Monday, January 21, 2013

U.S. gives tribute to memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - America's concern over gun violence became the focus of speeches in Atlanta on Monday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who led a non-violent struggle for civil rights before he was gunned down at age 39.

Crowds gathered at commemorative services across the country on the national holiday in King's honor, the same day as President Barack Obama's second inauguration ceremonies and little more than a month after the Connecticut mass shooting that touched off a national outcry over gun control.

In a ceremony in King's hometown of Atlanta, his daughter Bernice King spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was once a pastor. She recalled her father's reaction after their family home in Montgomery, Alabama, was bombed in 1956 during a boycott of the local bus system.

Some black residents of the city were "armed that day, ready to protect their homes," but King urged them to put away their guns, Bernice King said.

"This apostle of nonviolence perhaps introduced one of the greatest experiences of gun control that we've ever heard of in the history of our nation," said Bernice King, who is chief executive of the King Center in Atlanta.

An assassin's bullet ended King's life on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, human rights activist Elisabeth Omilami reminded the crowd at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

"Dr. King was a victim of gun violence," said Omilami, daughter of Hosea Williams, one of King's lieutenants in the civil rights movement.

The church crowd gathered before a giant screen to witness the inauguration ceremony in Washington and hear Obama's speech which touched on King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered 50 years ago in Washington.

Obama last week proposed a package of measures intended to reduce gun violence following the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting that killed 20 first grade students and six staff members.

In his speech on Monday, Obama recalled King's dream for freedom for all Americans, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or geographic or economic status.

"Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm," said Obama, who used a Bible that belonged to King at his swearing-in ceremony.

King's father, Reverend Martin Luther King Sr., also was a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. It sits on Atlanta's historic Auburn Avenue near the King Center, established in 1968 by the slain activist's widow Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006. On the avenue not far from the church is King's grandparents' home, where he was born in 1929.

King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Nearly a million people visit the King Center each year, viewing an eternal flame honoring King and crypts holding the remains of King and his wife and attending an array of programs promoting non-violent social change.

Around the country, where Martin Luther King Day has been a federal holiday since 1986, banks, financial markets and government offices were closed.

A march along Auburn Avenue was set for later in the day, and a rally to address such issues as education, housing, peace, justice and voter registration, organizers said.

Also planned was a Day of Service, with an array of community service projects in Atlanta in honor of King.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-gives-tribute-memory-dr-martin-luther-king-161348831.html

navy seal team 6 tim gunn tim gunn built to last obama state of the union address 2012 mitt romney tax return flip saunders

Monday, November 26, 2012

Internet Market For The Savvy Business Owner - KurtTasche.com ...

Internet Market For The Savvy Business Owner

For businesses promoting their services or products, Affiliate marketing becomes useful, also, it can replace traditional advertising and other methods like television or print. Use these tips if you would like to perform Website marketing with your business.

If you know what kind of lingo people use when talking about the brand you are selling you can use it in your ads. Using terms that your customers are already comfortable with will allow you to reach them on a more familiar level. Your target market will readily identify with your message when you use the correct terminology in your writings.

Make sure you have the money to buy a good domain URL. Chances are, you are not going to find a domain name that is the exact name of your company. But, if you are willing to spend between $1,000 to $2,000, you will likely get one close enough.

Strategic placement of ads is the cornerstone of Website marketing. Companies such as Google?s AdSense make this easy. These companies offer a lot of marketing for your advertising dollar.

Emailing clients is a very important part in any Internet marketing endeavor. You need to ensure that your mail stays safe. Don?t use free email services that lack functions that you need, such as the ability to store mail indefinitely. If you have sensitive information contained in your emails, consider security and archiving methods to keep them safe.

Marketing online is like other markets in some ways; however, in other ways, it is very different. Be ready for any changes that may come up, like if search engines stop putting focus on title tags. When that happens, you need to be ready to switch gears, like putting an increased effort behind video marketing.

Don?t just abandon and reject ideas that did not produce the results that you wanted. Your idea that failed to catch on in the past, may work now. The Internet evolves daily. Don?t sink extra time and money into ideas that aren?t working, but hang onto them in case they become viable down the road.

Make your advertisements descriptive, and make sure to entice readers with promises of quick results. Play up the speed of the process; how quickly the order is processed, how little time shipping takes, or how quickly your product will give them the results they want. This means improving download speed, having very fast checkouts, or quickly confirming orders.

Here is some great web marketing advice! Be very clear with your customers that their information is completely safe with you. You can do this by placing a privacy policy on the top right part of the page. Doing this will reassure your customers that the money they spend will be handled with care. In addition, their identities are safe when buying from your website.

Another option is putting it together with a product that is similar and selling it for a good price. Make sure that the terms are stated clearly in all of your marketing literature.

You can assess the results of online marketing campaigns with sophisticated programs that measure the sales versus the number of visitors to your site. Many of the bigger online companies have tracking meters available that will show you the precise number of visitors in comparison with buyers and repeat visitors.
These web analysis products are designed to suit a number of uses and easily integrate with you sites per-existing software.

To sum things up, Internet marketing can be a valuable business tool. Internet promotion can be utilized to advertise your services and products instead of traditional TV or print ads. Using the information and suggestions in this article can help you utilize the Internet to further your business.

Source: http://kurttasche.com/internet-marketing-articles/internet-market-for-the-savvy-business-owner-2.html

louisville lotto numbers susan powell megamillions winners university of louisville louisville ky final four

Sunday, November 25, 2012

This Earthquake Sensor Is Powered By the Very Earthquakes It Senses

There's no doubt that earthquakes can be powerful, and usually the bulk of that power goes to destroying things. While you can't stop an earthquake from quaking earth, a Victoria University student has found a way to divert some of that energy to monitoring the quake it came from. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nxf5C8BOU2o/this-earthquake-sensor-is-powered-by-the-very-earthquakes-it-senses

narwhal st louis university mario manningham mario manningham williams syndrome hoya casa de mi padre

Convicted Russian spy Danilov released on parole

MOSCOW (AP) ? A Russian physicist convicted of spying for China has been released on parole and is continuing to protest his innocence.

Valentin Danilov was arrested in 2001 on charges of passing classified information on space technology to China. He claimed the information was already publicly available.

He was acquitted in a 2003 trial, but retried the next year and convicted and sentenced to 14 years.

After his release Saturday, Danilov told a news conference in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk that he would pursue his case with the European Court of Human Rights.

Before his arrest, Danilov was a professor at Krasnoyarsk Technical University.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/convicted-russian-spy-danilov-released-parole-103616543.html

auld lang syne end of the world 2012 pink martini times square 2012 predictions new years eve ball drop new years eve times square 2012

Merkel rival warns Greece could cost Germans

BERLIN (Reuters) - German chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck warned in a newspaper interview released on Saturday that German taxpayers could get stuck with a large bill if Greece were to default on its loans.

Steinbrueck told Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Germany has so far only provided loan guarantees for Greece but that could end up costing German taxpayers billions of euros. He said the government should make that fact clear to the public at home.

"One must tell the people that Greece could default on these loans," said Steinbrueck, who will lead the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) candidate against Chancellor Angela Merkel in next September's federal election.

"We in Germany have to make sacrifices to help hold Europe together. We're already part of a 'liability union'," he added.

Many Germans, especially conservatives who support Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), are firmly opposed to any sort of collectivized debt in Europe and especially the creation of euro zone bonds.

Steinbrueck said "so far Germany has not paid a single cent" to Greece but added it was quite possible that could change.

"We were ready to pay money for the costs of German reunification - something all of our neighbors welcomed despite the bad experiences they had had with us," he said, referring to Germany's Nazi past. "Now is time that we have to ask ourselves the question: what is Europe worth to us?"

Steinbrueck said that Greece will not be able to return to the capital markets for another eight years.

"We're going to have to build a bridge for this period and that's going to cost money," Steinbrueck said.

(Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum, editing by William Hardy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/merkel-rival-warns-greece-could-cost-germans-111914804.html

walmart black friday walmart black friday Target Black Friday PacSun apple store bestbuy bestbuy

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Hepatitis C treatment's side effects can now be studied in the lab

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2012) ? The adverse side effects of certain hepatitis C medications can now be replicated and observed in Petri dishes and test tubes, thanks to a research team led by Craig Cameron, the Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University. "The new method not only will help us to understand the recent failures of hepatitis C antiviral drugs in some patients in clinical trials," said Cameron. "It also could help to identify medications that eliminate all adverse effects."

The team's findings, published in the current issue of the journal PLOS Pathogens, may help pave the way toward the development of safer and more-effective treatments for hepatitis C, as well as other pathogens such as SARS and West Nile virus.

First author Jamie Arnold, a research associate in Cameron's lab at Penn State, explained that the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which affects over 170,000,000 people worldwide, is the leading cause of liver disease and, although antiviral treatments are effective in many patients, they cause serious side effects in others. "Many antiviral medications for treating HCV are chemical analogs for the building blocks of RNA that are used to assemble new copies of the virus's genome, enabling it to replicate," he said. "These medications are close enough to the virus's natural building blocks that they get incorporated into the virus's genome. But they also are different in ways that lead to the virus's incomplete replication. The problem, however, is that the medication not only mimics the virus's genetic material, but also the genetic material of the patient. So, while the drug causes damage to the virus, it also may affect the patient's own healthy tissues."

A method to reveal these adverse side effects in the safety of a laboratory setting, rather than in clinical trials where patients may be placed at risk, has been developed by the research team, which includes Cameron; Arnold; Suresh Sharma, a research associate in Cameron's lab; other scientists at Penn State; and researchers from other academic, government, and corporate labs. "We have taken anti-HCV medications and, in Petri dishes and test tubes, we have shown that these drugs affect functions within a cell's mitochondria," Cameron explained. "The cellular mitochondria -- a tiny structure known as 'the powerhouse of the cell' that is responsible for making energy known as ATP -- is affected by these compounds and is likely a major reason why we see adverse effects." Cameron noted that scientists have known for some time that certain individuals have "sick" mitochondria. Such individuals are likely more sensitive to the mitochondrial side effects of antiviral drugs.

"We know that antiviral drugs, including the ones used to treat HCV, affect even normal, healthy mitochondria by slowing ATP output," Arnold added. "While a person with normal mitochondria will experience some ATP and mitochondrial effects, a person who is already predisposed to mitochondrial dysfunction will be pushed over the 'not enough cellular energy' threshold by the antiviral drug. The person's mitochondria simply won't be able to keep up."

One of the problems with clinical trials, Arnold explained, is that a drug may be shown to be quite effective but, if even a miniscule percentage of patients have side effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is obligated to put the trial on hold or stop the trial altogether. This possibility makes drug companies reluctant to invest money in drug trials after an adverse event has been observed, even when the drugs could still help millions of people. The researchers hope that their methods eventually will become a part of the pre-clinical development process for this class of antiviral drugs. "If we can show, in the lab, that a drug will cause side effects, then these compounds will not enter lengthy, expensive clinical trials and cause harm to patients " he said. "What's more, a drug company can invest its money more wisely and carefully in drug research that will produce safe and effective products. Better and more-willing investments by drug companies ultimately will help patients, because resources will be spent developing drugs that not only work, but that are safe for all patients."

Cameron added that the next step for his team is to identify the genes that make some individuals respond poorly to these particular antiviral treatments. "By taking blood samples from various patients and using the new method to test for toxicity in the different samples, we hope to discover which individuals will respond well and which will experience mitochondrial reactions, based on their genetic profiles," he said. "That is, we hope to use this method as a step toward truly personalized medicine, opening the door to pre-screening of patients so that those with mitochondrial diseases can be treated with different regimens from the start."

The team members also hope their method will be a means to study toxicity and side effects in other diseases. "Specifically, our technology will illuminate toxicity of a particular class of compounds that interrupts viral RNA synthesis," Cameron said. "While this class of compounds currently is being developed for treatment of HCV, a wide range of other RNA viruses, including West Nile virus, Dengue virus, SARS coronavirus, and perhaps even the Ebola virus, could be treated using this class of compounds as well."

In addition to Cameron, Arnold, and Sharma, other researchers who contributed to this study include Eric D. Smidansky from Penn State; Joy Y. Feng, Adrian S. Ray, Aesop Cho, Jason Perry, Jennifer E. Vela, Yeojin Park, Yili Xu, Yang Tian, Darius Babusis, Ona Barauskus, and Weidong Zhong from Gilead Sciences, Inc.; Maria L. Kireeva and Mikhail Kashlev from the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research; Blake R. Peterson from the University of Kansas; and Averell Gnatt from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and a Penn State Paul Berg Endowment.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:


Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by Katrina Voss.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Jamie J. Arnold, Suresh D. Sharma, Joy Y. Feng, Adrian S. Ray, Eric D. Smidansky, Maria L. Kireeva, Aesop Cho, Jason Perry, Jennifer E. Vela, Yeojin Park, Yili Xu, Yang Tian, Darius Babusis, Ona Barauskus, Blake R. Peterson, Averell Gnatt, Mikhail Kashlev, Weidong Zhong, Craig E. Cameron. Sensitivity of Mitochondrial Transcription and Resistance of RNA Polymerase II Dependent Nuclear Transcription to Antiviral Ribonucleosides. PLoS Pathogens, 2012; 8 (11): e1003030 DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003030

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/ZKwJP6ZnT_0/121116161059.htm

best superbowl commercials madonna half time m.i.a super bowl coin toss madonna super bowl halftime kelly clarkson super bowl giants super bowl 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Identity of second woman emerges in Petraeus' downfall

(Reuters) - New details emerged on Sunday about the extramarital affair that abruptly ended the career of CIA chief David Petraeus, including the identity of a second woman whose complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom he had the relationship, Paula Broadwell, prompted an FBI investigation.

A person familiar with the investigation identified the second woman as Jill Kelley, a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and a Tampa, Florida volunteer social liaison with military families at MacDill Air Force Base.

Kelley went to the FBI after receiving threatening emails that eventually were traced to Broadwell, law enforcement and security officials have said, prompting an investigation that turned up evidence that Petraeus and Broadwell were having an extramarital affair.

"We and our family have been friends with General Petraeus and his family for over five years. We respect his and his family's privacy and want the same for us and our three children," Kelley said in a statement obtained by ABC News.

Broadwell has not been available for comment and both the FBI and CIA have declined public comment on the matter.

Petraeus has made no public comment since he announced his resignation on Friday.

The affair has raised questions about whether U.S. national security was ever at risk and the timing of law enforcement and intelligence officials' revelation of the matter to the White House, as well as who knew about the investigation before last week's presidential election.

Meanwhile, a former spokesman for Petraeus during his time as an Army general has said the affair with Broadwell, an Army reserve officer who co-authored a glowing biography of him, began after Petraeus retired from the Army in August 2011 to lead the spy agency and ended four months ago by mutual consent.

Retired Colonel Steven Boylan, who was Petraeus' spokesman in Iraq and has spoken to the general since he resigned at the CIA, downplayed the question of whether U.S. security had been at risk. He said Petraeus never gave Broadwell classified information or communicated with her via his government email.

"My understanding is that she was only at the CIA twice. And at no time, based on conversations with him, did he provide her classified information, nor did she receive anything from him in that manner," Boylan said in an interview.

"My understanding is that they mutually determined that it was time to end it," he said, adding that Petraeus "knows he made a huge mistake" and is now trying to focus on his family. "It wasn't right. And it was done. That was about four months ago."

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Petraeus was first interviewed in connection with the FBI investigation during the week of October 28, about a week after Broadwell was questioned. The FBI informed Petraeus' boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in the early evening of Election Day, November 6.

Senior U.S. officials said Clapper then informed the White House's National Security Council staff of the issue and Petraeus' intention to resign on Wednesday, the morning after President Barack Obama was re-elected to a second four-year term. Obama was informed later that day, they said.

"EXTREMELY POOR JUDGMENT"

Petraeus, a widely admired soldier-scholar credited with turning around the U.S. war in Iraq and who led NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, announced his resignation in a letter to the CIA workforce on Friday, acknowledging "extremely poor judgment" in having an extramarital affair.

The person familiar with the investigation said Kelley initially approached a Florida field office of the FBI - not FBI headquarters - with a complaint of cyber-harassment. She had received numerous intimidating emails from a handful of different, opaque pseudonymous addresses.

The nature of the emails, according to the source, who was briefed on their contents, was "I know what you're doing" and similar suggestions that someone was onto Kelley. There was no explicit threat of violence.

Upon tracing them, the FBI found out that Paula Broadwell was behind them, this source said. They also found correspondence between Broadwell and Petraeus leading to the revelation of an affair between them.

High-level Justice Department officials were informed in late summer 2012 of an ongoing investigation involving Petraeus, according to a law enforcement official. This source would not name the Justice officials or say whether Attorney General Eric Holder was among them.

The Justice Department followed long-standing policy by not revealing the investigation to anyone outside the department, such as White House or congressional aides, this official said. It would be inappropriate and unfair to do so, and it might jeopardize any potential prosecution, the official added.

As the investigation moved into the fall, the focus was potential cyber-harassment by one woman against another woman.

Petraeus was thought of by investigators as a potential witness or party to the investigation, but he was never a target of investigators. Prosecutors considered whether the conduct in question constituted a crime of cyber-harassment under the law.

During their interviews with investigators, Broadwell and Petraeus both admitted to the affair, the official said. After the interviews, prosecutors decided they likely would not bring charges, based on the available evidence.

Another U.S. government official said the FBI investigation into the emails was fairly straightforward and did not require obtaining court orders to monitor the email accounts of those involved, including the personal email account of Petraeus. Rather, the official said, investigators reviewed the emails that Kelley had brought to their attention.

"There wasn't a court order," the government official said, adding that that action would have been a last resort when other avenues had been exhausted.

A source close to the Petraeus family confirmed that Kelley, who is 37 according to published reports, and her husband, Scott Kelley, a Tampa cancer surgeon, became friends with Petraeus when he was stationed at MacDill from 2008 until 2010 as commander of the U.S. military's Central Command, which runs operations in the Middle East and South Asia.

The Kelleys later visited the Petraeuses in Washington while on a trip to visit relatives.

The Kelleys did not answer phone calls to the number listed for the family's mansion-style home on Tampa's exclusive Bayshore Boulevard, close to the military base.

The Kelleys made the VIP guest list at military functions at MacDill and also hosted Petraeus and his wife at their home in 2010, for the city's annual Gasparilla pirate parade, according to a report at the time in the Tampa Bay Times.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Matt Spetalnick, David Adams and Tabassum Zakaria. Writing by David Alexander.; Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/identity-second-woman-emerges-petraeuss-downfall-004131264.html

sanctum