This Means War Movie Review and Giveaway | First Class Fashionista

In this romantic comedy, Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) plays a career driven woman who?s fallen on hard times in the dating department. A run in with a happily engaged old flame inspires her to turn to the internet for a little match-making help. Once the revealing profile is created by best friend and confidant Trish (Chelsea Handler), several matches align themselves in her sights.

Meanwhile best friends and colleagues Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are grounded after an discreet mission turns out to be anything but?Bored and seemly lonely, Tuck and FDR find themselves in the search for companionship, and happen to both fall for the same girl, Lauren.

This film is full of laughs and packs quite a few action scenes! Chelsea Handler is on point with her relationship advice and humorous dialogue. The brewing love triangle alone was enough to keep me guessing who would win the affection of Lauren!

Plan a movie night, and your date will be entertained by the action and explosions which take place throughout the flick?while you enjoy the boy gets girl drama. Or call your girlfriends over for a girls night in, the film?s romance and eye-candy will keep you swooning for Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.

In honor of the movie?s Fox Home Entertainment release, First Class Fashionista is hosting a giveaway! Two lucky winners will receive the This Means War DVD. This giveaway will run from 5/30/12 to 6/9/12 and is open to all US residents ages 18 and older. Click HERE for complete rules.

To enter like First Class Fashionista?s fan page here: http://www.facebook.com/firstclassfashionista and leave a comment below telling us what you consider when choosing the perfect match? Is it humor, looks, trust, financial stability, all the above, or do you look for someone who just brings out the best in you?

For 1 additional entry each:

1. Follow us on Twitter @FCFashionista and tweet: @FCFashionista I want to make it a Fox Home Entertainment night with This Means War

2. Tumble it. Post the giveaway on Tumblr.

3. Pin it. Pin it on Pinterest.

For 2 additional entries:

4. Blog it. Blog about the giveaway on your blog. Blog must be established.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest. We hereby release these entities of any liability. Winners will be contacted by email after the giveaway ends. Good Luck Fashionistas!

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Is EU short on options to end violence in Syria?

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US officials assess storm preparations after Beryl

A crew from the Florida Department of Transportation work to clean up the debris of a tree that fell and damaged the home of Geneva Sercey in Gainesville, Fla., in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Beryl on Monday, May 28, 2012. Beryl came ashore early Monday near Jacksonville Beach with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Brad McClenny)

A crew from the Florida Department of Transportation work to clean up the debris of a tree that fell and damaged the home of Geneva Sercey in Gainesville, Fla., in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Beryl on Monday, May 28, 2012. Beryl came ashore early Monday near Jacksonville Beach with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Brad McClenny)

A truck plows through standing water on Ft. Caroline Road, just west of St. Johns Bluff Road, on Monday, May, 28, 2012 in Jacksonville, Fla. as Tropical Storm Beryl blew through town. (AP Photo/Florida Times-Union, Bruce Lipsky)

A crew from the Florida Department of Transportation work to clean up the debris of a tree that fell and damaged the home of Geneva Sercey in Gainesville, Fla., in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Beryl on Monday, May 28, 2012. Beryl came ashore early Monday near Jacksonville Beach with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Brad McClenny)

Jacksonville Beach lifeguards patrol the shoreline by pick-up truck as Tropical Storm Beryl blew through on Monday, May 28, 2012 in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Florida Times-Union, Bruce Lipsky)

A crew from the Florida Department of Transportation work to clean up the debris of a tree that fell and damaged the home of Geneva Sercey in Gainesville, Fla., in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Beryl on Monday, May 28, 2012. Beryl came ashore early Monday near Jacksonville Beach with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Brad McClenny)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) ? With the official start of hurricane season coming Friday, U.S. officials are reviewing their disaster plans ? especially since a tropical storm already swept ashore this week.

While Tropical Storm Beryl left little damage after making landfall with 70 mph winds around midnight Sunday at Jacksonville, Fla., it gave the city the chance to put its natural disaster plans to the test.

"You can call it a dry run, but we were prepared," Mayor Alvin Brown said.

The city will assess the damage before deciding how much federal and state aid to seek, Brown said. About 20,000 customers remained without electricity in the city Monday evening.

Although the Atlantic's six-month storm season officially begins Friday, the season got off to an early start with Tropical Storm Alberto forming earlier in the month off the coast of South Carolina.

Then Beryl swept ashore. Beach trips, backyard barbecues and graveside Memorial Day observances got a good soaking in southeastern Georgia and northern Florida.

Jacksonville, because of its location on an inward curve in the Florida coast, rarely takes a direct hit from a tropical storm or hurricane.

"I hope this is not a sign of things to come," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. "It's quite unusual, if you look at the history of the tracks of hurricanes, that you would have one come straight into Jacksonville from the Atlantic. ... Normally the hurricanes are forming out in the Atlantic and as they come toward the coast of the United States, the Gulfstream has a tendency to turn them north."

By early Tuesday, Beryl, which had weakened to a tropical depression, had maximum sustained winds near 30 mph (45 kph). It was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) northwest of Valdosta, Ga., and was moving north near 2 mph (4 kph).

The rainfall stopped in Savannah, Ga., and other northern parts of the Georgia coast Monday afternoon, but more was expected through Tuesday. A frontal system moving south from the Great Lakes is expected to cause the storm do a U-turn and push it back out to sea.

Beryl was expected to bring up to 10 inches of rain to parts of northern Florida to southeastern North Carolina, with some areas getting as much as a foot and a half, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Monday night. Forecasters said Beryl is expected to produce up to six inches of rain in eastern North Carolina and South Carolina.

Joyce Connolly and her daughters left their home in Hurricane, W.Va., to head south for a Memorial Day beach vacation ? and ended up in the center of Tropical Storm Beryl.

The storm wrecked much of Connolly's trip. She skipped a graduation ceremony because powerful winds kept her and her daughters from venturing past the beach boardwalk when the storm approached Sunday. She also postponed their drive home Monday as Beryl, downgraded to a tropical depression, continued to dump rain near the Georgia-Florida state line.

"It definitely changed our vacation to unfortunate circumstances that we're not happy with. But you just have to live with it," said Connolly, who at least found the irony of her hometown's name "pretty funny."

Beach lifeguards turned swimmers away from the ocean because of dangerous rip currents from Jacksonville to Tybee Island, Georgia's largest public beach 140 miles to the north. Skip Sasser, who oversees the island's lifeguards as its fire chief, said beach traffic was unusually thin for a holiday. The ocean was declared off-limits to swimmers for a second day in a row.

"It's been raining intermittently, so it's chased a lot of them off," Sasser said. "There was a lot of traffic this morning heading westbound out of Tybee."

Veterans groups, meanwhile, carried out outdoor Memorial Day ceremonies despite the grim forecast.

At Savannah's historic Bonaventure Cemetery ? made famous by the book, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" ? American Legion members worked through a downpour to make sure its plot for veterans had a small American flag planted by each headstone.

"When we were setting up, I had a different shirt on and I got soaked to the skin. My socks and my underwear probably are, too," said Jim Grismer, commander of American Legion Post 135 in Savannah. "I had so many people trying to talk me into moving it inside. But I said then you can't have the live firing salute and the flag raising."

Aside from ruining holiday plans, the rain was welcome on the Georgia coast for bringing some relief from persistent drought. According to the state climatologist's office, as of May 1, rainfall in Savannah was 15 inches below normal for the past 12 months.

Emergency officials said minor flooding was reported near the coast, but the ground was quickly soaking up the water. And the winds had died down considerably.

"We've needed it for a long time," said Ray Parker, emergency management director for coastal McIntosh County south of Savannah, who said the worst damage came by trees falling on two homes overnight. "We were lucky that we didn't get 3 to 4 inches in 30 minutes. Most of it soaked right in before it had a chance to run off. It fell on an empty sponge."

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said much progress was made repairing Beryl's damage, including removing trees and restoring power to homes and businesses.

"We're very fortunate this did not become a hurricane," he said. "If it had been a couple of months later, we could have had a Category 3 hurricane."

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Kay in Miami and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Half a million displaced in Syria; refugee numbers rise: U.N.

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the birth of a business through startup venture capital | EzAdBlaster ...

The birth of a business through startup venture capital

With the economic instability, people have to find ways to come up with more viable source of income. One of these viable means include coming up with a very own company that has high potentials for growth and success. Since not all people have the financial means to do so, the most common option would be getting a startup venture capital.

A startup venture capital refers to the type of private equity that is usually granted to companies and businesses that are related to biotechnology and information and communications technology (ICTs) because these are the fields that have high probabilities of generating income returns.

Venture capitals are common in industries that are new and have high expectations. Before a group or a company gets this, there are so many requirements and processes they have to go through. If your company plans to avail of a startup venture capital, you should be very careful about the business that you are about to build.

Starting a small business

The main key to starting any business is an idea. A good idea can take you and your soon-to-be business to greater heights if you start well with your venture. Come up with an idea, product or service. Put it down on paper. You?re more likely to succeed if you plan. Put down things like name of the business, what resources you need short and long term business and financial goals.

Next is by starting small. Here, the main motto should be: ?Plan, plan, plan!? When your idea is fresh and exciting, it?s easy to start without a thought to how it will pan out and all the implications. There?s nothing worse than an uncompleted project. It can completely ruin your confidence.

After that, it is best to chart your way to financial success. Here, you can determine what price do you intend to sell your product or service for? How much will it cost you to produce? Work out a roughly estimated profit remembering to factor in fixed costs like rent, energy etc.

Then, you can check out your competitors and compare the business natures. You can gauge how much are they selling a similar product for and if you can add something to it to make yours different and hence a better price.

The next ideal thing to do is to put down your ?Unique Selling Proposition.? Also how are you going to market your product?via newspapers, a website, through word of mouth? The option is yours.

Then, decide what type of business you would like to be ? an incorporation, LLC, etc. This is important for tax purposes. Here, you can determine how you?re going to finance your business initially. The bank, venture capitalists, angel investors, SBA grants (government), your own savings are all options.

After which, make your product/s or service/s available to as many customers as possible by using your marketing strategy. It will also pay if you keep a close eye on your running costs and keep them in-line with your projections.

Always remember that for you to be qualified for a startup venture capital, make sure that your company?s nature of business have high chances of growth. Make sure that you get your accounts in order right from the start so it can save you tedious work later.

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Orchids Need Bees More Than Bees Need Them (preview)

Feature Articles | More Science See Inside

Orchid pollinators are surprisingly promiscuous about the plants they like

By Rose Eveleth ?| May 28, 2012

Image: Photograph by David Liittschwager

Biologists have long believed that orchid bees and orchids rely on each other in equal measure. The shimmering bees pollinate orchids in return for the flowers? donation of perfumes, which male bees use to attract females. And so it was thought that the two organisms co-evolved. But a study led by Santiago Ram?rez, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, that was published in Science in late 2011 revealed that the bees arose first, thus suggesting that the two are more independent than previously thought.

Ram?rez?s work shows that although the orchids seem very adapted to the bees?having developed scents that bees like and mechanisms to deposit pollen onto the bees? body?the insects are far less specialized. They collect scents from more than 700 species of plants, and they pollinate an array of them. ?The bees and plants all interact,? Ram?rez says, ?and we know very little about how those networks of interactions evolve.?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Rose Eveleth is a New York City?based freelance writer.

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Danish police arrest 2 men in terror plot

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) ? Two Danish brothers originally from Somalia were arrested on suspicion of plotting a terror attack, Denmark's security service said Tuesday.

The two brothers, ages 18 and 23, were arrested late Monday ? one in the western city of Aarhus and the other as he arrived by plane at Copenhagen's international airport, said the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET.

The men were suspected of "being in the process of preparing an act of terror" after they were overheard talking about methods, targets and different weapons types, PET said in a statement, suggesting the suspects had been under surveillance. One of them had been to a training camp in Somalia run by the Islamist militant group al-Shabab, the agency said. The Somalia-based al-Shabab has links to al-Qaida.

The suspects are "Danish citizens of Somali origin" who have lived in Denmark for 16 years, PET said.

"According to PET's assessment the arrests have prevented a concrete act of terror, and the arrests therefore don't lead to a changed evaluation of the terror threat in Denmark," PET said, adding that the terror threat level in Denmark remains "serious."

The Scandinavian country has been in the crosshairs of Islamist terror groups after the publication of newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

A Somali man living in Denmark was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in prison after breaking into the home of one of the cartoonists with an ax in 2010.

Last year, a Chechen-born man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for preparing a letter bomb that exploded as he was assembling it in a Copenhagen hotel in 2010.

Another trial is under way in Denmark against four men accused of plotting a shooting spree at another Danish newspaper.

Associated Press

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HBT: Angels' Weaver leaves game with injury

Scary moment for the surging Angels.

Jered Weaver was just three batters and 12 pitches into his start tonight against the Yankees when he was forced to exit due to injury. He threw a warm-up pitch to see whether he would be able to continue, but it appeared he had trouble putting weight on his left leg. However, Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com reports that he?s dealing a lower back injury.

Weaver didn?t retire a batter in tonight?s brief start and was charged with three runs (one earned) on two hits before Bobby Cassevah came on in relief. It?s not known if he?ll have to miss an extended period of time, but the Angels will have a tough time making a charge at the AL West-leading Rangers if they don?t have their ace.

UPDATE: Nothing new on the status of Weaver?s lower back injury, but because of a scoring change, all three runs against him are unearned.

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Mexico finds cartels making fake military uniforms

Mexican marines say they have found a clandestine workshop in northern Mexico where presumed drug traffickers made copies of military uniforms.

The navy says hundreds of camouflage pants, shirts and vests were found at the workshop in the northern border city of Piedras Negras., across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas.The uniforms are part of an effort by criminal gangs to damage the reputation of the marine corps, the navy said Thursday.

Read More

Tags: Illegal drug trade, mexico, Military uniform

Category: Incident Reports

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Inglemoor's Hublou competes at state golf tournament

May 24, 2012 ? 3:28 PM

Inglemoor High's Cole Hublou shot a round-one 83 at the 4A state golf tournament, but didn't qualify for the second round on May 22 at par-72 Hangman Valley Golf Course in Spokane.

A score of 82 was needed to advance.

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User:RoyceBarker743 - Impure Course @ Bestiario

From Impure Course @ Bestiario

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Spain's Bankia treats $29B state aid as investment

El presidente de Bankia, Jos?e Ignacio Goirigolzarri, en una conferencia en la sede madrile?a del banco nacionalizado el s?bado, 26 de mayo del 2012. Bankia le ha costado al erario espa?ol 30.500 millones de d?lares, pero Goirigolzarr sostienen que no necesitar? m?s. (Foto AP/Antonio Heredia)

El presidente de Bankia, Jos?e Ignacio Goirigolzarri, en una conferencia en la sede madrile?a del banco nacionalizado el s?bado, 26 de mayo del 2012. Bankia le ha costado al erario espa?ol 30.500 millones de d?lares, pero Goirigolzarr sostienen que no necesitar? m?s. (Foto AP/Antonio Heredia)

Bankia's president, Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, speaks during a press conference at the bank's headquarters , in Madrid, Saturday, May 26, 2012. Spain's troubled bank, Bankia, has asked the Spanish government for 19 billion euro ($23.8 billion) in financial support just as a leading credit rating agency downgraded it to junk status. The request came as Standard & Poor's downgraded Bankia and four other Spanish banks to junk status because of uncertainty over restructuring and recapitalization plans. (AP Photo/Antonio Heredia)

MADRID (AP) ? Troubled Spanish lender Bankia will treat the ?23.5 billion ($29.5 billion) in state aid it will receive in the country's biggest-ever bank bailout as an investment meant to make a profit for the Spanish government and not as a loan, its president said Sunday.

Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri appeared to be trying to reassure markets after the Spanish media questioned what he had meant by saying a day earlier: "We don't need to talk about giving any of it back."

In a statement Sunday, he said Bankia's obligation is "not to return that capital but to be able to generate value and profitability for that contribution."

Goirigolzarri said the Spanish state would decide "when it deems appropriate, and through the mechanism it chooses," when to sell its stake in Bankia to obtain the highest possible price to benefit taxpayers.

Bankia is stuck with ?32 billion ($40 billion) in toxic assets on its books from loans in the property sector before Spain's real estate bubble burst.

The Bank of Spain has estimated that the country's banks are sitting on some ?180 billion ($233 billion) in assets that could cause them losses.

The government fears the cost of rescuing the country's vulnerable banks could overwhelm its finances, which are already strained by a double-dip recession and an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent, and force it to seek a rescue by the rest of Europe ? already preoccupied by crisis-hit Greece.

Currently the government is enduring high interest rates on Spain's benchmark 10-year bond, which was at 6.29 percent Friday. Anything above 7 percent is considered unsustainable in the long run.

A few weeks ago, the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was maintaining it felt confident there would be no need to inject more public money into Spanish banks.

Even at this month's NATO summit in Chicago, Rajoy dismissed comments from the new French President Francois Hollande that Spain's banks might need money from European recapitalization funds to stay in business.

Now the Spanish government is under pressure to ensure that the country's second-largest mortgage lender has enough capital to go forward and hopes this capital injection will calm markets that made Bankia shares experience turbulent trading recently.

Some analysts have been reassured by the recapitalization plans Goirigolzarri set out at his news conference Saturday.

"Bankia ceases to be a concern; now the accounts are very clear and its capital requirements are very clear," said analyst Manuel Escudero of the Deusto Business School.

So far, the Bank of Spain has agreed to inject Bankia with ?4.5 billion ($5.7 billion) in rescue funds in June. This will be followed in July by ?19 billion in state recapitalization, Goirigolzarri said.

Associated Press

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Building Relationships In Love | Diana J. Ensign ? Author

?We must learn to speak with love again.?
-Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk

?Human relationships provide the ultimate litmus test of how healed, or whole, or?spiritually mature we really are.?
-John Welwood, author of Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships

I want to share a few Buddhist precepts that serve as helpful guideposts in my life:

• Be open to receive others? viewpoints, to learn throughout your entire life.
• Do not maintain anger or hatred. Learn to look at other beings with the eyes?of compassion.
• Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to?break. Make every effort to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.
• Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing?so may threaten your own safety.
• Live in a way that will create a better future for our children.

Putting these precepts into daily practice is not easy. Much of Buddhist teachings?involve many more steps to help along the way, such as meditation and mindfulness,?to assist with right understanding, right speech, right action, and so on.

What I am learning is that tolerance is key to building healthy human relationships. ?We have to practice understanding, compassion, and gratitude for the vast diversity?that exists in this world. Ecologists will tell you that it is through diversity that?natural systems adapt, evolve, and thrive. The same is true for our human systems,?including our families, neighborhoods, schools, places of worship, cities, states, and?countries. We need our unique ways of being in the world because each one of us?with our creativity, passions, and insights?contributes to the whole.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that to avoid repeating the same mistakes, we need to water?the flower of tolerance to see and appreciate cultural diversity. I would add that?when we view religious and spiritual diversity as miraculous gifts, we honor what is?sacred in each human being, and we build stronger and more loving communities.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says, ?If we are willing to work together and learn together??we can offer the next century a beautiful garden and clear path.?

May it be so.

In joy and gratitude,

Diana

No tags.

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Backlash against African migrants in Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Recent rapes blamed on African migrants have ignited a political and emotional backlash against their ballooning numbers, with Israelis and their leaders stridently ? and in an alarming new development, violently ? calling for their expulsion.

Israel, bound by an international refugees treaty it ardently promoted, doesn't seem to have that option, and the gap between rhetoric and reality threatens to send simmering social antagonisms boiling over into open conflict.

It has raised questions, relevant all over the developed world, about how much is owed to the impoverished migrants who manage to sneak in.

Over the past seven years, as many as 60,000 African migrants, most from Sudan and Eritrea, have slipped across Israel's border with Egypt, exploiting the lack of a physical barrier and widespread lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula that has been one result of the fall last year of longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Israel is erecting a barrier along the roughly 200 kilometers (125 miles) of border. While this work drags on, the migrants continue to arrive at a rate of about 1,000 a month, ragged and penniless, with some reporting being raped, tortured and extorted by the Bedouins who smuggle them through.

Some migrants are fleeing repressive regimes. Others are simply looking for a better life in a richer country. How many fit into each of those categories is a matter of deep disagreement between officials and migrant advocates.

Some Israelis worry that their national identity as a Jewish state is being threatened by unauthorized African migrants, who now make up less than 1 percent of Israel's population.

"It's the crumbling of the Zionist dream," Interior Minister Eli Yishai warned on Thursday.

Officials claim the overwhelming majority of the migrants are not bona fide refugees escaping persecution and war, but economic migrants looking for jobs. Israeli leaders use terms like "infiltrators," ''cancer" and "national scourge" to describe them, setting an inflammatory tone.

After the first rape was reported earlier this month, Yishai declared nearly all migrants to be criminals and said they should all be jailed pending deportation.

Days later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned, "60,000 infiltrators are liable to become 600,000, and lead to the eradication of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

The issue of how to deal with them has also caused introspection about whether Israel, after a century of conflict with Arabs, has become a racist society.

"What disturbs me most is the racist atmosphere," social commentator Tom Segev said. "For several years now, Israel society has been moving in that direction, with all the anti-Arab motions in the parliament. ... I think that this society is very sick now."

Others deny that the pushback is racist, finding it unreasonable that their country of about 8 million should be expected to throw open its doors to unlimited numbers of migrants.

Israel cannot simply kick out the Africans, as some politicians would seem to suggest. As an enthusiastic backer of a 1951 U.N. treaty drafted to address the plight of World War II refugees, it has pledged not to expel asylum-seekers to any country where they would be in danger.

"We're not going to pull back on our obligations under the refugee convention," said Daniel Solomon, legal adviser to Israel's population and immigration authority. "At the same time, other solutions will have to be looked for," like finding a third country to take them in.

Because most migrants come from Sudan, an enemy state, and Eritrea, a country with an abysmal human rights record, the line between refugee and economic migrants is blurred. So Israel has quietly allowed most migrants from those two countries to stay, without processing their asylum applications.

The U.S. State Department criticized this practice in a report on global human rights released Thursday, noting that of 4,603 new asylum applications in 2011, Israel rejected 3,692 and approved one. According to the report, asylum seekers without refugee status are not allowed to work and have no access to public health care, and that the government negatively terms the migrants "infiltrators".

Spokesmen for Israel's prime minister and Foreign Ministry had no comment on the report Friday.

Because of their precarious status, the migrants scrounge for whatever underpaid and insecure employment and volunteer health care they can find.

"Our objective is to have Israel host these people under proper conditions until the option arises for them to go home," said William Tall, the envoy of the U.N. refugee agency office in Israel.

The Africans began trickling into Israel after neighboring Egypt violently quashed a demonstration by a group of Sudanese refugees there in 2005, killing at least 20. The numbers surged as word spread of safety and jobs in Israel, a prosperous and liberal country reachable from Africa overland.

The swelling numbers have spawned slums. Fear and intolerance is mounting among locals, who accuse the migrants of stoking crime, including three recent rapes ? even though police records show crime among the migrants is lower than among Israelis.

Firebombs were thrown recently at two buildings where migrants live, and a protest against them Wednesday in a poor southern Tel Aviv neighborhood where many Africans live turned violent. The crowd shattered windows of shops and cars belonging to Africans, police said, and a witness reported that protesters spat on migrants and cursed them. No one was hurt.

Bashir Abekker, 32, came to Israel four years ago to escape the war in Sudan's Darfur region. He thought he'd find safety, "but recently, I'm not safe here. I am afraid for my safety," he said. "After what happened (Wednesday), I was afraid to go out on the street to buy food."

On Thursday, Netanyahu condemned the violence. "I want to make it very clear that there is no room for the kinds of expressions and actions we saw last night," he said. "I say this both to public officials and to the residents of south Tel Aviv, whose pain I understand."

The Hotline for Migrant Workers advocacy group said the refugees are endangered by the "incitement" of politicians.

On the other side of the divide, neighborhood activist Dror Kahalani said the government is neglecting his already poor community to provide services for migrants, whose rising numbers terrify residents.

"I don't let my daughters go out unless I go with them," Kahalani said.

Prominent author and social commentator A.B. Yehoshua came to the defense of the migrants' Israeli neighbors. "We have to distinguish between economic migrants whom we don't have to accept, and the bona fide refugees who are suffering and face death if returned," he said.

For some, the violence against the migrants and calls for their expulsion are difficult to accept given the legacy of the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators. They find it abhorrent that the Jewish state would expel people to face persecution elsewhere.

Others counter that following the mass murder of its own people as the world looked on, Israel has no more of an obligation to help others than the rest of the world does.

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How Can We Cope with the Dirty Water from Fracking?

News | Energy & Sustainability

Advanced membranes, unusual solvents and new drilling processes could clean up and recycle a growing flood of contaminated water

By David Biello ?| May 25, 2012?|

FRACKED WATER: Hydraulic fracturing requires millions of liters of water, and some way of coping with the dirty water that results. Image: ? David Biello

Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

Read More??

The nation's oil and gas wells produce at least nine billion liters of contaminated water per day, according to an Argonne National Laboratory report. And that is an underestimate of the amount of brine, fracking fluid and other contaminated water that flows back up a well along with the natural gas or oil, because it is based on incomplete data from state governments gathered in 2007.

The volume will only get larger, too: oil and gas producers use at least 7.5 million liters of water per well to fracture subterranean formations and release entrapped hydrocarbon fuels, a practice that has grown in the U.S. by at least 48 percent per year in the last five years, according to the Energy Information Administration. The rise is quickest in places such as the oil-bearing Bakken Formation in North Dakota or the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale underlying parts of New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

The problem is that the large volumes of water that flow back to the surface along with the oil or gas are laced with everything from naturally radioactive minerals to proprietary chemicals. And there are not a lot of cost-effective options for treating it, other than dumping it down a deep well. But as certain states that are experiencing drought begin to restrict industrial water usage, fossil-fuel companies are experimenting with traditional and untraditional water treatment chemistries and technologies to try to clean this dirty water?or limit its use in the first place.

Recycling is not enough
The first option is to reuse wastewater in whatever ways possible. For fracking, "to the extent possible, fracturing fluid is recovered and recycled for reuse in future fracturing operations," says Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group. "Recycling of flow-back water reduces demand for freshwater and reduces the need for disposal of wastewater."

But that water still has to be cleaned before it is reused, otherwise it loses the ability to do its subterranean dirty work. Simply dumping it improperly is not an option, because the high levels of salts and minerals will poison a river, stream or aquifer or it will render land incapable of supporting life for generations, like the salt pans of Utah or the ancient farm fields of Carthage salted by the Roman army. The cleansing technologies employed range from high-tech membranes that selectively filter out specific contaminants to the crude solution of boiling away the water, leaving scales of salts and other minerals behind on the walls of the boiler.

"Most of what we get out of the water are salts and a low-level of organics" (hydrocarbons and other contaminating carbon-based molecules), explains environmental engineer Steve Hopper, executive vice president of the industrial business group at Veolia Water, which is helping oil and gas companies cope with such "produced" water. "We have an example in California where we treated the water until it was so pure we had to add minerals back into it to be able to discharge it." The problem, thus far, has been cost, although Hopper argues Veolia's technologies add only "5 percent" to the cost of a given well.

A diversity of waters
To add to the challenge of sheer volume, the water produced by each oil and gas well is often different?with varying levels of acidity, saltiness or types of contaminants, whether dissolved hydrocarbons or heavy metals leached from the surrounding rock.

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Leap Motion gesture control technology hands-on

Leap Motion unveiled its new gesture control technology earlier this week, along with videos showing the system tracking ten fingers with ease and a single digit slicing and dicing a grocery store's worth of produce in Fruit Ninja. Still, doubts persisted as to the veracity of the claim that the Leap is 200 times more accurate than existing tech. So, we decided to head up to San Francisco to talk with the men behind Leap, David Holz and Michael Buckwald, and see it for ourselves. Join us after the break to learn a bit more about Leap, our impressions of the technology, and a video of the thing in action.

Gallery: Leap motion control technology hands-on

Continue reading Leap Motion gesture control technology hands-on

Leap Motion gesture control technology hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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U.S. senators penalize Pakistan for jailing CIA helper

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Healing weaving wins Bio-Art image competition

Caroline Morley, online picture researcher

(Image: FASEB 2012 Bio-Art Winner - Frank Moutos and Farshid Guilak)

Anyone who has had a cartilage injury knows that it heals slowly and often painfully, with joint swelling and stiffness. Frank Moutos and Farshid Guilak of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, are engineering tissues that could speed up cartilage repair. They have created this woven biomaterial scaffold to support the growth of new cartilage and then break down naturally.

The image was among the winners of the Bio-Art competition announced this week by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). This is the first time FASEB has run this image competition - the idea is to promote the biomedical research of laboratories associated with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) or members of the 26 FASEB societies.

The winning images from this year's competition will go on display at the NIH main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and can be viewed online at the competition web page.

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My View: Can tests motivate students? It depends on the test ? and ...

By Alexandra Usher and Nancy Kober, Special to CNN

Editor?s note: Alexandra Usher is a senior research assistant at the Center on Education Policy at The George Washington University's Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Nancy Kober is a consultant to the Center. They co-authored the report, ?Student Motivation?An Overlooked Piece of School Reform."

(CNN) ? We?re taking many steps as a nation to boost student achievement. We?re raising academic standards, revising curricula, revamping low-performing schools and improving teaching and school leadership.

These are all critical elements of school reform, but what often gets the most attention are the tests we?ve put in place to make judgments about schools, teachers, principals and students. These tests are intended to measure how well students are learning and teachers are teaching. They are also supposed to motivate students to study harder.

Student motivation is an important ingredient in school reform, and one that is often overlooked in policy debates. Even with strong accountability, a well-designed curriculum and good teaching, it is difficult to raise achievement for students who lack motivation. But are tests really good motivators?

To draw greater attention to the role of student motivation, the Center on Education Policy has released a series of papers summarizing findings from studies by psychologists, sociologists and other experts. One of these papers looks at research on tests as motivational tools for students - and the findings suggest we have too much faith that all tests will motivate all students.

The same student might be motivated to different degrees depending on the test, the stakes attached to test results, the subject matter and many other factors. The term ?high-stakes? testing often brings to mind the standardized state tests used for accountability. But teacher-designed classroom tests may be more effective at motivating students than state tests if the classroom tests have a direct effect on students? grades.

Even among standardized tests, the stakes and the level of motivation vary. State tests that are used to determine graduation status and grade promotion matter greatly to students and can be motivators for many students. State tests that don?t count toward graduation but are used for school and district accountability can be somewhat motivating for students because they have consequences for educators, who pass along this pressure to students. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is used to track nationwide trends in achievement, has virtually no consequences for individual students or teachers and is often considered a ?low-stakes? test.

Psychologist Carol Dweck points out that if the goal of education is to produce creative and innovative learners, then the tests typically used for accountability may work against this goal by signaling to students that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable rather than something that can grow with effort.

Similarly, tests that emphasize reaching a specific performance benchmark can undermine motivation by invoking anxiety, frustration and fear of failure in students who feel that meeting the benchmark is beyond their abilities, according to research by Kennon Sheldon and Bruce Biddle.

Moreover, several studies have noted that some of the practices used to prepare students for high-stakes assessments - such as excessively drilling students or eliminating interesting topics and activities to make more time to teach tested material - can decrease students? interest and motivation.

In other words, despite the best of intentions, some types of tests can stifle motivation for some students.

Yet many students are motivated to work harder by the consequences attached to high-stakes tests. When faced with a test to determine grade promotion, the majority of students in Chicago responded by paying more attention to class work and increasing their efforts, according to a study by Melissa Roderick and Mimi Engel. The concern, however, is what to do for students who respond to testing by becoming resentful and losing confidence.

In general, the studies we reviewed suggest that assessments that reward growth, effort, and strategizing have a stronger motivational effect than those that emphasize competition or reward a fixed level of performance.

More frequent assessments with goals that start easy and gradually increase in difficulty can build students? academic competence and sense of control, as can opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge with performance tasks or low-stakes tests before taking an assessment that counts. Students also need to understand what steps they must take to succeed on a test and must have sufficient opportunity to prepare for it.

Finally, like any motivational tool, assessments have the strongest power to motivate when their goals are not too difficult or too easy and when they align with students? own personal interests and goals.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alexandra Usher and Nancy Kober.

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Obama administration ignores its own warnings, opens up to Hollywood on bin Laden raid (Powerlineblog)

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MEPs recommend the EU to introduce a tax on financial transactions

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Sports coupe from ?TagAZ ?ready for certification

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SPC and CC can not live without each other

May 17-18 in St. Petersburg hosted III Investfunds Forum. Institutional Investors Conference brought together more than 240 people: representatives of regulatory and legislative bodies, pension funds, insurance companies, endowment funds, asset managers and banks. Market participants discussed the current collective investment investment ideas in the Russian stock market, and concluded that the summer should consider asset protection. This is a major investment idea coming months. NPF and the CC can not live without each other One of the main topics [...]

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Medvedev proposed to introduce tough measures against the irrational use of land

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The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will announce the verdict Assange

the Supreme Court will announce the verdict Assange UK Supreme Court of the United Kingdom reported May 23 that the verdict on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be announced on May 30, reports AFP. Court will decide on the extradition of the rebel hacker in Sweden, where he is accused of sexual harassment and rape.

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international news

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will announce the verdict Assange

the Supreme Court will announce the verdict Assange UK Supreme Court of the United Kingdom reported May 23 that the verdict on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be announced on May 30, reports AFP. Court will decide on the extradition of the rebel hacker in Sweden, where he is accused of sexual harassment and rape.

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Peace, friendship, privatization?

Belarus and Kazakhstan are considering a project of the Eurasian Economic Union solely in terms of ?green? corridor through Russia from the West to the East and from East to West. This conclusion was made by observers commenting on the recent visit of President Nazarbayev to Minsk. ?Today, it is important to leverage the common economic space, and in the long term ? and the Eurasian Economic Union. This will bring our relations to a higher, qualitatively new level. Free [...]

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Rosreestr found a way to get home sellers to pay taxes

Read Online Bulletin Gazette Yesterday, 16:17 Photo: KM.RU Management Service of the Moscow region home to suspend the registration of documents when an understatement of the cost of housing in the contracts of sale. Under Russian law, the sale of housing, owned less than three years, and standing more than 1 million rubles., the seller must pay income tax at 13% of the amount received. Therefore, the legal team celebrate ?Yakovlev & Partners?, apartment owners often specify in the contracts [...]

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Rosreestr found a way to get home sellers to pay taxes

Read Online Bulletin Gazette Yesterday, 16:17 Photo: KM.RU Management Service of the Moscow region home to suspend the registration of documents when an understatement of the cost of housing in the contracts of sale. Under Russian law, the sale of housing, owned less than three years, and standing more than 1 million rubles., the seller must pay income tax at 13% of the amount received. Therefore, the legal team celebrate ?Yakovlev & Partners?, apartment owners often specify in the contracts [...]

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Europe

EU leaders are looking to support economic growth. Eurodollars under pressure of conflicting reports (video)

development km equity markets this week has brought a growth correction prior 6denn?m continuous decline on Wall Street. Growth of European markets, which in the early days of the week brought about Double 2procentn? profits, but now stopped losing share. The focus remains Greece, respectively. speculation about his departure from the euro area. Europe?s leaders today to discuss new ways of supporting economic growth in Europe, against which stands advocates fiscal discipline. Then the results will affect the development of [...]

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Russia

Federal Financial Markets Service: Russia is not ready for the abolition of restrictions on depository receipts of 2013

infrastructure of the Russian financial market is not ready for the abolition of restrictions on the placement and circulation of depositary receipts for shares of local companies overseas and the government?s original plan to remove all barriers to the beginning of 2013 now appears unrealistic, said the deputy head of the Federal Financial Markets Service of Russia Elena Kuritsyna. ? It was the understanding that it [the removal of restrictions on placement abroad] happen to 1 January 2013, but then [...]

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international news

TNK-BP Holding: While no director, but with dividends

Shares of TNK-BP are among the best in the oil sector The absence of two directors (Schroeder was nominated for BP, Leung ? BP and co-ARR) slowed down the decision of a corporate conflict between BP and the ARR. The shareholders of TNK-BP could not agree on cooperation between BP and Rosneft on the shelf, as well as the sale of Renova gas assets in Ukraine and Russia. TNK-BP has repeatedly stated that relations between the shareholders did not affect [...]

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Russia

STC unraveled ?Mosteleset?

26% of the company ?Mosteleset?, which owns 100% of the capital?s largest cable television operator ?Mostelecom? got under control, ?Rostelecom?, ?National Telecommunications.? The deal amounted to 1.8 billion rubles. Russian auction house held auctions to sell 26% of ?Mosteleset? belonging to the city. In the auction was attended by three candidates, the winner of the auction, as expected, were recognized as ?National Telecommunications? (STC), is still owned 74% of the company. The names of the other contenders were not disclosed. [...]

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Markets overview

America will have a

Read online YTPO.ru today 03:39 Primary Offering social networking site Facebook turned into an embarrassment. On the second day of trading in securities of freshly baked lost 11% of its original value. The failure could be even greater if the first quote did not support the banks, the organizers of IPO. At the same time on the eve of release of the new player in the stock market, many analysts predicted growth in the value of shares from 10% to [...]

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Russia

Construction of the ?South Stream? prevented the Black Sea resort

Read online Lenta.ru today 09:00 photo: RIA Novosti ? Gazprom ?has not yet received permission for the construction of the pipeline ?South Stream? through the resort of Anapa on the federal Black Sea. This writes the ?RBK daily?, citing unnamed sources. According to the newspaper, if the gas monopoly would not be able to get permission for a month, the beginning of the pipeline may be delayed. ?Gazprom? is necessary to achieve the signing of the relevant government regulations. But [...]

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Headlines

?Gazprom? warned a decline in gas production

Read online Lenta.ru 3:00 ago, 13:24 Photo: Business News in 2012 ?Gazprom? expects to reduce production at a percentage of the plan, which amounts to 528 billion cubic meters. As reported by RIA Novosti, said the head of this department for production of gas, condensate and oil companies, Vsevolod Cherepanov. He added that in 2013-2014, gas production, by contrast, will increase. For example, in 2013 natural gas monopoly plans to produce 541 billion cubic meters of fuel, and in 2014 [...]

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CIS News

Rosstat: index of business confidence in the extractive industries of the Russian Federation in May 2012. increased to 7%.

Quote.rbc.ru 23.05.2012 16:00 The index of business confidence, reflecting a generalized state of entrepreneurial behavior in the extractive industries of the Russian Federation rose from minus 3% in December 2011. to plus 7% in May 2012. According to the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), evidenced by survey data of business activity in May 2012., Which was attended by 4.3 thousand organizations. The index of business confidence in manufacturing rose from minus 6% in December of 2011. to 0% in May [...]

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CIS News

?Kredeksbank? called ?complete nonsense? suspicion of Washington

U.S. Treasury warned to be careful when doing business with the Belarusian ? Kredeksbankom,? which turned out to be ? main object of concern in relation to money laundering. ? The department believes that the bank ? has been involved in high-volume transactions that indicate money laundering for the benefit of front companies.? According to the Ministry of Finance, at least since 2006, the bank is engaged in ? questionable financial transactions that indicate money laundering.? In particular, it is [...]

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CIS News

KAMAZ will spend in Skolkovo 1.3 billion rubles. four years

?? Related Articles: ???????????? ?KAMAZ? will allocate 1.3 billion rubles. for the period 2012-2016. to create in the ?Skolkovo? Research and Development Centre of the Russian carmaker. The agreement was signed by the president of the ?Skolkovo? Viktor Vekselberg and CEO of JSC ?KAMAZ? Sergey Kogogin. ?Skolkovo? KAMAZ and will cooperate in the following areas of research: energy-efficient technologies, information technologies, as well as space technology, and telecommunications. It is expected that by 2015. the center will work 50 people. [...]

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Asia in focus

WHO has considered the radiation around the ?Fukushima? non-hazardous

Read online Lenta.ru Lenta.ru 2 days ago, 14:28 Photo: Lenta.ru World Health Organization (WHO) published May 23 in Geneva, a report saying that the level of radioactive contamination in Japan after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant ?Fukushima-1 ?in general is not harmful to health, reports Reuters. According to these data, only in two places at the country?s radiation may be a risk to human health, and in neighboring countries, and it does weaker than the ?very low?. in Fukushima Prefecture, [...]

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international news

U.S. fears of loss of values: the American combat statistics fertility caused crop

?Within a few decades the majority of the population in the U.S. will no longer be white. U.S. Census Bureau for the first time indicated that 50.4% of infants born between July 2010 and July 2011, are African American, Hispanic , Asian or other ethnic origin ?, ? said Frankfurter Rundschau. right-wing bloggers and forum dwellers ?have switched to charge the person who reported the news,? writes the author. They complain that the media ? for example, The New York [...]

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