ISTANBUL - Syrian regime forces on Thursday battled opposition rebels trying to take control of a region in the far northeastern corner of the country, sending refugees fleeing across the Turkish border, Turkey's state-run agency reported.
Turkish authorities meanwhile, inspected the cargo of a Syria-bound plane from Armenia to make sure it was not carrying military equipment.
The clashes broke out in the Rasulayn region of al-Hasakah province, a few hundred meters (yards) from the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, the Anadolu Agency said.
Several Syrians fled to Ceylanpinar seeking refuge from the fighting and at least eight wounded people were being treated in Turkish hospitals.
Schools in Ceylanpinar were closed for the day as the military increased security measures. Residents were being warned to stay away from the border.
Dogan news agency video showed people running for shelter in panic as a piece of shrapnel from the fighting reportedly landed on the grounds of the hospital in Ceylanpinar.
Elsewhere in Turkey, a Syria-bound Armenian plane landed in the city of Erzurum to allow Turkish authorities to search its cargo.
Last month, another plane from Armenia landed in Turkey under an agreement with Turkish authorities, who later said the cargo consisted of aid and could continue on to Syria. Turkey also forced a Syrian passenger plane travelling from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara on suspicion that equipment it was carrying was military gear. Russia, a backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said the equipment consisted of spare parts for radar systems.
The civil war in Syria has killed more than 36,000 people since an uprising against the Syrian regime began in March 2011. More than 111,000 Syrians are being sheltered in refugee camps in Turkey.
Despite their thick skins, alligators and crocodiles are surprisingly touchyPublic release date: 8-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David F Salisbury david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-6803 Vanderbilt University
Crocodiles and alligators are notorious for their thick skin and well-armored bodies. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that their sense of touch is one of the most acute in the animal kingdom.
The crocodilian sense of touch is concentrated in a series of small, pigmented domes that dot their skin all over their body. In alligators, the spots are concentrated around their face and jaws.
A new study, published in the Nov. 8 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, has discovered that these spots contain a concentrated collection of touch sensors that make them even more sensitive to pressure and vibration than human fingertips.
"We didn't expect these spots to be so sensitive because the animals are so heavily armored," said Duncan Leitch, the graduate student who performed the studies under the supervision of Ken Catania, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt.
Scientists who have studied crocodiles and alligators have taken note of these spots, which they have labeled "integumentary sensor organs" or ISOs.
Over the years they have advanced a variety of different hypotheses about their possible function. These include: source of oily secretions that keep the animals clean; detection of electric fields; detection of magnetic fields; detection of water salinity; and, detection of pressure and vibrations.
In 2002, a biologist at the University of Maryland reported that alligators in a darkened aquarium turned to face the location of single droplets of water even when their hearing was disrupted by white noise. She concluded that the sensor spots on their faces allowed them to detect the tiny ripples that the droplets produced.
"This intriguing finding inspired us to look further," Catania said. "For a variety of reasons, including the way that the spots are distributed around their body, we thought that the ISOs might be more than water ripple sensors."
As a result, Leitch began a detailed investigation of the ISOs and their neural connections in both American alligators and Nile crocodiles.
Leitch found that these sensory spots are connected to the brain through the trigeminal ganglia, the nerve bundle that provides sensation to the face and jaw in humans.
In addition, his studies ruled out most of the alternative hypothesis for the ISOs function. For example, his anatomical studies didn't find pores that could release cleansing oil. Similarly, he found that the nerves in the ISOs didn't react to electric fields or, when submerged in water, to changes in salinity.
"I didn't test for sensitivity to magnetic fields, but we don't think this is likely either," said Leitch. In animals that can detect magnetic fields, he explained, the sensors are located inside the body, not on the surface.
What he did find is a diverse collection of "mechanoreceptors:" nerves that respond to pressure and vibration. Some are specially tuned to vibrations in the 20-35 Hertz range, just right for detecting tiny water ripples. Others respond to levels of pressure that are too faint for the human fingertip to detect.
Their analysis led the scientists to conclude that the crocodilian's touch system is exceptional, allowing them to not only detect water movements created by swimming prey, but also to determine the location of prey through direct contact for a rapid and direct strike and to discriminate and manipulate objects in their jaws.
Their finding that the most heavily wired ISOs are located in the mouth near the teeth suggests that the touch sensors help the animals identify the objects that they catch in their jaws. The sensors also appear to provide the sensitivity that female alligators and crocodiles need to delicately break open their eggs when they are ready to hatch and to protect their hatchlings by carrying them in their jaws, the same jaws that can clamp down on prey with a force of more than 2,000 psi.
###
This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant #0844743 and by a Vanderbilt University Discover Grant.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Despite their thick skins, alligators and crocodiles are surprisingly touchyPublic release date: 8-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David F Salisbury david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-6803 Vanderbilt University
Crocodiles and alligators are notorious for their thick skin and well-armored bodies. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that their sense of touch is one of the most acute in the animal kingdom.
The crocodilian sense of touch is concentrated in a series of small, pigmented domes that dot their skin all over their body. In alligators, the spots are concentrated around their face and jaws.
A new study, published in the Nov. 8 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, has discovered that these spots contain a concentrated collection of touch sensors that make them even more sensitive to pressure and vibration than human fingertips.
"We didn't expect these spots to be so sensitive because the animals are so heavily armored," said Duncan Leitch, the graduate student who performed the studies under the supervision of Ken Catania, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt.
Scientists who have studied crocodiles and alligators have taken note of these spots, which they have labeled "integumentary sensor organs" or ISOs.
Over the years they have advanced a variety of different hypotheses about their possible function. These include: source of oily secretions that keep the animals clean; detection of electric fields; detection of magnetic fields; detection of water salinity; and, detection of pressure and vibrations.
In 2002, a biologist at the University of Maryland reported that alligators in a darkened aquarium turned to face the location of single droplets of water even when their hearing was disrupted by white noise. She concluded that the sensor spots on their faces allowed them to detect the tiny ripples that the droplets produced.
"This intriguing finding inspired us to look further," Catania said. "For a variety of reasons, including the way that the spots are distributed around their body, we thought that the ISOs might be more than water ripple sensors."
As a result, Leitch began a detailed investigation of the ISOs and their neural connections in both American alligators and Nile crocodiles.
Leitch found that these sensory spots are connected to the brain through the trigeminal ganglia, the nerve bundle that provides sensation to the face and jaw in humans.
In addition, his studies ruled out most of the alternative hypothesis for the ISOs function. For example, his anatomical studies didn't find pores that could release cleansing oil. Similarly, he found that the nerves in the ISOs didn't react to electric fields or, when submerged in water, to changes in salinity.
"I didn't test for sensitivity to magnetic fields, but we don't think this is likely either," said Leitch. In animals that can detect magnetic fields, he explained, the sensors are located inside the body, not on the surface.
What he did find is a diverse collection of "mechanoreceptors:" nerves that respond to pressure and vibration. Some are specially tuned to vibrations in the 20-35 Hertz range, just right for detecting tiny water ripples. Others respond to levels of pressure that are too faint for the human fingertip to detect.
Their analysis led the scientists to conclude that the crocodilian's touch system is exceptional, allowing them to not only detect water movements created by swimming prey, but also to determine the location of prey through direct contact for a rapid and direct strike and to discriminate and manipulate objects in their jaws.
Their finding that the most heavily wired ISOs are located in the mouth near the teeth suggests that the touch sensors help the animals identify the objects that they catch in their jaws. The sensors also appear to provide the sensitivity that female alligators and crocodiles need to delicately break open their eggs when they are ready to hatch and to protect their hatchlings by carrying them in their jaws, the same jaws that can clamp down on prey with a force of more than 2,000 psi.
###
This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant #0844743 and by a Vanderbilt University Discover Grant.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The election is behind us, but a new uncertainty looms: Taxes.
If Congress and the newly reelected president don't take action, most Americans will see their taxes go up next year. And some are getting twitchy.
"We are getting calls from clients daily," said Scott Cramer, president of Cramer & Rauchegger, an estate planning firm based in central Florida with more than 200 clients. "They are very scared and nervous."
Cramer's clients are primarily concerned with taxes on capital gains, set to increase on Dec. 31, along with other tax hikes as part of the so-called fiscal cliff. The year-end game-changer is happening because tax cuts put into place under President George W. Bush are set to expire and Congress has failed to make a deal for an extension.
President Barack Obama has said he wants to let Bush-era tax cuts expire for the highest-income Americans. That means individuals earning $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000 will revert back to 1990s income tax rates of 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively.
For middle-class earners, the president said he supports keeping current tax rates. But the middle-class doesn't escape the cliff. New taxes created under the Affordable Care Act go into effect for 2013 tax bills, including a 3.8 percent tax increase on investment income.
More immediately, the alternative minimum tax could also slam as many as 30 million American families on their 2012 tax bills unless it?s patched by Congress. This is an additional flat tax for those making a certain income. Without a patch, it may add thousands to the tax bill for some middle-class families, tax experts said.
Even if the Bush-era tax cuts are extended for millions of Main Street Americans, they will feel tax bill sticker shock on Jan. 1. The end of the payroll tax break will nibble away at income for as many as 160 million Americans. That means an American earning $50,000 annually will pay at least $80 more per month in taxes.
Add to that, there may be higher tax-withholding by employers unless the IRS updates its withholding tables, tax experts said.
So what's the bottom line for taxpayers who don't know what their bills holds next year?
?Don?t spend every penny in your paycheck this side of New Years,? said Robertson Williams, tax policy expert and senior fellow at the Tax Policy Institute. "There is a lot of political hardball to be played over the next eight weeks."
Residential Energy-Efficiency Credits
No tax breaks for being green in 2012. Homeowner investments in energy-efficient double-pane windows or high-efficiency refrigerators, <a href="http://www.energytaxincentives.org/">don't get any tax benefit, and that could add to tax bills</a>. More than 43.5 million Americans have filed and received this benefit, with an average reduction in tax liability of $765.84, according to H&R Block.
Mortgage Insurance Premiums
Bad news for homeowners: They cannot write off mortgage insurance premiums on 2012 tax returns. Congress can act to reauthorize these deductions retroactively to Jan. 1, 2012, and extend them through the end of 2013, but that would cost the government $1.3 billion over the next decade, the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/07/business/la-fi-harney-20121007">Los Angeles Times reports</a>.
Adoption Credit
Taxpayers who have out-of-pocket adoption expenses or who adopted a child with special needs can only claim the adoption credit to the extent of their tax liability. While the portion of the credit not taken into account in 2012, up to $12,650 per child, is carried forward to future years, the benefit is no longer fully refundable, according to tax experts.
Alternative Minimum Tax
If the alternative minimum tax legislation is not retroactively patched for 2012, current law could result in an increased tax liability for up to 34 million Americans. According to a study by the Tax Institute at H&R Block, an average family making $85,000 with children in college could see their tax liability soar from a $1,056 refund to owing $1,400.
American Opportunity Tax Credit
Tuition bills will be higher starting on Jan. 1 because families will lose the $2,500 American Opportunity Tax Credit, which ends in 2012 unless Congress takes action. More than 2.4 million Americans claimed this deduction in 2009, resulting in a combined decrease in taxable income of $5.4 billion, according to tax experts.
Payroll Tax Credit
Paychecks will be smaller starting Jan. 1, 2013. An American making $50,000, for example, will lose $80 in monthly pay after the credit ends. The temporary credit also has lowered the amount workers contributed to Social Security by 2 percent.
Educator Expense Deduction
Teachers lose their $250 maximum deduction on expenses related to buying school supplies. This credit expired at the end of 2011, and teachers won't be able to claim this benefit on their 2012 taxes unless Congress takes action. In 2009, more than 3.8 million teachers claimed this benefit for a combined deduction of $9.7 billion, according to H&R Block.
Sales Tax As An Itemized Deduction
Taxpayers will no longer have the option of claiming an itemized deduction for state sales tax in lieu of state income tax. This expiration will have a greater impact on taxpayers who reside in a state with sales tax, but no income tax, including Alaska, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Washington, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
IRA Retirement Funds
Taxpayers over age 70? no longer have the option of directing their income from an IRA distribution to a charitable organization. Starting this year, older taxpayers must include the distribution in income and claim a charitable deduction, resulting in a potentially higher tax bracket and a need to itemize instead of claiming the standard deduction, according to H&R Block.
Later refunds
As if losing all those tax credits was not bad enough, the earliest date to file a 2012 tax return electronically has moved back to Jan. 22, 2013. As the IRS has indicated that refunds could take as long as 21 days to process this year, a refund in January to cover Christmas credit card payments, winter heating bills, or rent is unlikely.
Gotta love those Californians. Tax the rich some more and make it more expensive to buy shit and then hand it over to government union workers. This proposition won easily. The best part is that a tax increase passed on November 6 is being retroactively implemented as of January 1. I wonder how many more?productive people will leave the State so the parasites and free shit army can wallow in their putrid?socialist swamp of diversity and delusion. ?
In passing Gov. Jerry Brown?s tax increase, California voters signaled a symbolic end to the tax revolt of 1978, when they adopted Proposition 13?s limits on property taxes, supporters said Wednesday.
Proposition 30, a $6 billion-a-year package of tax increases that the governor campaigned furiously for in the final weeks of the campaign, passed with a 54 percent majority, averting major cuts to public education.
The tax package raises income taxes on the wealthy and sales taxes for everyone else.
Most of the money is earmarked for K-12 schools and community colleges, which have suffered due to lack of stable financial support. Brown had warned that failure of the measure would have triggered immediate cuts to schools.
?Californians looked at the state of our schools and said: ?They are fundamental to who we are, and our future. We need to support public education, because it is a huge driver of our progress,? ? said UC-Los Angeles history professor Jon Christensen, former director of Stanford?s Bill Lane Center for the American West. ?That is a very, very heartening change.?
Rival measure Proposition 38, backed by millionaire civil rights attorney Molly Munger, was rejected. She spent more than $47 million to promote this measure, which would have increased income taxes on most Californians to raise an estimated $10 billion a year for schools and to pay down state debt.
Proposition 30 raises money through a quarter-cent sales tax increase, along with an income tax surcharge on people earning more than $250,000 per year.
The tax measure won its strongest support among voters in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It passed in Santa Clara County with 62 percent of the vote; Alameda, 73 percent; Contra Costa County, 59 percent; Santa Cruz, 73 percent; Marin, 68 percent and San Francisco, 76.8 percent.
The tax measure held a precarious position in hours leading up to the election, with support below 50 percent, which typically dooms tax initiatives. Brown lobbied hard on Monday to boost support for the measure, traveling to five cities, from San Francisco to San Diego.
Its surprising victory shows that undecided voters made a last minute decision to boost taxes, defying conventional wisdom, noted Christensen. Undecided voters usually vote no on tax measures.
The measure faced opposition funding from outside the state, when an Arizona group called Americans for Responsible Leadership donated millions to fight against it.
But the No on 30 campaign lacked the funding, organization and platform of Proposition 30, said opponents.
?It had several factors working in its favor,? said Aaron McLear of the No on 30 campaign. ?One was the five-to-one fundraising advantage ? the ?yes? had $57 million, while the ?no? had $13 million. Also, there was the power of a very effective bully pulpit by the governor, that controlled the narrative. And the infrastructure of the Democratic Party and public employee unions was a completely unmatched political machine. We don?t have anything like that on our side.?
The passage of Proposition 30 represents a rebuke to 1978?s Proposition 13, which capped property taxes and required a two-thirds vote to pass any future tax increases. This created financial stress for schools, due to funding cutbacks.
Supporters of Brown?s measure said they have grown distressed over the deteriorating condition of public education in California, which many supporters trace to the passage of Proposition 13.
?We have seen the bitter fruits that Prop. 13 has visited on our land. I voted for it because education is clearly the best thing we do as a community,? said Charles Ogle, a Menlo Park tool maker. ?When I was growing up, the schools were great, and it seems very unfair that today?s kids haven?t had that advantage. The promise of the Master Plan was broken. For me, that was a ?wake up? call.?
Kit Miller of Palo Alto, another supporter of Prop. 30, said ?Paying taxes to fund education is basic logic ? it?s sad we have lost so many years of revenue for the schools. But now we can make California a leader in education again.?
University of California President Mark G. Yudof welcomed the vote, saying ?The passage of Proposition 30 represents an opportunity for California and its political leadership to put public higher education back on a pathway toward fiscal stability. This is an opportunity of great importance, not only to the University of California and other higher education segments, but also to the state as a whole.?
?The majority of Californians decided that the collective interests of the state outweigh one?s own immediate interests,? said SJSU?s Linguistics and Language Development professor Stefan Frazier.
?In the long run, of course, we all benefit. Investing in education during a recession is the best way of getting out of it.?
On average, we make 6 to 10 financial decisions each day. With some-more than 70 percent of Americans vital paycheck-to-paycheck, those are some complicated stakes! At a new income government convention hosted by AVON cosmetics, LearnVest.com CEO Alexa von Tobel common with us a basis of personal finance. Here are her tip financial tips.
Get organized
Alexa recommends carrying as few accounts as possible. This means streamlining a series of bank accounts in your name and holding control of credit cards and 401(k) or other assets funds. Create a singular email residence that we use for all bills, e-statements and online banking. And, maybe many importantly, exercise a "money minute" each morning where we check in on bank comment and credit label balances. That way, you'll always have a transparent bargain of your financial situation.
Know your numbers
You should know accurately what your monthly income is, definition a volume of income we take home after taxes and advantages have been subtracted from your paycheck. Another critical "number to know" is only how most your life costs you. How most do we spend on rent, transportation, groceries and entertainment? Add adult all of your monthly expenses. Finally, know your credit score. According to Alexa, it should be during slightest 700 though a ideal is somewhere around 760 or more.
Have a budget
We all know we should have one. But here's a accessible relapse from Alexa: 50 percent of a income we take home should go toward essentials like rent/mortgage, groceries and transportation. Twenty percent should be put toward your future: profitable down debt, or saving for retirement, vacation or a automobile we wish to buy. The final 30 percent is for your lifestyle choices: shopping, dining and a like.
Start a leisure fund
When LearnVest.com perceived inhabitant courtesy for a mission, Alexa motionless to dump out of Harvard Business School to launch a association ? something she says she never could have finished but her "freedom fund." Your puncture assets comment should be indifferent for only that form of situation: Chasing down a good opportunity, walking out of a pursuit that we hatred or any variable health or life issues. The idea is to have 6 to 9 months of your life's losses saved in your leisure fund.
Save early for retirement
We know, "Boo... boring!" But instead of meditative of it as retirement savings, cruise of it as a "fun-after-I'm-done-working-my-life-away savings." That changes a opinion entirely, doesn't it? What kind of life do we wish to live in your golden years? Start saving now! Look into options for 401(k) or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). The progressing we start, a some-more income you'll have in a future.
Purchase insurance
Hospital bills after a vital medical predicament are one of a tip ways people get into debt. Protect yourself by purchasing health insurance. It will save we income in a prolonged run, says Alexa. Besides health insurance, squeeze insurance skeleton for your home, automobile and even business apparatus if we are self-employed. Don't play with your well-being!
Seek advice
Working with a financial planner can assistance we compensate off debt faster, set picturesque financial goals and emanate an easy-to-follow highway map to strech those goals. Whether it's a personal banker, accountant or one of LearnVest's income government experts, it's an investment to consider.
More financial tips
Get out of credit label debtFrugal families: 15 ways to saveHow to ask your credit report
AT&T decided today to reverse its controversial decision blocking FaceTime calls over LTE data networks from customers who don't subscribe to one of the carrier's shared data plans.
However, the change only affects devices that connect to AT&T's 4G LTE network, not older 3G devices. It also only works if you have a tiered or shared data plan. If you're grandfathered into an unlimited data plan, you'll only be able to use FaceTime over Wi-Fi.
It'll take eight to 10 weeks for AT&T to open up the FaceTime functionality over LTE to iPhones and iPads.
Apple's latest version of iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads, was the first that let you make FaceTime video calls over a cellular data connection.?But AT&T decided to block the feature from customers who didn't have a shared data plan. As a result, a lot of customers complained. The FCC got involved. Things got ugly.?
In a blog post today, AT&T's senior executive vice president-external and legislative affairs?Jim Cicconi explained why the carrier is opening FaceTime up to customers on tiered data plans. Cicconi said that since AT&T has more iPhones than any other carrier, it wanted to take a cautious approach with FaceTime over cellular to avoid choking the network:
We decided to take this cautious approach for important reasons. AT&T has by far more iPhones on our network than any other carrier. We?re proud of this fact and the confidence our customers have in us. But it also means that when Apple rolls out new services or changes, as it did in iOS 6, it can have a much greater, and more immediate, impact on AT&T?s network than is the case with carriers who have far fewer iPhone users.
Cicconi closed by saying AT&T will continue to monitor FaceTime usage and may open it up to customers on other types of data plans in the future.
>>>in former democratic congressional chairman congressman
chris van hollen
. thank you for joining us. i know you have a lot going on. let me get your feeling right now at this hour.
>>there are long lines for votes all around the country, including my home
state of maryland
. we're hearing the same thing around the country. i feel good with respect to the president's election. as you indicated, it's going to come down to the fewle
battleground states
, but the president has an edge in states like ohio and we detected a note of desperation from the romney campaign when they started to run these very deceptive ads with respect to to the
auto industry
that were so bad that even
general motors
and chrysler had to come out and call them on the carpet. that was clear a a sign of desperation from the romney campaign.
>>let me ask you what could concern you at this point. we have a couple questions out there. can an incumbent president win when the
unemployment rate
below 8% or has his economic message worked? they throw out the auto bailout and the impact in ohio. what gives you confidence at this hour?
>>i think the
american people
are fair-minded and they know the president inherited a really bad economy where we were losing 800,000 jobs a month and we've made significant progress since th then. we've seen
job growth
for 31 straight months. we're in a better position. the question has been should we continue that progress? should we accelerate that progress or go back to a set of policies
mitt romney
is recommending that we know help people like
mitt romney
but were a proven failure for the rest of the country? i think the americanoking at that choice, and that's what gives the president the edge.
>>congressman, let me play what
house majority whip
kevin m mccarthy said. he was on "
morning joe
." we know a lot of the conversation from the voters is can anything get done in washington? here's at least some of his forecast of what is to be faced.
>>we are going to have a fiscal cliff between now and the end of the year from the debt limit to the looming tax increases to sequestrati sequestration. all those ideas have been passed by the house to solve those. it's the senate that has not acted. i hope there's a big change in the senate as well to
move america forward
.
>>what's your response to that, congressman?
>>kevin is right that we do have a fiscal cliff. we have a very different way of dealing with it. the president has put on the table a plan to deal with the fiscal cliff we should immediately extend tax relief to 98% of the
american people
. the republican position, the house
tea party
position has been no, no, no, no. nobody gets tax relief unless the very wealthy get a bonus tax relief. in other words, unless folks like
mitt romney
get a
windfall tax
break, the rest of the country cannot get tax relief. if you're serious about reducing the deficit, and we should be, you need to take the balanced approach that's been recommended by bipartisan groups that say you have to combine cuts but also revenue and ask folks at the very top to go back to paying the rates they were when
bill clinton
was president, which is the last time we had a
balanced budget
and the economy was doing just great.
>>i greatly appreciate your time. i hope to talk with you about the results tonight.
Hurricane Sandy was one of the worst natural disasters the east coast has ever seen.? Clean-up and recovery will take months, if not years and estimates run in the tens of billions of dollars.? Parts of New York and New Jersey will never be the same.? Entire seashore communities have been wiped out, but the determination to rebuild has been lauded as courageous and admirable. Yet as with all natural disasters, Sandy raises uncomfortable questions about the extent to which taxpayers should fund the cleanup and the extent to which government programs create moral hazards.
For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) are expected to pick up the tab for much of the flood damage caused by the hurricane.? Of course this will mean more federal debt and inflation for the rest of us, since the program only has about $4 billion to work with and is already $18 billion in debt from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.? Many think there is a need for the government to provide flood insurance of this kind.? After all, the market would never provide insurance in flood prone areas at an affordable price. ?But shouldn?t that tell us something?
Shouldn?t that tell us that it is a losing proposition to insure homes in coastal areas and flood plains often threatened by severe and destructive weather patterns? And if it?s a losing proposition, should taxpayers subsidize the inevitable losses arising from federal flood insurance?
The NFIP disguises the real cost of flood insurance in flood prone areas, which influences homebuilding and sales in such areas.? Recklessly taking unwise risks when risk is underpriced is known as moral hazard.? When politicians decide that private insurance premiums are too high, as with houses built in flood plains, the solution is to under price the risk through federal subsidies.? The obvious and expected outcome is more danger to life and limb when disaster strikes.
Even NFIP has been forced to raise rates significantly in coastal areas, and is now dropping second homes from coverage altogether,
Many assume it is compassionate to entrust government central planners with disaster recovery.? However, the greatest compassion brings results, not just good intentions.? And we?ve seen how bureaucratic organizations like FEMA mismanaged recovery and relief in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Ike.? Organizations such as the Red Cross and private companies like Home Depot and Duracell have already stepped in admirably to help those in need, and we can only hope FEMA has learned this time not to impede and frustrate private efforts as they have in the past.
Above all, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Sandy in this tremendously difficult time and hope they can get their lives put back together as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
Posted in Ron Paul's Writings, Texas Straight Talk| Tagged FEMA, Flood Insurance |
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Primarycamera: 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, check quality
Features: Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, 3D sweep panorama, image stabilization
Video: 720p@30fps, video light, check quality
Secondary camera: VGA
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, DLNA
Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support
Internal storage: 8GB (4GB available to user)
Other features: SNS integration, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player, MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Organizer, Document viewer, Voice memo/dial/commands, Predictive text input
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1320 mAh
Stand-by: Up to 260 h (2G) / Up to 472 h (3G)
Talk time: Up to 6 h 36 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 36 min (3G)
Music play: Up to 45 h
Dimensions: 112 x 54 x 12 mm
Weight: 110 g
Legal warranty: 2 years
The expected shipping date of this product is 15 November 2012
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?Love Roulette?s? cast and crew take a moment to relax on set in Mare Island.
Max Shepherd, Staff Writer October 31, 2012 Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Local
My final project for Cinema 015 was the first short film I ever made. The story was simple: a man had just committed a murder out in the hills, and now needed to transport a garbage bag full of limbs to an undisclosed location.
We used Brad?s camera, a shiny new T2i (which were all the rage back then, but now only cost the number of minutes it would take you to dig one out of a Dumpster behind Fry?s Electronics) and I was forced to play the lead role. I covered myself in fake blood of my own concoction, and Brad and I spent six hours walking the hills of Mare Island in 100 degree heat. The fake blood, composed mostly of Karo syrup, attracted flies, and hardened over my skin like glue. It was uncomfortable.
We traversed rough terrain and did battle with the indigenous wildlife. Eventually after the shoot had finished we headed back, and emerged from the woods into an up-scale golf-course. Old men clad in bright pants piloted carts through winding asphalt trails from hole to hole. Some would cast us inquisitive gazes, as though they found the sudden appearance of a blood-soaked stranger unusual.
Ultimately I was unsatisfied with the film. I showed it to our professor, Meile Ornelas, in the back room instead of playing it on the projector in front of class. Now it lies buried at the bottom of my hard-drive collecting digital dust.
It was also during this semester where I once again encountered Alden ?Alabaster MaGruff? Tatum. One evening Alden and I wrote a screenplay over a fifth of vodka. That screenplay was eventually adapted into the short film, ?Love Roulette.? A man is sent a letter from the woman he loves telling him to meet her at an abandoned building, when he arrives he finds a trap. Gunmen lying in wait.
After an intense shoot-out Tatum?s character is shot to death. ?Love Roulette? was a success. Brad put his After Effects skills to tremendous use, rendering shockingly realistic gun shots and bullet impacts. The short was filmed in a stylish, ?Sin City? inspired B&W with scattered bits of red. I had the honor of being killed twice, as two different characters, dressed in two different outfits. We ran out extras. ?We were drunk as hell when we wrote it,? recalled Tatum. ?Looking back that was the start of many good projects that stemmed from that specific film.?
Daniel had no trouble recalling the shoot. ?Filming in a place you aren?t allowed to be is a great way to get the blood flowing, and that?s just what we did in all of the shorts I was part of,? Daniel said. I remember the stripped and crumbling buildings we braved to film that short. The ceilings were littered with holes as if the structures were bombarded by meteorites, and tiny jungles of moss and mold spread across the floors and walls like a metastasizing infection. Entire sections were charred black from unknown fires. It smelled like a pond filled with trash and the excretions of vagrants and stray cats, but, as a guerrilla filmmaker, you will quickly acclimate yourself to the pungent scent of the fluids of the homeless (both human and animal). It will be a necessary adaptation in order for you to effectively film in many low-rent locations.
?I had to choreograph and film full cast and crew,? Daniel said. ?In suits and ties, all carrying mock-up firearms, disaster was imminent.?
But disaster didn?t strike. Everything just kind of worked out, mostly. Nobody fell through the floor or impaled themselves on rebar spikes, nobody got rabies from bats in the attic, we didn?t stumble upon a meth deal gone wrong or witness a murder, and we weren?t mistaken as an exceptionally stylish and heavily armed militant group hiding in an abandoned building by the police and then gunned down in a blaze of glory. None of those things happened. Did they almost happen? Maybe. But ultimately everything worked out fine. Sometimes that happens, and it?s pretty cool.
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Tags: Brad Daniel, Cinema 015, college film program, Film program at Solano Community College, filming, Mare Island, Max Shepherd, Meile Ornelas, SCC film department, T2i, Tim Tatum
How much candy can your typical pillowcase or plastic pumpkin hold? The answer largely depends on how many houses your trick-or-treater has hit, but suffice it to say ? it?s probably a lot.
Odds are good you?ll have enough leftover Halloween candy to last a few weeks, or longer. (This year, with Hurricane Sandy expected to cause extended power outages along the East Coast, some residents ? Frugal Foodie among them ? might also find that they have tons of leftover candy because trick-or-treaters didn?t show.)
So, now what? What should you do with all those leftover Halloween treats?
As a first recourse, reduce the haul. Several groups offer candy buy-back programs at a rate of roughly $1 per pound, with the sweets going to troops abroad or other deserving parties.
?I think the best ?trick? is to take your child?s leftover candy to work,? says C. Lee Reed of HelicopterMomandJustPlaneDad.com. ?Make your colleagues eat it! Better on their hips than yours.?
Then, it?s time to get creative:
Craft projects
?Kids can play with their candy, and maybe even learn some science lessons along the way,? says Kendra Peterson of BitingtheHandThatFeedsYou.net. Some of her tricks: holiday centerpieces and mosaics. And here?s another good resource?for candy crafts.
Trail mix
?Crumble up some of the candy bars and use in a trail mix to add some? sweetness,? says Steven Zussino, president of GroceryAlerts.ca.
S?mores night
Betsy Pruitt of BellyFeathers.com says it?s a fun way to use up candy and see who can come up with the best combination. ?Plus, mom and dad will get to snack on some of the prized? Halloween loot,? she says.
Freeze it
Miniature bars can keep in the freezer for a few months, easily. ?Take out a piece or two when you want some or are going on a road trip,? says home cook Carolyn Huston-Ellenberger.
?My mother used to do this, and every time we went skiing, camping, hiking, canoeing, or other outdoor activities we had small energy boosts to take along.?
Instant mocha
One mini bar = instant mocha.
Christmas treats
?We freeze leftover candy and buy more at the store for 50% to 75% off to use for ?Christmas baking,? says home cook Pam McMurtry. ?We make and give away dozens of little gift?bags from ?Santa?s Candy Shop at the North Pole.??
Huston-Ellenberger says a pi?ata makes another fun option for kids at holiday parties, while Zussino uses her leftover Halloween candy to decorate gingerbread houses.
Mystery cookies (or cupcakes)
Denine M. Anderson-Regan, one of the sisters behind WeKnowStuff.us.com, suggests chopping up leftover candies?for ?Halloween Mystery Cookies.?
Frugal Foodie has made similar cupcakes and Rocky Road bars?with her leftover Halloween candy.
Re-mold
?You can buy molds at a craft store and ?melt down the leftover chocolate bars,? Zussino says. ?Pour this in the molds and you have? some interesting gifts come Christmas time.?
Frugal Foodie is a journalist based in New York City who spends her days writing about personal finance and obsessing about what she?ll have for dinner. Chat with her on Twitter through @MintFoodie.
The Canada Revenue Agency has tentatively denied a disability foundation?s attempt to provide a tax break worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to its celebrated namesake for the ?donation? of his name, The Vancouver Sun reports.
The Rick Hansen Foundation had issued a tax receipt valuing Mr. Hansen?s name at $1.8-million, which under British Columbia law would have entitled him to deduct 43.7 percent of the contribution. The Paralympic athlete and activist made worldwide headlines and attained hero status in Canada in the 1980s for when he circled the globe in his wheelchair.
The ruling doesn?t appear to be final, but the tax agency?gave the charity 60 days to withdraw the receipt.
The foundation said it believed the transaction complied with Canadian tax rules, but it will comply with the agency if the transaction ?is ultimately determined to not be ?tax receiptable.??
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Public release date: 8-Nov-2012
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