Friday, December 30, 2011

Rookie Cole crucial as Miami beat Boston (Reuters)

MIAMI (Reuters) ? Rookie Norris Cole shined for the Miami Heat as they beat Boston 115-107 on Tuesday to maintain their impressive start to the National Basketball Association season and hand the Celtics their second consecutive loss.

The Heat, beaten by Dallas in last year's NBA finals, dominated for much of the game and led by 15 points at halftime, but the Celtics created some tension late in the fourth quarter and twice reduced the deficit to three inside the final three minutes.

Cole, a surprise draft pick out of Cleveland State, showed great confidence and steel to score 20 points, 14 of them in the fourth quarter and made four assists, proving instrumental in the nervy final moments.

For once, the 'Big Three' of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were overshadowed as fans left the arena chattering about the exciting potential of Cole.

"If it was football, he'd get the game ball," James said of his fellow Ohio native, who came up with a crucial three-pointer to restore a five-point lead just as Boston were sensing an unlikely comeback.

"This kid he's one of those diamonds in the rough, one of those kids who are very mature and we knew we had a gem in him," said Wade, who ended up with 24 points and eight assists.

"The biggest thing was to be able to take those shots and not be afraid of the moment, he's the kind of player who thinks that is what he should be doing.

"We see a guy who isn't afraid to put the work in and who from day one, has come in and been able to run the show and be able to tell guys like me and LeBron to get out of the way, you have to respect that.

"He didn't hesitate, he made the big plays down the stretch and I haven't been on a side with a young guy doing that, so many times, for a long time. Since me," he quipped.

Cole clearly has the ability to take challenges in his stride and he adroitly avoided a potential media pitfall when asked about whether there was now a 'Big Four' in Miami.

"Don't get carried away, I'm still learning. It was a big game for me but those guys have proven over and over again for years in this league that they are dominant players and I am still learning, I'm still getting better," Cole told reporters.

Miami are 2-0 on the new, reduced, season after also winning their opener at Dallas on December 25.

Boston sorely missed the presence of the injured Paul Pierce, who would have guarded James but benefited from their switch to zonal defense.

"I told the players that at some point it will get us back in the game because no one thinks we'll ever play zone, it put them on their heels," said Celtics' head coach Doc Rivers.

Miami, who beat Boston 4-1 in last season's Eastern Conference semi-finals, marched to a 69-54 lead at halftime with James, who finished with 26 points, in sharp form.

Ray Allen top scored for the Celtics with 28 points, including six three-pointers.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111228/sp_nm/us_nba_heat

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King of Leon's Caleb Followill to Be a First-Time Dad!

The band's frontman and his supermodel wife Lily Aldridge are awaiting Baby No.1! See more stars who are expecting

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/pregnant-celebrity-photos-look-whos-popping/1-b-18178?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Apregnant-celebrity-photos-look-whos-popping-18178

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Groupon Acquires Stealth Silicon Valley Startup Campfire Labs

TechCrunch:

Groupon has continued its (talent) acquisition spree with the recent purchase of a hot Silicon Valley startup before they even launched -- and with extremely little fanfare.

Read the whole story: TechCrunch

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/groupon-campfire-labs_n_1173419.html

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

PhotoBlog: Dozens die in India cold wave

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

People warm themselves up by a bonfire on a cold morning in the old quarters of Delhi on Dec. 27. Temperature in New Delhi has dipped to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, local media reported.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian rickshaw drivers warm themselves around a bonfire on a cold morning in New Delhi, India, Tuesday on Dec. 27. The dipping mercury has pushed the country-wide death toll to more than a hundred as north India continued to reel under biting cold conditions, according to news reports.

Natalia Jimenez writes

Northern India continues to face a wave of cold weather that has already caused the deaths of over 90 people. According to the BBC, most of the deaths have occurred among the homeless and elderly. We previously published a series of photos of the cold weather in New Delhi, taken by AP photographer Kevin Frayer.

See more images from India on PhotoBlog.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian men feed birds on a cold morning in New Delhi, India on Dec. 27. The dipping mercury has pushed the country-wide death toll to more than a hundred as north India continued to reel under biting cold conditions, according to news reports.

Tsering Topgyal / AP

An elderly woman sells newspapers wrapped in a shawl to keep warm on a cold morning in New Delhi, India on Dec. 27. The dipping mercury has pushed the country-wide death toll to more than a hundred as north India continued to reel under biting cold conditions, according to news reports.

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Source: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/27/9741257-india-suffers-with-wave-of-cold-weather-causing-over-90-deaths

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Israel rally against segregation

BBC's Jon Donnison: "People believe what is happening in Beit Shemesh is a microcosm of the broader Israeli society"

Thousands of Israelis have rallied in the town of Beit Shemesh against ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremism.

The protest follows two days of clashes after an eight-year-old girl said she had been harassed on her way to school.

Some ultra-Orthodox in Beit Shemesh are seeking to segregate men and women.

President Shimon Peres backed the protest. "The entire nation must be recruited in order to save the majority from the hands of a small minority," Mr Peres said hours before the rally.

He said the demonstration was a defence of the "character" of the state of Israel "against a minority which breaks our national solidarity".

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni also condemned "the extremist elements that are rearing their heads and are trying to impose their world view on us".

'Afraid to go to school'

Ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with police in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem

Protesters, some holding signs reading "Free Israel from religious coercion" and "Stop Israel from becoming Iran", gathered on Tuesday evening.

Anger spilled over after an eight-year-old American girl, Naama Margolese, said she was afraid to walk to school in the town because ultra-Orthodox men shouted at her.

"When I walk to school in the morning, I used to get a tummy ache because I was so scared... that they were going to stand and start yelling and spitting," she said in a subsequent interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

In his statement, Mr Peres said: "No person has the right to threaten a girl, a woman or any person in any way. They are not the lords of this land."

Other women have reported similar incidents in the town of 100,000, some 18 miles (30km) south-west of Jerusalem.

Continue reading the main story

At the scene

By early evening thousands of demonstrators had gathered in Beit Shemesh, waving banners saying "Free Israel". People are angry at the growing influence of Israel's conservative ultra-Orthodox Jews and in particular their treatment of women.

It is a tiny minority of ultra-Orthodox who carry out such attacks. But many Israelis believe the country's character is at stake. They resent the fact that most ultra-Orthodox men don't work or serve in the army. Instead, the government gives them subsidies to carry out religious studies. One man here told me Jewish religious extremism posed a bigger threat to the country than Iran.

The Israeli government, so often critical of religious extremism in Islamic countries, has ordered a crackdown on intolerance at home. In this country there is often a debate about co-existence between Jews and Arabs. In Beit Shemesh, people were asking whether the varying strands of Judaism could co-exist.

Sarit Ramon described the situation in the town, where religiously observant immigrants live alongside Israelis embracing a more modern lifestyle, as having been "catastrophic for years".

"When I told that I was spat at a year and a half ago, people raised an eyebrow, and that was about it," she told Reuters.

Microcosm

Alisa Coleman told the BBC that she had been called a prostitute when dressed in a short-sleeved T-shirt and a skirt.

Though underlining that this behaviour was carried out by only a tiny proportion of the community, she said what was happening in Beit Shemesh was "a microcosm of what's happening in the whole country".

On Monday, one police officer was slightly hurt and a number of Orthodox Jews were detained after a group of some 300 ultra-Orthodox residents pelted police with stones and eggs in an incident reportedly triggered after police tried to remove a sign ordering segregation.

A television crew attempting to film in the town were surrounded and harassed - the second alleged attack on journalists in as many days.

Continue reading the main story

Ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel

  • Ultra-orthodox Jews account for just under 10% of Israel's population
  • Rapidly growing community due to a high birth rate - meaning this proportion is set to double within next 20 years
  • Beit Shemesh, which lies about 30 km (18 miles) to the west of Jerusalem, is a city of about 100,000; Ultra-orthodox Jews account for about half of the population

On Sunday, a crew from Channel 2 news, which originally aired Naama Margolese's story, were attacked as they were filming, say reports, with rocks allegedly thrown at their van.

After Monday's clashes, unnamed ultra-Orthodox activists from Beit Shemesh issued a statement condemning the violence, but also accusing the media of initiating "deliberate provocations in order to make the peaceful, quiet and tolerant residents, who live their lives according to their beliefs, look bad".

Such clashes have become more frequent in Israel in recent years as the authorities have challenged efforts by ultra-Orthodox Jews to segregate women in public places.

The BBC's Jon Donnison, in Beit Shemesh, says the events have highlighted what is a growing religious divide in Israel.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 10% of the population in Israel. The community has a high birth rate and is growing rapidly.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-middle-east-16342327

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Stephen Glass, Disgraced Former Journalist, Fights For California Law License (VIDEO)

SAN FRANCISCO ? A former journalist who became the subject of a Hollywood movie after he was caught fabricating articles in the late 1990s is fighting to become a lawyer in California over the objections of a state bar committee.

Stephen Glass, whose ethical missteps at The New Republic and other magazines were recounted in the film "Shattered Glass" and an autobiographical novel, has challenged the bar committee's decision to deny him a license to practice law, the San Francisco Chronicle ( ) reported Monday. http://bit.ly/sfh2je

Glass attended law school at Georgetown University and passed California's bar exam in 2007. His application for an attorney's license was turned down by the state's Committee of Bar Examiners, which judged him morally unfit for his new profession.

But an independent state bar court ruled in Glass's favor in July and the California Supreme Court has since agreed to hear the committee's appeal. No date for oral arguments has been set.

The bar association's lawyers said in written filings that even though Glass' transgressions occurred when he was in his 20s, his attempts at atonement were inadequate and in some cases coincided with the publication of his novel. They faulted him for never compensating anyone who was hurt by his falsehoods.

Law and journalism "share common core values ? trust, candor, veracity, honor, respect for others," Rachel Grunberg, a lawyer for the State Bar of California, told the Chronicle. "He violated every one of them."

The bar court that overruled the committee in July was persuaded, however, that Glass was genuinely repentant and had been rehabilitated. His appeal included character references from 22 witnesses, including two judges who had employed him, two psychiatrists, and Martin Peretz, who owned The New Republic when Glass' deception occurred.

In his own statement to the bar, Glass said he was "greatly ashamed and remorseful about my lying" but "forthright and candid about my years of misconduct."

Glass tried to become a lawyer in New York after he passed that state's bar exam in 2003, but withdrew his application when his request for moral character approval from the New York bar languished.

Now 39, Glass works as a law clerk at a Beverly Hills firm. His lawyers did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages for comment Monday.

Take a look at footage from a 2003 interview with Glass below: '; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/stephen-glass-disgraced-former-journalist_n_1170641.html

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Turkey, Azerbaijan sign pipeline deal

(AP) ? Turkey and Azerbaijan on Monday signed an agreement to establish a consortium that would build a pipeline to transport 16 billion cubic meters (565 billion cubic feet) per year of Azeri gas to Turkey and Europe.

The two countries' energy ministers signed a memorandum of understanding for a consortium between Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR, Turkey's state-run pipeline company BOTAS, and the Turkish petroleum company TPAO. The deal allows other oil and gas companies to join the consortium.

The projected pipeline, the Trans Anadolu, would carry gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field, across Turkey.

The deal comes at a time when officials are dithering over plans for the construction of the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project aimed at reducing the bloc's deliveries from Russia. The project is slated to ship gas from the Caspian region through southern Europe to Austria, but its viability has been called into question amid doubts that enough suppliers can be found to fill the pipeline.

Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the Trans Anadolu could eventually be connected to Nabucco.

Azerbaijan's Industry and Energy Minister Natiq Aliev said the Trans Anadolu pipeline would initially carry 16 billion cubic meters (565 billion cubic feet) per year of gas but the capacity could, in time, increase to 24 billion cubic meters (847 billion cubic feet) per year.

Six billion cubic meters (212 billion cubic feet) of the gas would be sold to Turkey while some 10 billion cubic meters (353 billion cubic feet) would go to European markets, Aliev said.

SOCAR has an 80 percent stake in the Trans Anadolu consortium, while the Turkish companies share 20 percent, Yildiz said.

Officials said construction is scheduled to begin in 2012 and end in 2017.

The pipeline's route and cost would be announced after a feasibility study by SOCAR, Yildiz told reporters.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-26-EU-Turkey-Azerbaijan-Gas/id-4b3452e4f134406ebfa90f35741673b3

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Monday, December 26, 2011

1997 Ford Econoline E150 from North America

We use Ford Cargo vans for pick-ups around town lugging medical equipment. We currently own 3 Ford Cargo Vans, and they are all extremely reliable.

The gas mileage ranges from 13-16 MPG, depending on driver / traffic.

The drivers seat is comfortable if equipped with armrests, otherwise - not so great. I never understood why Ford could not put a glove box in the cab, but the center console will do.

We run Hankook tires and have found them to be the best fit for the Ford vans, as well as Motorcraft spark plugs and Mobil 1 synthetic oil.

We plan on adding more vehicles to our fleet, and they will be Fords.

Source: http://www.carsurvey.org/reviews/ford/econoline/1997/

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