low in 2009.

Still, the job market remains sluggish. Employers have added an average of about 150,000 jobs a month for the past two years. That's enough for a gradual decline in the unemployment rate, which remains high at 7.8 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-consumers-less-optimistic-tax-increase-210954179--finance.html

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US eyes drone base in Africa with al-Qaida in mind

FILE - In this Dec. 8, 2012, file photo, Malians demonstrate in favor of an international military intervention to regain control of the country's Islamist-controlled north, in Bamako, Mali. They carry signs that say 'That's enough, let the government work' right, and 'We Malians Demand Chapter 7,' center, referring to the chapter of the United Nations Charter which would be used to authorize international military intervention. The Pentagon is moving toward setting up a military base in northwest Africa from which to operate surveillance drones to collect intelligence on Islamic militants in the region, several U.S. defense officials said Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the plan is still in the works, said the base in Niger would position the U.S. to provide more help to French troops fighting al-Qaida-backed militants in neighboring Mali. (AP Photo/Harouna Traore)

In this photo taken on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, provided by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) and released Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, a French soldier walks near armored vehicles at the Timbuktu airport, north Mali. Backed by French helicopters and paratroopers, Malian soldiers entered the fabled city of Timbuktu on Monday after al-Qaida-linked militants who ruled the outpost by fear for nearly 10 months fled into the desert, setting fire to a library that held thousands of manuscripts dating to the Middle Ages. (AP Photo/French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD), Arnaud Roine)

In this picture taken on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, provided by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) and released Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, a French soldier, second from right, shakes hands with a resident of Timbuktu, north Mali. Backed by French helicopters and paratroopers, Malian soldiers entered the fabled city of Timbuktu on Monday after al-Qaida-linked militants who ruled the outpost by fear for nearly 10 months fled into the desert, setting fire to a library that held thousands of manuscripts dating to the Middle Ages.(AP Photo/French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD), Arnaud Roine)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Plans to base unarmed American surveillance drones in the African nation of Niger highlight the Obama administration's growing concern about extremist influences in the volatile region. They also raise tough questions about how to contain al-Qaida and other militant groups without committing U.S. ground forces in yet another war.

In the short run, a drone base would enable the U.S. to give France more intelligence on the militants that French troops are fighting in neighboring Mali. Over time it could extend the reach not only of American intelligence gathering but also U.S. special operations missions to strengthen Niger's own security forces.

The U.S. and Niger in recent days signed a "status of forces agreement" spelling out legal protections and obligations of American forces that might operate in Niger in the future.

Pentagon spokesman George Little acknowledged the agreement, but declined Tuesday to discuss U.S. plans for a military presence in Niger.

"They expressed a willingness to engage more closely with us, and we are happy to engage with them," Little said, adding that the legal agreement was months in the making and saying it was unrelated to the recent fighting in Mali.

The U.S. has found some of its efforts to fight extremists hobbled by some African governments, whose own security forces are ill-equipped to launch an American-style hunt for the militants yet are reluctant to accept U.S. help because of fears the Americans will overstay their welcome and trample their sovereignty.

At France's request, the U.S. has flown 17 Air Force transport flights to move French troops and their equipment to Mali in recent days, Little said. U.S. aircraft also are conducting aerial refueling of French fighter jets based in Mali, he said, and those operations will continue.

Other U.S. officials said the Pentagon is planning a new drone base in northwestern Africa ? most likely in Niger ? but the plans are not yet complete. It would provide more extended U.S. aerial surveillance of militants in the region without risking the loss of air crews. The main U.S. drone base in Africa is in Djibouti in East Africa.

Niger has accepted the idea of hosting unarmed U.S. drones as well as conventional and special operations troops to advise and assist Niger's military on border security, but it has not endorsed armed U.S. Predator strikes or the launching of U.S. special operations raids from their territory, according to a senior U.S. military official briefed on the matter. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

Africa is increasingly a focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, even as al-Qaida remains a threat in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. The recent terrorist attack on a natural gas complex in Algeria, in which at least 37 hostages and 29 militants were killed, illustrated the threat posed by extremists who have asserted power propelled by long-simmering ethnic tensions in Mali and the revolution in Libya.

A number of al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist groups operate in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahara, including a group known as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, which originated in Algeria and is active in northern Mali. Earlier this month French forces intervened to stop the extremists' move toward Mali's capital, and Washington has grown more involved by providing a variety of military support to French troops.

In Addis Ababa on Tuesday, several African and Western nations pledged more than $450 million to fund an African-led military force to fight Islamist extremists in the Mali. And Britain announced it had offered to send up to 200 military officers to help train a West African force in Mali, including as many as 40 who could be sent as part of a European Union training mission of 500 personnel.

African nations including Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Gambia and others lined up with developed countries including the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom to pledge money for the military effort. The U.S. share is to be $96 million, pending congressional approval.

As for al-Qaida-linked groups operating in Mali and elsewhere in northern Africa, the issue for the Obama administration is the degree to which they threaten U.S. security interests.

"AQIM poses a threat in the region, and I can't rule out the possibility that AQIM poses a threat to U.S. interests," Little said. "This is a group that has shown its ability to demonstrate brutality and to conduct attacks. And it is very important that we work with our partners in the region and our allies to thwart them."

Army Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said last week that the worry is not just the intentions of AQIM but the ability of like-minded groups to leverage their capabilities by working together.

"We're starting to see the increasing collaboration, sharing of funding, sharing recruiting efforts, sharing of weapons and explosives and certainly a sharing of ideology that is expanding and connecting these various organizations," Ham said at Howard University. "And I think that's what poses at least the greatest immediate threat in the region."

The administration has ruled out sending U.S. ground forces to Mali. Its view is that military involvement, while necessary, is not a solution to the region's problems.

"We have said all along that there has to be more than a purely security solution to the problems in Mali, that the security track and the political track have to go hand-in-hand, that a key component of returning stability to Mali includes new elections and overturning the results of the coup firmly," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Monday. She was referring to the coup last spring that prompted the U.S. to withdraw military trainers and cut off other forms of direct military assistance.

Some of the Malian troops that had received U.S. training wound up siding with the rebels in the north, and others who remained loyal to the government proved incapable of standing their ground against the militants.

Adm. Bill McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told a Washington conference on Tuesday that the key to future U.S. training operations like that is to ensure that the effort is long-lasting.

"We had an episodic presence in Mali," McRaven said, "and while I don't know if a persistent presence would have changed our relationship with the Malian forces -- whether they would have exponentially gotten better or not. "But in order to work with a host country, you really have to have that persistent presence."

___

Associated Press writers Writer Kimberly Dozier and Pauline Jelinek in Washington and Kirubel Tadesse in Ethiopia contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-29-US-Africa-Al-Qaida/id-4433f6797e0248979fe3ab0e121acfdf

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Solar Walk (for iPad)

While the Editors' Choice Star Walk 6 (for iPad) reveals the night sky, including constellations, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and planets, another Vito Technology app, Solar Walk (for iPad) ($2.99), focuses on our solar system. It lets you view and scale 3D representations of the Sun, planets, comets, and asteroids, view information on, and (in most cases) images of these objects, and view the solar system (or a planet and its moons) in motion. This impressive iPad app provides a good introduction to the solar system for younger students as well as newcomers to astronomy.

After the app's gorgeous opening screen, showing an artist's view of the inner solar system, the app zeroes in on Earth, showing satellites and their orbits around it, continents, vegetation, clouds, and seas, and the lights on our planet's night side when you rotate it (by sweeping your finger across the screen).

One fun feature of Solar Walk is the time slider along the right-hand edge, coupled with the digital clock at upper right. By setting the clock for minutes, hours, days, months, or years and engaging the slider, you can enable the Earth to rotate (and watch artificial satellites in motion, at least at the slower speeds). If you expand the view by pinching, it will show the Moon in motion around the Earth as well. You can either control the motion by hand, or set the slider in motion by sweeping your finger upwards or downwards and letting go.

Your Personal Transporter
At the screen's lower left is a Search button. It will transport you to other objects: the Sun; the planets (Pluto is included as such); dwarf planets and asteroids (Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, Eris, and Eros); and comets (Halley's Comet, Hale-Bopp, Borrelly, and Ikeya-Zhang).

Clicking on the information ("i") icon for a world gives you general information about it, figures (data), some info on the world's internal structure, and a list of science missions to it.

By using the slider and clock, you can set these objects in motion as well, so you could watch, for example, the globe of Mars rotate (surface features are marked, and there's a 3D depiction of the Curiosity rover at Gale Crater); Jupiter's cloud belts rotating, and its four large moons in orbit; or the pear-shaped nucleus of Halley's Comet releasing clouds of gas and dust as it rotates. Expanding the Sun view shows you the planets in motion, although its scale is such that the inner planets vanish when you expand the view to encompass the outer worlds.

Also in Search are tabs marked Satellites, Geography, and Stars. With Satellites, you can zero in on specific Earth-orbiting artificial satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station (ISS) the most notable of them. Clicking on a satellite name/icon will take you to a close-up view (a detailed 3D representation) of it in space. By rotating a satellite and using the time slider, you can make it seem like the satellite is orbiting the Earth, with the ground, ocean, or clouds passing beneath it. (This works better with the ISS than with smaller satellites.) As with planets and other objects, you can access an information page and image gallery.

We Lost New York
The Geography tab gives you a choice of four worlds: Moon, Mars, Earth, and Venus. Clicking on one gives you a list of features, both well known and obscure, in alphabetical order. Clicking on any of them takes you to the feature's location, where it's labeled on the planet's rotatable globe, as are other features. On the Earth map, most large cities are shown, although there are some notable omissions. For instance, in the United States, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Jacksonville, and Washington D.C. are shown, but New York City, for one, seems to have vanished. Hamilton, Bermuda, Thorshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands, and Longyearbyen on Svalbard are shown, but more notable island cities like San Juan, Puerto Rico, Honolulu or, for that matter, Dublin, are missing.

The Stars tab takes you to selected stars. They're shown in their true colors, more or less; for instance, Sirius is bluish, while Barnard's Star is reddish. They're all depicted at the same size; although you can adjust their distance (and therefore, their apparent size) there's no scale, so you wouldn't know by looking at them Sirius is much larger than Barnard's Star, and Betelgeuse much larger than Sirius). They're all shown as single stars, whereas many are double (as is the case with Sirius) or triple (like Rigel Kentaurus, aka Alpha Centauri). The astronomical data you can call up for each star does indicate which are multiple stars, as well as their mass and radius compared with the Sun?if you know how to read it. And although most bright stars are shown, as well as many fainter ones, once again there are some notable omissions, like the brilliant stars Antares, Rigel, Spica, Deneb, and Canopus (the third brightest star in the sky).

At the top left is a Share button that lets you send a screenshot to email or Facebook, tweet it, save it to camera roll, print it, and rate or gift the app.

The Movies section presents educational animations of some (mostly) basic astronomical phenomena. They include Size Comparison [of worlds], Earth's Cycles, Solar Eclipse, The Moon Phases, Tidal Phenomena, Major Circles of Latitude, Zodiacal Constellations, and Cassini-Huygens. They're brief and basic, but do impart useful information to people new to astronomy.

Solar Walk also runs on an iPhone, with the same basic features and functionality. Though fine on an iPhone, the iPad's more generous screen only serves to enhance the experience.

Solar Walk is not quite as intuitive as Solar System, and its 3D graphics generally aren't as stunning. Both apps have gorgeous image galleries. There are some curious selections and omissions to Solar Walk's geography and star Search features. But the app has some good features, including introductory videos, searches, social media integration, and a more modest price.

More iPad App Reviews:

??? Solar System (for iPad)
??? Solar Walk (for iPad)
??? iHeartRadio (for iPad)
??? Temple Run 2 (for iPad)
??? 3D Brain (for iPad)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/GeF4TNeL3oU/0,2817,2414733,00.asp

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Why Civil War Hunley sub tanked

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? Scientists say a pole on the front of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley designed to plant explosives on enemy ships may hold a key clue to its sinking during the Civil War.

The experts are to release their findings Monday at a North Charleston lab where the hand-cranked sub is being preserved and studied. The Hunley was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship.

The pole, called a spar, was once placed at the front of the sub and used to plant a powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic in 1864.The Housatonic sank, while the Hunley and its eight-man crew never returned.

The sub was found in waters off South Carolina in 1995 and raised five years later. It's been in the laboratory ever since.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/experts-clues-sinking-confederate-sub-113855343.html

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