Postal worker retires after 44 years without a sick day

On Jan. 31, Deborah Ford will retire from the U.S. Postal Service after 44 years without using any of her sick days.

Though her colleagues and the local media, including the Detroit Free Press, applaud her level of commitment, Ford, 64, doesn't see what the big deal is.

Born and raised in Detroit, Ford will be retiring from her job in payroll and timekeeping management for the city's main post office.

"I was trying to do the best I could, and that just evolved into working all my scheduled days," Ford said.

Ford said when she was sick, she would simply "shake it off." For appointments, say, with the doctor, she would use vacation days.

"It's going to be tough to replace her - not only her attendance but her knowledge of the years she has done timekeeping," said Tony Carnagie, a financial programs compliance manager, who has worked with Ford for more than 15 years.

Most of Ford's co-workers knew about her track record, when the USPS awarded her for 30 years of service.

Ford said her father, who is 86 years old and never took a sick days in 30 years, also doesn't see what the fuss is about.

"It's just part of our work ethic," she said.

Ford said she is looking forward to retirement but doesn't have any specific plans, besides spending more time with her father.

"I'll rest up and see where life takes me. Do some volunteer work, take some enrichment classes - the usual stuff," she said.

For now, she is training someone to do her job, which she says, she won't particularly miss.

"You don't miss the brick and mortar," she said. "I'll miss the people, the lives you touched and the lives that touched your life."

Not taking a sick day won't be for naught.

Ford has a sick-leave balance of 4,508 hours, which will allow her a 5 percent increase in her pension.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/postal-worker-retires-44-years-without-sick-day-204326090--abc-news-savings-and-investment.html

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President Obama Jumps on Bipartisan Senate Immigration Reform ...

A group of four Democrat and four Republican senators?unveiled a ?set of principles? on immigration reform with the hope of having legislation drafted by March. Chuck Schumer, part of the group, called the proposal a ?major breakthrough,? with the White House signing up to it ?in principle? and President Obama calling it ?good news.? In his own press conference today, Obama said the senate plan was ?very much in line with the principles I?ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years.? Obama also fell on his regular talking point of Congress not working, declaring that ?if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist they vote on it right away.? Why didn?t that happen four years ago, when the president?s party held comfortable margins in both chambers of Congress?

Nevertheless, here are the main points of the senate proposal:

Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;

Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of?characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families;

Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,

Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation?s workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.

The pathway to citizenship, naturally, has already been called an ?amnesty? by critics, while making the ?path to citizenship? contingent on ?securing our borders? and tracking immigrants? could well be a poison pill. The president says he wants a more direct path to citizenship than the senators have offered.

While President Obama now assumes the role of advocate for immigration reform, the last time Washington attempted the endeavor, in 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama did his part to ensure its failure, the kind of partisan play Obama now laments in Congress and says he condemns.

More Reason on immigration. Transcript of the president's remarks here.

Source: http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/29/president-obama-jumps-on-bipartisan-sena

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Gmail ActiveSync gets 6 month reprieve for Windows Phone?but not Windows 8

Microsoft announced Google will continue to provide Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) support to Windows Phone users for another six months.

Google announced in December it was turning off EAS on free Gmail accounts at the end of this month. Google wants to use a combination of IMAP, CardDAV, and CalDAV instead of EAS. After the cut-off, existing sync relationships would have continued to work, but any new phones (or reset old phones) would have to go without.

That caused a big problem for Windows Phone users, as Microsoft's smartphone platform depends on EAS for both push mail and syncing of calendars and contacts.

Today's announcement provides a two-pronged solution to this problem. First, Google is extending the EAS window for six months. Users will have until July 31 to establish new sync pairings on their Windows Phone devices. Second, Microsoft is adding CalDAV and CardDAV support to Windows Phone, and will have an update available before July 31 to turn this on.

Google's decision to remove EAS from free accounts still has implications for other Microsoft products. The Windows 8 Mail app, for example, uses EAS, and it doesn't appear to be covered by the reprieve. Microsoft's guidance for Gmail users is to stick with IMAP?which means disabling calendar and contact sync entirely?or switch to Outlook.com e-mail.

Neither option is a good one, but there's no indication so far that Redmond intends to provide CalDAV or CardDAV support for its desktop platform.

Source: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/WRP-9tclT-k/

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Cape Breton to develop $36m biomass plant in Sydney, Canada

EBR Staff Writer
Published 30 January 2013

Renewable energy developer Cape Breton Explorations has outlined its plans to develop a biomass plant in Sydney, Canada.

The plant is expected to entail an investment of $36m and will produce 50,000MWh of electricity per annum for local consumption.

Proposed to be located at Harbourside Commercial Park, the biomass plant will also produce fuel to power buses and fertilizers as a by-product.

Cape Breton president Luciano Lisi noted that the project was fully funded.

Lockheed Martin will provide the engineering and construction services for the project and has commenced work on the preliminary design of the plant, added Lisi.

Construction on the plant is expected to commence in the middle of 2013 with December 2014 set as the target for commercial operations.

Nova Scotia Deputy Premier Frank Corbett remarked that the province was keen to develop clean energy sources for the community to offer cheaper fuels and reduced emissions.

The biomass plant will be developed under the Community-Feed-in Tariff program and meet 20% of the city's energy requirements.

Source: http://biofuelsandbiomass.energy-business-review.com/news/cape-breton-to-develop-36m-biomass-plant-in-sydney-canada-300113

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See the Chinese State Circus in Aldershotsdas

See the Chinese State Circus in Aldershot

We are giving away one family ticket (for four people - worth ?70) to see the Chinese State Circus at Aldershot's Princes Hall on Thursday, February 21st.

2000 years of tradition explode on stage with a spectacular 2-hour extravaganza with 30 Chinese artistes who perform remarkable acrobatics, martial arts, live musicians and feature acts! Including a remarkable display of human juggling, the amazing legendary ?Bicycle Act?, the superb swinging poles, the sensational contortionist and the dynamic hoop divers with their amazing acrobatics, the first UK appearance of the formidable Shaolin Master known only as ?The One" are just some of the sensational performers featured in this daring, breath-taking and thrilling family show.

Every sensational act flows into sensational act without? narrative, accompanied by a captivating, and atmospheric all girl group of live musicians.

"The most exhilarating circus it has ever been my privilege to see"
London Evening Standard.

"Never has such excitement been generated in a theatre...the whole audience hangs breathless!"
Manchester Evening News.

Suitable for an audience of all ages, with evocative sets, soaring musical score and extravagant new costumes this will
entertain the entire family long after the final curtain falls!

The Chinese State Circus has a proven track record with audiences and has attracted large attendances over the years. With
superb lighting, stunning costumes and sets this new show ?Yin Yang? combines all the great Chinese artistes traditions with
modern production values to present sensational acts in a stunning stage show.

Tickets are priced at Adult ?23, ?20, ?18 / Concs. ?20, ?17, ?15 / Child ?18, ?15, ?13 / Family (4) ?70, ?60, ?54 and are available from the Box Office on 01252 329155 or via www.princeshall.com.

For your chance to win a family ticket to the show, on Thursday, February 21st, 7:30pm, answer the following question:

Which of the following is NOT one of the Chinese State Circus's acts?

Closing Date: 15/02/2013

Terms and Conditions.

Source: http://www.getreading.co.uk/competitions/1379.html?rss=yes

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French troops enter last Islamist stronghold in northern Mali

Kambou Sia / AFP - Getty Images

People cheer as soldiers of Malian Col. Alaji Ag Gamou enter on Jan. 29, in Ansongo, a town south of the northern Malian city of Gao. Troops from Niger and Mali entered Ansongo on Jan. 29, which along with Gao was recaptured by French-led soldiers over the weekend in a lightning offensive against radicals holding Mali's north.

By Richard Valdmanis, Reuters

DOUENTZA, Mali - French troops took control on Wednesday of the airport of Mali's northeast town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist rebels, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.

A three-week ground and air offensive by French forces aimed at initially ending a 10-month Islamist rebel occupation of major towns is expected to eventually hand over to a larger African force.

The Africans' task will be rooting out insurgents hiding in the desert and mountains near Algeria's border.

"They (the French) arrived late last night and deployed in four planes and some helicopters," Haminy Belco Maiga, president of Kidal's regional assembly of Kidal, told Reuters.

However, the deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels operating there.

The Tuaregs, whose separatist rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals, say they are ready to fight al-Qaida, but many Malians blame them for triggering the collapse of democracy and division with their northern revolt.

France's military operation in its former West African colony involves around 3,500 troops on the ground backed by warplanes, helicopters and armored vehicles. It is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.

French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.

There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.

The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.

The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.

"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.

There were no reports of Malian government troops being in the town.

The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.

After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al-Qaida North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.

French and Malian troops have retaken control of Timbuktu from Islamist rebels.  In the ancient city, much damage has been done, thousands of priceless manuscripts have been destroyed.  ITV's Tim Ewart reports.

Risk of attacks, kidnappings
But as the French wind up the successful first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force, known as AFISMA and now expected to exceed 8,000 troops, can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al-Qaida-allied insurgents.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the French military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned to be a lightning mission that would last just a few weeks to avoid getting bogged down.

"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."

Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.

"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."

An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.

Need for reconciliation
While the French operation has made destroying Islamist fighters, positions and assets with air strikes a priority, analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.

Eric Feferberg / AFP - Getty Images

A man recovers burnt ancient manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Centre for Documentation and Research in Timbuktu on Jan. 29. Fleeing Islamists torched a building housing priceless ancient manuscripts.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31.

After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.

"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.

However, there have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.

France has called for international observers to be deployed to ensure human rights abuses are not committed.

"Reconciling the Tuaregs with their Malian co-citizens will be extremely complicated," said Francois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris-based think-tank.

Related:

French-led forces in Mali seal off Timbuktu; rebels torch ancient library

'We were so terrified': Jihadists leave trail of destruction, brutality in Mali town

Why France is taking on Mali extremists

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16771862-french-troops-enter-last-islamist-stronghold-in-northern-mali?lite

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Nestle, California Pizza Kitchen Are 'Poisoning' Consumers, Woman ...

California Pizza Kitchen and Nestle are killing us one frozen pizza at a time, according to one woman.

Katie Simpson is suing California Pizza Kitchen and Nestle in the California Southern District Court on grounds that the companies are ?deliberately poisoning their consumers" with frozen pizzas available in grocery stores, according to court documents. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in the companies' "trans fat pizzas" is a ?toxic carcinogen,? Simpson claims in her $5 million class-action lawsuit.

Nestle?s line of grocery store pizza brands includes California Pizza Kitchen, DiGiornos and Stouffer's. Simpson alleges that Nestle?s insistence on using trans fats in the brand's pizzas, despite available alternatives, makes it impossible for other, healthier supermarket pizza to compete. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is relatively low-cost, permitting Nestle to keep the lion?s share of the store-bought pizza marketplace, the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.

"Nestle recently received a copy of the lawsuit, and we are in the process of reviewing it," Edie Burge of Nestle's Corporate and Brand Affairs wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "We will vigorously defend ourselves against all baseless allegations. All of our pizza products are in strict compliance with both FDA and USDA regulations."

California Pizza Kitchen did not return a comment to HuffPost by press time.

Trans fats can increase cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease, ABC News reports. Saturated and trans fats have also been linked to Alzheimer's in at least one study. Simpson's lawsuit claims that the trans fat used in Nestle's pizzas causes cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, breast prostate and colorectal cancer, as well as cognitive decline.

Although California has banned the use of trans fat in restaurants in 2008, Nestle can still use them in its pizzas that show up on supermarket shelves.

Denmark was the first country to pass bans regulating the sale of trans-fat food, followed by Switzerland, according to CBC News. New York City has also banned the use of trans fats in all restaurants within the city limits.

Other cities, like Cleveland, have attempted to institute a ban on the use of trans fats in prepared foods only to have it deemed unconstitutional, WKYC News reports.

California Pizza Kitchen and Nestle are not the first major food companies to be hit with lawsuits over trans fats. In 2005, McDonald?s paid $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit about trans fat used in its cooking oils, Fox News reports.

More recently, a class-action lawsuit claimed that Costco was misleading its customers with its Kirkland Signature Brand Potato Chips by stating that the product contains ?0 grams Trans Fat.? Although the chips are free of trans fat, they contain other unhealthy ingredients, including 13 grams of fat. An Illinois court also recently dismissed a lawsuit against Quaker Oats, which claimed that its use of the terms ?hearty healthy? and ?wholesome? were misleading consumers because some of the company's products contain trans fats.

Hat tip: Courthouse News.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/nestle-california-pizza-kitchen_n_2566503.html

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The Engadget Interview: Daniel Graf talks Google Maps for iOS (video)

"It has been a wonderful success for us," says Daniel Graf about Google Maps for iOS. Originally from Switzerland, Graf worked for Leica and Phillips, and went on to co-found video service Kyte before landing at Google in 2011. There, he ran the mobile apps lab before taking the role of director of Google Maps for mobile, where he oversees the Android and iOS versions of the iconic mapping app. We recently got the chance to spend a few minutes with Graf at Google's Mountain View headquarters to discuss the iOS app, which launched last December. He's clearly passionate and proud of his work: "It has been an interesting project, because we got the opportunity to start from scratch." Graf explains that the Android version "is actually seven years of history, seven years of product, [...] seven years of user experience. On iOS, we didn't have those seven years so that gave us a chance to take a step back and say. 'Hey, what would be the next-generation mobile mapping experience?'" Read on after the break.

With iOS 6, Apple ended its partnership with Google and experienced some growing pains with its own mapping app. Still, even in iOS 5, the app only offered a fraction of the functionality provided by Google Maps for Android -- lacking voice guidance and 3D views, for example. Graf and his team set out to create an iOS app that wouldn't just catch up with the Android version, but would also showcase the direction the company was taking in terms of user experience. "When Larry [Page] came on board as CEO two years ago, he talked about beautiful experiences and we had very functional and very useful experiences and in term of beauty I think there was work to do," says Graf. "Now two years later if you actually use our product on desktop, on Android, on iOS there's a theme there ... there's a design language there, and I would say actually they're beautiful."

It's not just Google Maps for iOS that's been revamped. Over the past nine months, the company's been busy updating its mobile apps across the board with a more cohesive look and feel. It all started with Google Now -- launched alongside Jelly Bean at Google I/O -- followed by Google+ on both platforms, and more recently GMail and Google Maps on iOS. Interestingly, the Android version has not (yet) been updated to reflect the new design language. The iOS app makes extensive use of info sheets similar to those used in Google Now. "Given the feedback we have gotten from our audience about the user experience here, I would say this is kind of the direction we want to move forward," says Graf. "It's way more use-case driven ... It should actually happen based on your actions."

We asked Graf what challenges his team encountered while building Google Maps for iOS. "With a mapping app, it's actually similar to a gaming app because the map you see here, the 3D rendering we have here, so you need a 3D renderer; you need an engine for that, and that was new for us -- a 3D renderer for iOS." The iOS app is written in Objective C (versus Java on Android) and required fine tuning: "To get that to a performance [level] where we have it now, that was definitely a technical challenge." But there was another hurdle on iOS: "There's no common login infrastructure like we have on Android -- hopefully that's coming." When pressed whether this is a political issue (related to Apple's stringent app requirements) Graf mentions that "it's a business decision, but it's a technical challenge as well."

Despite being more polished than its Android counterpart, Google Maps for iOS lacks some features, such as Latitude (it's a separate app). Graf admits that "it would be quite interesting to see your friends on the map within Google Maps for mobile." For this version, however, it was important to simplify: "We obviously wanted this app out before the holidays, which we managed to do in December, so there was a lot of time pressure to get it out but we didn't want to make compromises so we said is let's focus on the key use cases which I think we nailed." We inquired about how much Google Maps development is cross-platform. "Of course we have an Android team; we have an iOS team; we have different platform teams and they work very closely together," says Graf. "You do want basically the best experience possible for a platform, so you probably have to develop native." Watch the full video interview above.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Apple, Google

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/lne9r4F4cLM/

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Mexican church sparks debate on forgiving killers

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? An order of Roman Catholic priests in Mexico has produced a video urging relatives of drug cartel victims to adopt a Christ-like forgiveness by pardoning even the killers, hitting a sensitive nerve in a country that has suffered an estimated 70,000 estimated drug gang killings or more.

The 10-minute video entitled "Brother Narco," presented this week, tells the story of Miri, a 13-year-old girl who cowers in her bedroom as a gunman and his gang kill her parents one night. The killer in a black cowboy hat later bursts with his henchmen into the church where her parents' funeral is being held. The gunmen carry a funeral wreath for the couple, and the killer lays a hand on the coffin, and then turns to leave.

Miri walks up to him in the church and hugs him.

"My uncles and aunts told me .... that when I grow up, I have to do the same thing to your children," Miri says to him, speaking of revenge. Instead, she decides to forgive him, reasoning, "Maybe somebody did the same thing to your parents, or maybe they never hugged you."

The killer is shown returning the embrace, but it is unclear what he does next.

The scriptwriter of the short film, Pauline Father Omar Sotelo, said he won't reveal if the killer ever repents of his crime. Sotelo says his group is already in pre-production for the second of a planned 12 short features, filmed in high-definition video, which will be distributed on the Internet and on social networks.

Sotelo acknowledged that such a scene might be improbable in real life, but insisted that "as mystical and utopic as it may seem, this project comes out of real-life stories."

He told of one woman he met who decided to forgive her sons' killer.

"She said "I don't want to see anyone else's children killed. That is why I pardoned my son's killer'," Sotelo recalled.

Anti-crime crusader Isabel Miranda de Wallace had a different view: "I don't think people can forgive if they don't even know what happened to the victims, if justice hasn't been done."

Miranda de Wallace led a decade-long fight to bring to justice the gang that kidnapped and killed her son. But they haven't been sentenced yet, and they delayed so long in telling where they left her son's body that the lot was built over by the time authorities could search it.

She said even getting answers is hard in a country where drug gangs have routinely dissolved the bodies of their victims in chemicals or dumped them in unmarked mass graves.

"There are a lot of people who cannot even mourn, because we haven't found the bodies of our relatives, " she said, "so how are you going to go through the process of loss and reach forgiveness if you can't even get justice?"

To some extent, it is surprising how much tolerance victims' relatives have shown. In 2011, when victims banded together to form the Movement for Peace and Justice With Dignity, the relatives of dead drug gang suspects and the relatives of drug gang victims often marched and rallied side by side, to demand answers about their loved ones' fates.

Sotelo hardly thinks his production is the last word on the debate. But in a nation where tens of thousands of young men have been recruited to drug gangs, he said forgiveness is something the nation is going to have to deal with. The only other alternative would be to arrest or kill all of the gunmen, and ? apart from humanitarian concerns ? Mexican authorities haven't proven very capable at doing either.

"By attacking the criminals with guns, what we have done is taken violence and produced more violence," he said.

"What we have found is that these criminals have undergone a process of dehumanization," Sotelo said. "What we need to do is to reverse that process of dehumanization. How you re-humanize someone, is, well, by treating them as what they are, a human being."

Miranda de Wallace, too, acknowledged Mexico will one day face the task, but in a country where an estimated 98 percent of crimes go unprosecuted, said that day has not yet arrived.

"Without doubt, we will have to reach forgiveness," she said, "but I don't think we are at that stage yet in the national process."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-church-sparks-debate-forgiving-killers-195817701.html

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Missile launcher shows up at Seattle gun buyback

Joshua Trujillo / AP

Seattle Police Department officers examine an inert surface to air missile launcher brought to the gun buy back program run by the Seattle Police Department on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013. The city has collected donations totaling nearly $120,000 to pay for a series of gun buyback events. Participants have been asked to unload and secure their weapons in the trunk of their vehicle or in a locked container.

By Phuong Le, The Associated Press

Seattle police worked with Army officials Monday to track down the history of a nonfunctional missile launcher that showed up at a weapons buyback program and determine whether it was legal or possibly stolen from the military.

A man standing outside the event Saturday bought the military weapon for $100 from another person there, according to Detective Mark Jamieson.

---

The single-use device is a launch tube assembly for a Stinger portable surface-to-air missile and already had been used. As a controlled military item, it is not available to civilians through any surplus or disposal program offered by the government, according to Jamieson.

Seattle police have contacted Army officials at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma deputy chief Nick Metz said Monday.

"Once it's brought on base and investigators have a chance to look at it, they'll see what they can determine," Army spokesman Joe Kubistek said Monday. "It's too early to give any information on it until we have hands-on access to see it and take a look at it."

Police witnessed the private exchange of the military launch tube near the gun buyback event, where gun buyers tempted those standing in long lines to turn in their weapons with cash.

"It was absolutely crazy what we saw out there," Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference Monday where officials announced they had collected a total of 716 weapons, including four confirmed as stolen.

Officers saw guns changing private hands without knowing whether the person buying the gun had the legal right to buy it, and those transactions are occurring all the time, McGinn said.

He added that the private sales of the missile launch tube and other weapons illustrate the need for comprehensive background checks as proposed by President Barack Obama, as well as other regulations at the state level.

While there were private gun buyers at the periphery of Saturday's event, Metz said a large majority of people chose to wait in line and get less money because they wanted to make sure they got the weapons off the streets.

"These are very dangerous weapons," Metz said. "They may not have looked very pretty, but (they're) definitely operable."

Joshua Trujillo / AP

Seattle Police Department Sgt. Paul Gracy holds an inert surface to air missile launcher brought to a gun buy back program run by the Seattle Police Department on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.

The firearms collected included 348 pistols, 364 rifles and three so-called street sweepers, or shotguns that include a high capacity magazine capable of holding twelve 12-gauge shotgun shells.

The program allowed people to anonymously turn in their weapons for a shopping gift card worth up to $200 -- $100 for each handgun, rifle or shotgun turned in, and $200 for each gun classified as an assault weapon under state law. Officials distributed about $70,000 in gift cards at Saturday's event.

Police took possession of the launch tube Saturday. Police said the man who had purchased it agreed to accept a gift card as compensation if the launch tube is not returned to him, though the man indicated he wanted to keep it if he was legally able to do so.

McGinn said he wanted to plan another buyback event soon and urged more donations to the program.

Meanwhile, police said people who wanted to turn in guns could do so at any time outside a buyback program, though they wouldn't be compensated for it.

Related content:

Missile launcher appears at Seattle gun buyback event

Rocket launchers surface during Los Angeles guns buyback

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/29/16754974-missile-launcher-shows-up-at-seattle-gun-buyback?lite

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Remove Screws with Broken Heads Using a Drill Chuck

It's rare, but screws can snap off at the head, particularly with old screws. Reddit user funisher reports that using a cheap drill chuck set on reverse can remove the problem screw easily.

You won't want to use this tip on an expensive drill, as it can damage the chuck, but I wouldn't sweat using it on the $20 drill I bought a few years ago on sale. You can also use a pair of locking pliers to remove the screw if you're not in a hurry.

Just figured a good way to remove a broken screw | Reddit

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/djvsxkETGzg/remove-screws-with-broken-heads-using-a-drill-chuck

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CN Diversity Scholarships for Women, Military Veterans and People ...

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Canadian National Railway Company offers CN Diversity Scholarships in Canada. Scholarship is awarded to women, military veterans and people of Aboriginal heritage in Canada. Students must be enrolled in a technical, undergraduate or graduate degree in the area of engineering, transportation, sales & marketing, human resources, aboriginal studies & law, accounting and finance. The scholarship of value $3,000?is tenable for one year . Students must have obtained an average of 80% or above over the last three semesters of studies and available for a summer internship at CN in 2013. Application should be sent online no later than March 1st, 2013.

Study Subject(s): The scholarship is provided in?engineering, transportation, sales & marketing, human resources, aboriginal studies & law, accounting and finance.
Course Level: This scholarship is for pursuing technical, undergraduate or graduate degree.
Scholarship Provider: Canadian National Railway Company
Scholarship can be taken at: Canada

Eligibility:-Women or Aboriginals or veterans
-Enrolled ?in a technical, undergraduate or graduate degree in Civil Engineering, Electrical/Electronics/Telecommunications, Industrial Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Mechanical/Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Railway Infrastructure Engineering (and all things Railroad specific),Software Engineering studies or Computer Sciences, Transportation & Logistics, Business Administration/Marketing/Business Development, Human Resources, Labour Relations, Aboriginal OR Native OR Indigenous Studies (including Native Law), Law, Accounting, Commerce and Finance. **Eligible educational institutions are Canadian educational institutions, or their affiliates, which have recognized degree-granting powers.**
-Who are best-in-class (only those applicants who have obtained an average of 80% or above over the last three semesters of studies will be considered)
-Who are interested in and available for a summer internship at CN in 2013 .

Scholarship Open for Students of Following Countries: The students of Canada(women, military veterans and people of Aboriginal heritage)can apply for this scholarship.

Scholarship Description: CN is proud to recognize and encourage educational excellence. Through its Diversity Scholarships, CN will offer grants to support the post-secondary education of women, military veterans and people of Aboriginal heritage in Canada. As part of this program, and to support its hiring needs, CN will sponsor these deserving, best-in-class students enrolled in programs relevant to CN?s core business.

Number of awards offered: Not Known

Duration of award(s): It is applicable for one years.

What does it cover??The amount awarded for each scholarship is $3,000 CAD.

Selection Criteria: CN?s Diversity Scholarship committee selects winners based on:
-Their academic performance;
-The quality of their Plan of Study;
-The strength of the recommendation in the provided reference letter(s);
-Opportunities available.

Notification: Not Known

How to Apply: The mode of applying is online.

Scholarship Application Deadline: Application should be submitted online to CN directly no later than March 1st, 2013.

Further Official Scholarship Information and Application

Scholarship Tags: 2013, Aboriginal, accounting, Canada, Engineering, Finance, Graduate, Heritage, Human, Law, Marketing, Military, Resources, Sales, scholarships, Studies, TECHNICAL, Transportation, Undergraduate, Veterans, women

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Source: http://scholarship-positions.com/2013-cn-diversity-scholarships-for-women-military-veterans-and-people-of-aboriginal-heritage-in-canada/2013/01/28/

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Planet Hunters

When I first reviewed the Planet Hunters Web site in January 2011, the project was in its infancy. The site and its navigation had some bugs to work out. But it had a compelling yet seemingly quixotic premise: That a group of volunteers, peering in Web browsers at graphs of stars' brightness based on public data from NASA's Kepler planet-hunting telescope, might be able to discover planets that Kepler's own search algorithms may have missed.

Two years later, that concept has been borne out beyond any skeptic's wildest imaginings. In September 2011, Planet Hunters announced its first two planet candidates, and soon after announced several more. The project's first confirmed discovery?a planet circling a binary star in a quadruple star system?came in fifth on CNN's list of the top 10 science stories of 2012.

In January 2013, the project announced a second confirmed planet?a Jupiter-sized world orbiting in the so-called habitable zone of a sunlike star?as well as 42 new planetary candidates, including 15 in their respective stars' habitable zones. These worlds?ranging in size from about 2.5 Earth radii up to slightly larger than Jupiter?are too large to support life as we know it, presumably being gas giants, they may well have large moons.

Planet Hunters volunteer Kian Jek was recently awarded the Chambliss Amateur Achievement Award, the American Astronomical Society's most prestigious award given annually to an amateur astronomer, for his work on behalf of the project. Kian, one of the two hunters credited with Planet Hunters' initial confirmed discovery, is one of a small cadre of skilled volunteers that have supported the Planet Hunters science team?who, although professionals, also volunteer their time to work on this project? by vetting and cataloguing potential planetary candidates, modeling stellar and planetary systems, keeping tabs on exotic variable stars such as ?heartbeat binaries? and dwarf novae, as well as tracking unlisted eclipsing binary systems in which a pair of stars orbit each other in our line of sight, each eclipsing the other in turn.

PC Planet Hunting
I've participated in a number of ?citizen science? online astronomy projects over the years, but none ?has sparked my imagination like Planet Hunters, which lets anyone with a computer and an Internet connection take part in one of modern science?s great quests: the search for planets orbiting other stars. On the Planet Hunters site, you can look for signs of these so-called exoplanets in public data from NASA's Kepler mission. If you're among the first to report a new planet, you get credit for the find and in some cases can have your name appear as a co-author on the discovery paper.

Planet Hunters is a collaboration between Yale University and the Zooniverse, a Web hub that hosts a number of citizen science projects. It got started with astronomy projects, the first being Galaxy Zoo, in which the public was enlisted to classify galaxies in images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey; it's since added others such as Moon Zoo and Solar StormWatch. Nearly half of the 14 Zooniverse projects are astronomy related; of the others, one of them, Cell Slider focuses on identifying cells for cancer research; others are related to tracking wildlife, climate science, and studying the ancient Greeks. ?Although Planet Hunters isn't officially connected to the Kepler mission, there are close ties and cooperation between the two.

150,000 Points of Light
Kepler, a space telescope, was launched in March 2009, tasked with ??exploring the structure and diversity of planetary systems?.? (by discovering them), looking in particular for Earth-sized planets, and worlds in a star's habitable zone. After Kepler completed its basic mission in 2012, the mission was extended for another 3 years.

Kepler uses the ?transit method? for planet hunting, searching for tiny dips in a star?s brightness caused by the passage (transit) of a planet in front of the star. Kepler repeatedly (every 29 minutes) images the same star field near the constellation Cygnus showing more than 150,000 stars, using a photometer to precisely measure each star's brightness. These readings generate light curves?plots showing variations in a star's luminosity over time. A transit shows as a string of data points descending below the star's light curve. Kepler uses search algorithms to find transits in its data?so far it's credited with more than 100 exoplanet discoveries, and has published a list of more than 2,700 planet candidates.

But Kepler monitors a huge variety of stars: some of constant brightness, others that flicker erratically or pulsate like clockwork. Eclipsing binaries?two stars that orbit each other and periodically eclipse one another?often show transits similar to those from planets. Although Kepler's planet search algorithms are very good at detecting prospective planets, they don?t catch everything, and the human eye has been shown to be better at detecting anomalies in some pattern-recognition tasks than a computer. That's where Planet Hunters comes in. Having multiple participants view each image greatly improves the odds of not missing a world.

Keep Reading: The Planet Hunters Site

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/-8OZLoI4h7E/0,2817,2379660,00.asp

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What You'll Find on our Blog | Prostate Cancer Survivors Speak, The ...

In our book, Prostate Cancer Survivors Speak Their Minds: advice on Options, Treatments and Aftereffects our aim was to provide readers with sufficient information to enable them to make informed and personal decisions. We regard our work as a companion piece to a good medical text book. A kind of portable support group.? But to be sure, advances in research and medical techniques are taking place at a rapid pace. And while the basic tenets in our work are sustainable, we want our readers to be apprised of the latest information as it becomes available.? These advances may alter options and decisions a patient may want to make. In our Blog, you will find reports? on the latest advances and research on fighting prostate cancer.? We scour the scientific world to bring it to you as soon as possible. At the same time, from now and then, we can?t help injecting our opinions here and there if we think they may be helpful. We clearly mark them ?opinions? in full disclosure.

We began our Blog when the book was first published in 2010 and you will find the Blog has been updated ever since.? Just so you get an idea of the contents, we will provide here a list of the more recent postings. You can always find older posts at the bottom of each Blog page marked ?older entries.?? We hope you will find these useful.? Let us know if we can answer any questions you may have by filling out the Contact portion of our website.

BLOG ENTRIES

?FDA approves Mayo Clinic?s new imaging agent for advanced prostate cancer

Clinical trials begin for advanced prostate cancer

Erections after prostate cancer surgery

PSA screening: Johns Hopkins vs U.S.Preventive Services Task Force

New drug to fight advanced prostate cancer: cabazidtaxel

?Blood signatures? point to aggressive prostate cancer

Mystery of erections

Advanced prostate cancer: more options now

Risk markers found for ED after radiation

MD Anderson unveils broad program to fight multiple cancers

?Wait and See? No longer cool

FDA approves Xtandi for advanced cancer

Aspirin: life saver for prostate cancer as well as heart attacks

Breast cancer drug helps men with gynecomastia

Opinion: Who should make the decisions?

PSA test gets new boost

Advanced prostate cancer treatment makes more strides

Opinion: When nothing is something

PSA and new drugs search for prostate cancer cells

U.S.Preventive Service Task Force under new fire

Opinion: Should I get treatment or do nothing?

A chip that finds prostate cancer cells

Upgrading the PSA test

New Hormone blocker pill for advanced prostate cancer

American Society of Clinical Oncology reports advances fighting advanced PC

PSA game changer?? Says Who?

Birth control pills do not cause prostate cancer

Beehive glue checks prostate cancer in mice

New universal cancer vaccine developed to be tested

Antibody shrinks tumors in 7 cancers

New surgical tool aids doctors

Circumcision and prostate cancer

Insurance Issues and prostate cancer

New cancer statistics and old cowboy hats

Link between heart disease and prostate cancer?

Robotic surgery and outcomes

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2013 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.prostatecancersurvivorspeak.com/what-youll-find-on-our-blog/

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The Simppl Life - The Barre Legacy | 1.2

The next installation of the Barre legacy, the very first family to play through The Board Game Challenge!

Last time with the Barre legacy, our founder Chocolate was hastily married to Skullduggery Jones while on the rebound from her broken engagement with Joshua. Chocolate and Skullduggery immediately dashed off on their honeymoon to Takemizuu, consummated their marriage, and enjoyed a vast amount of pseudo-Asian culture. We left them just as they were returning home.

The lovely souvenirs from their visit to Takemizuu. Though actually, the Maneki Neko cat is one of the things Chocolate initially dug up when looking for a treasure chest. I let her keep it because it was so darn cute. XD Just lucky for me it fit in so well later!

First thing we make Skullduggery do upon coming back home? LEVEL UP HIS COOKING SKILL. I'm not taking any more chances at him burning down the house. :| He was alone only four hours last time before he had the whole kitchen flooded from the sprinkler trying to put out all the flames.

*sigh* I SUPPOSE it's an improvement. The fire sprinkler didn't go off this time, anyway.

What?? What is this? I'm no more pleased to hear from you than Chocolate is, Joshua. You can't just say all those nasty things and dump her, then call her a week later expecting everything to be alright. She's moved on, and you are a nasty little fellow. :P

Doesn't mean Chocolate can't brag about her awesome honeymoon to you though. >_> TELL HIM ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE MISSED OUT ON, CHOCOLATE. He's a butthead and deserves to feel regret.

Chocolate: *pop* "Oh my god, sweetie! I think... I think I'm pregnant!"
Skullduggery: "Eww... does that mean this puddle is YOURS, and not Klondike's?"
Chocolate: ":| No. No it does not. I'm PREGNANT, not in labor. My water isn't going to break for like, 6 more months. And you would still be on puddle-duty even if it was mine."
Skullduggery: ":( That's not fair."
Chocolate: "I know. :)"

@_@ Such a cute little growing familyyy~~~ It's made a little less cute by the fact that they're all playing around a TOILET, but perhaps Bathtub Sailor Chocolate makes up for that. :3

Aww, poor dear. Pregnancy is so hard on them, isn't it? Though it isn't exactly easy on us, either.

*bouncey bouncey bounce* I am so excited for the first spawn!! I am also really loving my new default PJs. So comfy and slouchy looking. And CUTE. <3

Cuddles. <333 Skullduggery has been a very supportive husband and expecting father; making almost all the meals, and cleaning up the house as best he can. And providing lots and lots of cuddles. :3 All ladies need lots of cuddle, but pregnant ones especially, IMO.

Whoop! It's go-time!! *pats self on back for not having the first birth of the family be in a bathroom*

Chocolate: *births child*
Skullduggery: *yawn* "Hey hon, what you doing up? It's like the middle of the night. Man, I had the weirdest dream. You were being eaten by zombies or something, just screaming and screaming, like you were in the most intense pain EVER."
Chocolate: "NO WAY. No idea why you would have imagined me screaming in agony, nope, none at all. Not because I just gave birth to your first-born or anything. Nothing like that."
Skullduggery: "...what? *turns around* OH SHIT. BABY."

Baby, indeed. Girl baby! This is KitKat Barre, with all of her daddy's genetics, so far as we can tell. I don't mind too much, her dad has awesome genetics!

Always comforting when they're a good parent right off the bat. I always worry about them tripping over their baby for the whole next week if the first thing they do is set it on the floor. :| If they feed it first, they just tend to fare better as parents. So I approve, Chocolate, I definitely approve.

As per this generation's rules, after the birth of each child you've got to decrease how much spending money your family has by $1000 via cheats or buying useless deco items, and I chose useless deco items! So meet Maya and Nayam, everybody, our front door guardians, who both rang in at $505 each.

Ouch. They definitely put a dent in our budget, didn't they?

Also, I know it appears that Chocolate is not so old after all, and I know I put a lot of stress on the fact that she needed to get married and make babies RIGHT AWAY because she'd already been around two weeks, and THAT is because I am using an aging hack for this family. I noticed at the end of the Pokemons that my babies tended to become toddlers and then children in the blink of an eye, so I decided that perhaps extending everyone's lives would help me avoid that. So adults have about 39 days instead of 28, babies and toddlers have a few extra days, and I think children have about an extra week. I don't teens have too much more, since their age span lasted EONS already. :P

Chocolate: "Puddles!! :D :D *splashes happily*"
Klondike: "I get scolded when *I* play in puddles. You called them filthy. This so unfair."
Chocolate: "Puddles!! :D :D *continues to splash*"
Klondike: :|

Well, we're bringing in more money now, but alas no new uniform yet. *dreams of the day*

I figured it was about time for a maid. With all the turkeys Skullduggery keeps making and let rot on the counter, and all the baby bottles souring on the floor, their house was REALLY getting nasty. Chocolate is constantly busy with work, getting the friends and skills she needs to keep getting promoted, and then actually GOING to work the rest of the time. Skullduggery is always busy taking care of KitKat, and it just hasn't left a lot of time to clean. And as a bonus, the maid looks AWESOME.

Birthday for KitKat! Woo! Things happened between her birth and next birthday. I feel pretty accomplished.

~suspense~

EEE! SO CUTES. I love her hair choice. A little edgy for a toddler, but that just makes her all the more badass. I am a little sad she didn't get her mom's ears, but she really is too darn cute for me to hold it against her. <33

Aww. <3 First thing she wanted to do was give Klondike hugs. She appears to know just how to win me over. *suspicious*

Hahaha! Well, being cute with Klondike is bound to win ME over, yes, but I don't think Klondike is going to be too fond of you if you keep stealing his bed.

Skullduggery and Chocolate are very proper parents, and give KitKat all the love and attention she needs, and evenly split teaching the tasks she needs to grow up nice and fulfilled. Skullduggery took walking and nursery rhyme, while Chocolate took talking and potty-training.

Which is either evidenced here, or is just a picture of Chocolate checking out her husband's cute little heinie. You decide.

*sigh* Another promotion, and yet another day stuck in that horrible, borked outfit.

Skullduggery still does some tidying up around the house, even though there is a maid doing the majority of it nowadays, and KitKat.. tries to help? I'm sure she's just emptying the bowl out so her daddy can clean it out. Yup, totally what she's doing.

KitKat: "Kibble confwetti!!"

orrr.. not.

But she's still darn cute, no matter what she does. I seriously can not get enough of her CUTE LITTLE FACE. AUGH. I haven't liked a toddler this much in ages. Probably because I didn't really get to see them very long before I had this aging hack. XD

Chocolate is still being super-career-mommy, networking every night to meet her friend requirements, skilling up when needed, and being VERY enthusiastic about going to work each morning. I know I certainly don't happy-hover MY way to class/work each day. :P

I have NO idea why Skullduggery makes so many goddam turkeys. All the time, turkeys. It's definitely filling, and makes a lot of plates, but...

There are only two people who eat solid food in the house right now. We don't need to be cooking an ENTIRE TURKEY, EVERY DAY. Sometimes it's twice a day!! They just rot, man. So gross and so wasteful. Depleting my fridge so quickly. D:

In other news, everyone loves KitKat and she is still beyond adorable.

:O But what is this?? Possible competition on the way? AWESOME. :3

HALLELUJAH. A DIFFERENT WORK OUTFIT. asdfghjk so excited to have her proper skintone back.

Oh, and she reached the top of her career, too. Neat.

Hello again, Pochi. You haven't been here in a while. I suppose you heard there's another baby on the way? I know the master wolves like to hang around babies/toddlers and pregnant ladies. Kind of alarming, actually. But he's being pretty nice and peaceful for the moment, just sniffing Klondike a bit and getting to know him.

N'aww. I wish the master wolves were adoptable. Pochi would fit right in with everyone. <3

See?? He KNEW there was a baby in there.

But there will be one less toddler around the house pretty soon, because KitKat is growing up fast! But not nearly as fast as my toddlers used to. :3 I really do love my new aging lengths, guys. So much nicer for my playing style. I like to play on speed 3 and 2 a lot, and only pause for exciting things. >_>;;

~suspense~

And of course, she first thing she sets to doing is playing with Klondike. She was just too excited that she could do more than cuddle him now. XD

Goodness. I guess Klondike is going to be one of the few people/animals she's nice to, then. She has only 2 nice points, less than either of her parents, so I have NO idea where that came from. Her personality is actually not the same as either of her parents on ANY of the traits. She's certainly her own person.

Chocolate: "My belly is getting so much bigger! It's so exciting, Skullduggery. :3"
Skullduggery: "Mmm.. my belly is getting bigger, too. So much turkey. Man I love turkey."

We know, Skullduggery, really we do. But the person who knows the most is whoever ends up taking out the garbage, because MY GOODNESS we end up throwing a lot of that stuff away. Even with saving half of it in the fridge as leftovers. I can't get all of them, you make too many! STOP IT.

Skullduggery: "Turkey~~ :3"

Source: http://simppl-life.livejournal.com/20101.html

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