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Events of November 26, 2011

I was pretty excited as I packed up my bags in my dorm on Wednesday morning. I was excited about being on vacation, I was excited about getting to spend Thanksgiving with my family, and I was excited about getting out of Boston for a few days to visit my mother's family in Worcester. But, in addition to all of those things, I was excited because I knew the Saturday after Thanksgiving was the date that NASA's next Mars rover was set to launch!

The very first Mars rover, Sojourner, landed on Mars in 1997, when I was four years old. I don't remember Sojourner, but I do remember reading about it in all of my science books and magazines a few years later. Sojourner was about the size of a lunch box and couldn't transmit back to Earth on its own -- it had to send signals through its Pathfinder lander. Pathfinder stopped operating before Sojourner, which meant that scientists believe the rover spent at least several days circling the lander, transmitting in vain. It always made me sad to read about that part of the mission in my books -- it reminded me of the scene in The Lion King where Simba is nosing his father's dead body, trying hopelessly to get him to wake up.

The next two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed in 2004, when I was eleven, and I remember sitting in bed with my parents the morning after Spirit landed to see the first images on the news. I've followed Spirit and Opportunity through all of their travels since then, cheering as they've kept on keeping on, overcoming obstacles and discovering evidence of ancient water on the red planet. I have a poster about those hardworking twin robots hanging in my room at home. I was heartbroken when the Spirit rover stopped transmitting. (I still don't think I'm emotionally ready to talk about that, actually.) But, it makes me happy to know that Opportunity is still roving almost 8 years after arriving at Mars, even though she was only built to last 90 days.

Spirit and Opportunity fed my interest in all things Mars, and, although it wasn't a rover, I eagerly followed the next mission, the Mars Phoenix Lander. The date of Phoenix's launch, August 4, 2007, ended up being the longest day of my life, because I spent it flying home from a trip to Australia with People to People Student Ambassadors. Since I was on and off airplanes the whole day, I didn't have any time to get to a computer and watch the launch, but I was able to watch the replays the next day. (But I know I'll never forget that day, because it was 48 hours long for me!)

Nine months later, I watched with my family as Phoenix endured "Seven Minutes of Terror", entering the Martian atmosphere and firing its jets to descend to the surface. I screamed joyfully when the control team announced that Phoenix had touched down successfully. I visited the mission website every single day that summer, and into the fall. I celebrated with everyone else when Phoenix confirmed the presence of water ice in the Martian arctic.

Spirit and Opportunity were mobile, but didn't have Phoenix's sophisticated instruments. Phoenix could do science that the rovers couldn't, but it was stationary and could only study rocks within reach of its robotic arm. But NASA's next Mars mission, I took comfort in knowing after Phoenix ceased transmissions, would have the best of both worlds and then some -- a mobile rover with Phoenix-level instruments, a laser beam to sample the chemical makeup of rocks, and a nuclear engine that could keep it roving year-round, unlike solar-powered spacecraft that had to slow down in the Martian winter. This car-sized vehicle would be the most advanced spacecraft we'd ever sent to any planet, and it would hopefully be able to tell us if Mars could ever have supported life. I pored over the digitally-constructed concept art of this new Mars Science Laboratory in my new books and magazines, watching as its shape solidified.

All of the previous rovers had been named by schoolchildren in public contests, so when an online contest to name the Mars Science Laboratory was announced, I was very excited. This was my chance to leave my mark on the history of space exploration, just as Valerie Ambroise and Sofi Collis had done! I wrote that I thought the rover should be named "Goddard", after rocketry pioneer Dr. Robert Goddard, whose ultimate dream had always been travel to Mars. I knew my chances of winning were slim, because, at 16, I was near the upper age limit in the contest, but I submitted my essay anyway. When the finalists were announced, "Goddard" was not among them, but I thought all of those that had been chosen were better. I don't remember which finalist I voted for, but the winning name turned out to be "Curiosity", a name suggested by 12-year-old Clara Ma.

So now, the rover had a name -- a real, familiar name and not a simple descriptive one. And it seemed to fit her very well -- like most machines and ships, it was a "she" -- curiosity about the Universe around us was the reason humanity was now reaching out to the planet Mars. And as I stood next to a full-scale model of the rover at the National Air and Space Museum this summer, I couldn't imagine any other name fitting her as well. She was the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, boxy and gleaming white like the precocious favorite child of Wall-E and Eve, with a single laser eye that glowed a bright, inviting pink. And, having been with her all of those years from concept art to cut metal to the clean room, I felt that she was my friend.

And, as I sat in front of my laptop today, clutching my father's hand tightly as I counted down, one journey ended and another began. Curiosity was the first Mars rover I had seen go from a conceptual rendering to a real vehicle sitting on the launchpad, within the fairing of an Atlas V rocket. The rocket ignited and I watched it streak up, through the clouds, perfect as a dream. The smaller boosters fell away until all that remained was the aeroshell -- the protective capsule carrying the rover -- and the Centaur upper stage that would give it the final push out of Earth's gravity.

This was the part I was the most frightened by. A few weeks before, the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe, also bound for Mars, had made it into Earth orbit but been unable to make the necessary burns to leave. (Engineers are still trying to save Phobos-Grunt, and I pray that they will succeed.) My aunt Elaine, who walked in at this point, remarked that the animation of the aeroshell and upper stage looked like a giant microphone or flashlight floating through space!

But everything went according to plan, and the cameras on the upper stage showed the aeroshell separating, slowly spinning as the sun hit the small solar cells on its surface and made it shine like a gem. Curiosity was on her way to Mars!

The journey to the launch pad is over, but Curiosity's mission is just beginning. In August, she will arrive at Gale Crater, and I know I'll be watching, just as I was with Phoenix, as she descends through the Martian atmosphere, and hopefully touches down, opens her eyes, and starts to stretch her six wheels. And I hope you'll be watching, too. Because she's not just the Mars Science Laboratory rover anymore, not to me. She's my friend, Curiosity.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoe-p-strassfield/curiosity-mars-rover_b_1114242.html

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By Hanna Brooks Olsen for Blisstree.com

The day after Thanksgiving, the last thing you'll be thinking about is weight loss. And if you're debating about whether or not you should hit the gym to make up for yesterday's edible indiscretions, if the alternative is getting up and moving long before the sun shines for Black Friday, you may actually want to skip your run and go shopping instead -- it burns more calories than you think.

Assuming that all you do is wander the aisles from the hours of 5 a.m. until 11 a.m. or noon, you'll have been walking, on and off, for a total of 6 or more hours. Which, even at a very, very leisurely pace (unlikely if you're caught up in the rush of deal-hunting), can burn around 600 calories (according to SparkPeople's calorie estimator), depending on your size and fitness level. Which is about as must two to three pieces of pie, or a serving of stuffing, a side of cranberries, and half a roll.

More from Blisstree.com:
Black Friday Fitness: 9 Exercises You Can Do While Standing In Line
You're Doing It Wrong: Burn More Calories By Changing This Gym Behavior
6 Ways To Burn Extra Calories With Red Peppers

But if you're walking briskly (and not pushing a cart, or lifting deeply-discounted microwaves and flat-screen TVs), you could burn up to 900 or more calories -- just from being there. Add a little shivering (which burns calories) while you were waiting outside the store, plus some trying on of clothes and a bit of carrying and lifting, and you're looking at burning as many as 1,500 calories over the course of six hours.

If you're less concerned about calories, and more worried about building lean muscle, shopping can still be a physical challenge. Offer to lift, carry, and push the cart every chance you get, and throw in a few lunges and other checkout-line moves, and you'll get a miniature resistance workout that may rival what many people put in at the gym.

As a general rule of thumb, skipping your workout in favor of shopping probably isn't the wisest for your wallet or your well-being. But on special days and around the holidays, stressing out over how much you ate and how much you're burning just isn't worth it -- especially if it turns out that racing through the aisles and waiting in line with friends is enough to give your metabolism a much-needed post-Thanksgiving boost.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/black-friday-workout_n_1111056.html

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Anti-Wall Street protesters took their message about corporate greed to Black Friday shoppers, staging demonstrations in commercial areas around California on one of the busiest days of the year for retailers and bargain-hunters.

In San Francisco, a few dozen people in tony and touristy Union Square used signs to spread an anti-consumerism message. One, 9-year-old Jacob Hamilton, held a sign that read, "What is in your bag that's more important than my education?"

Some of the protesters from the Occupy movements in San Francisco and Oakland clashed with police when they briefly blocked the city's iconic cable cars until officers pushed them out of the street.

Later in the afternoon, some of the participants in what protesters called "Don't Buy Anything Day" sat down in the middle of Market Street, San Francisco's main thoroughfare, and blocked traffic while chanting, "Stop shopping and join us!"

"I wanted us both to be here for the children," said protester Steve Hamilton, a screenwriter who traveled to the city from Winters, Calif., with his son Jacob. "I see how the education deficit directly affects the schools; how the teachers struggle with so many kids in the classrooms and a lack of books. It's not fair to this generation."

Down the street from Macy's massive store on Union Square in San Francisco, shopper Celia Collins of New Orleans said she worked hard to earn her MBA and pay off her student loans. She had every right to enjoy Black Friday, she said, and the protesters would be better off working within the system to find jobs and support the economy.

"I think they're a bunch of ... crybabies," said Collins, clutching her shopping bags as she watched the protesters march down Stockton Street. "I don't begrudge them the right to do it, but I just don't think they've really very smart."

A group of about 20 Occupy protesters in Sacramento marched from a park to a small outdoor mall where many of the storefronts are empty. A police officer on a bicycle trailed the crowd.

A few puzzled shoppers, many toting large shopping bags, stopped to stare at the crowd as they read a manifesto asking people to support local merchants.

Michele Waldinger, 57, a retired attorney who used to work for the U.S. Small Business Administration, said she joined the group to lend her voice to the Occupy effort to restore a social safety net and get corporate influence out of American politics.

"I support the movement, I support getting money out of politics and I support having people shop locally," she said.

The group paraded into a Macy's store, entering near the women's clothing department.

"We are here today to ask you to shop local and sustain our local economy," the group's leader, a man who identified himself only as Brother Carter, read into a bullhorn. "And not reward the 1 percent, large corporate stores like Macy's, whose profits enrich the 1 percent, while they pay next to nothing to their workers, the 99 percent."

The group stayed inside the store for several minutes chanting slogans such as, "They call it profit; we call it robbery." Several shoppers crowded around taking photos with their cellphones.

"I just was took back by surprise that they came into Macy's," said Beronica Jones, 39, of Reno, who was carrying a Gap bag. "I guess that it's positive for people to hear it when they're shopping for Christmas, when we're consuming."

After most of the crowd had cleared out of the store, two young women wearing Macy's badges approached one of the protesters to ask what their rally was all about. One explained that it was to call attention to workers who perform all the labor but do not share in profits.

The employees nodded their heads in agreement.

A Macy's manager threatened to arrest a reporter for The Associated Press before she could ask for the names of the employees or the manager.

Betsy Nelson, a spokeswoman for Macy's, declined to comment on the group's assertion that the chain is among the "1 percent." Nelson said Macy's usually asks the media to check in before reporting at its stores but apologized for the manager who threatened to have the reporter arrested.

"We are a place where people shop. We are not necessarily a place to protest," she said.

Along with identifying new protest targets, people with the Occupy movement energized more established awareness campaigns.

In Emeryville, a small city on San Francisco Bay that has been transformed from a manufacturing area to a shopping destination, more than 60 people attended a Native American community's 10th annual Black Friday protest of the Bay Street Mall.

Corrina Gould, a lead organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change, said the goal is to educate shoppers that the mall was built in 2002 on a sacred Ohlone burial site.

About one-third of the people at Friday's protest came from neighboring Oakland's Occupy movement, and Gould said having the new voices was invigorating.

Jesse Smith, an Occupy Oakland protester, passed out fliers encouraging mall shoppers to instead support local businesses in downtown Oakland to help "keep them in the black."

___

Williams reported from Sacramento. Associated Press Writer Terry Collins contributed reporting from Emeryville.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/black-friday-occupy-_n_1113638.html

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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Cyprus will launch a new licensing round for more exploratory drilling for offshore oil and gas in four to six weeks, an official said Wednesday, a move underscoring its right to search for energy sources which rival Turkey strongly disputes.

Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou says the Cabinet authorized officials to prepare a call for bids to drill inside the island's 17,000 square-mile (51,000 square-kilometer) exclusive economic zone.

"With today's decision ... the government once again stresses its determination to exercise its sovereign rights within the Cyprus Republic's exclusive economic zone always, according to international law," Stefanou said.

Cyprus was split into a breakaway Turkish-speaking north and an internationally recognized Greek-speaking south in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by supporters of union with Greece.

Turkey doesn't recognize Cyprus as a sovereign state and opposes any Greek Cypriot energy search on the ground that it undermines the rights of Turkish Cypriots to any oil and gas wealth. Turkey has responded by recently carrying out its own seismic search for fuel sources in the Mediterranean and by signing a maritime accord with the Turkish Cypriots.

On Wednesday, TPAO, the Turkish state-run petroleum company, signed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to search for oil and gas off Turkey's south coast and onshore in the country's southeast region.

Cyprus' exclusive economic zone is divided into 13 blocks and Stefanou said bids will be invited for all 13, except the one where the U.S. firm Noble Energy is now drilling.

Cyprus licensed Noble in 2008 to drill inside a block about 115 miles (185 kilometers) south of this island, close to a huge Israeli gas field. The company estimates the Cypriot field may hold between 3 and 9 trillion cubic feet (85-250 billion cubic meters) of natural gas.

Cypriot officials said a more precise estimate will be announced early next month once drilling concludes.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-23-EU-Cyprus-Drilling/id-74709020077b455a8d3eae79dd2e6e36

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Advances | More Science Cover Image: December 2011 Scientific American Magazine

See Inside

Each year we poll scientists and educators on ideas for books, puzzles and toys that foster inquiry. This season's picks range from a top that never stops spinning to a build-it-yourself skull.

By Anna Kuchment ?| November 25, 2011

Image: Photograph by Lucas Zarebinski

1. Your Body puzzle
$24.95 at fatbraintoys.com; ages 4 and up
A five-layer birch puzzle lets kids peer inside the human body, revealing the digestive tract, nerves and skeleton. Katy Shepard, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Emory University, says her three-year-old cousin received this puzzle after he pointed to his skin and asked, ?What comes next??

2. Life Cycle Stacking Blocks
$19.95 at forsmallhands.com; ages 2 to 6
Paperboard boxes that stack nearly three feet high and feature beautiful illustrations of the life cycles of the butterfly and frog are accompanied by an informative poem, says Julie Frey, a fifth grade teacher at Stuard Elementary School in Aledo, Tex.

3. Skull puzzle
$23 at theevolutionstore.com; ages 8 and up
This 39-piece 3-D puzzle comes with a removable brain. ?This puzzle is educational, challenging and, most important, fun,? says Kent Kirshenbaum, a chemistry professor at New York University. ?Bonus: the jaw swings open and shut hauntingly after you complete it.?

4. Bones: Skeletons and How They Work
by Steve Jenkins (Scholastic, 2010); ages 7 and up
Michelle Nijhuis, a biologist and author, recommended this book and the two following ones. (For more of her suggestions, go to lastwordonnothing.com.) Bones, she writes, has fantastic illustrations and ?is also great for inspiring hands-on research.?

5. Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage
by Sophie Webb (Houghton Mifflin, 2011); ages 9 to 12
This book chronicles the author?s four-month-long Pacific research voyage. ?Webb describes her work in some depth, but she emphasizes not the results but the experience: the starlit nights on deck, the sightings of dolphins and whales and seabirds, and daily life with her fellow scientists,? Nijhuis writes.

6. Tuesday
by David Wiesner (Clarion, 1997); ages 5 to 8
?Late one Tuesday evening a mob of frogs flies through town on lily pads, disappearing as quickly as it came. Why? This almost wordless story doesn?t say, leaving kids free to form their own theories about spontaneous frog flight,? Nijhuis says.

7. Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be
by Daniel Loxton (2010); $18.95 at kidscanpress.com; ages 8 to 13
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, touts this book as ?an excellent introduction to a topic not frequently covered in children?s books. There?s more to evolution than dinosaurs, after all!?

8. Magic Briks bristle blocks
$26.95 at kaplanco.com; ages 3 and up
Never underestimate simple building blocks. Noah Cowan, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University?s Whiting School of Engineering, says they are ?an essential component in developing a child?s ability to reason about space, time and even challenging concepts like entropy. Bristle blocks are particularly good for young children who don?t yet have the dexterity for Legos?and, frankly, bristle blocks are even more open-ended because the connector density is higher.?

9. Shark in a Jar?Squalus acanthias
$29 at theevolutionstore.com
This real baby shark taken from an adult caught by a commercial fisher ?offers a launching point for discussions about the differences between sharks and bony fish, the diverse ways sharks bear their young, and the importance of conservation for threatened shark species,? N.Y.U.?s Kirshenbaum says.

10. Science kits
from Thames & Kosmos
From $13.95 at thamesandkosmos.com; ages 5 and up
Christof Koch, a professor of cognitive and behavioral biology at the California Institute of Technology, grew up playing with these designer sets, many made by a 189-year-old German company. ?These days kids see computer simulations and watch YouTube but don?t do that much with their own hands anymore,? he says. More than 60 different kits are available for various ages and specialties?from chemistry and biology to energy and forensics.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=37b7d8ae2a2d5191976789525a4bd7a8
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? Deaths from mouth and throat cancer have dropped since the early 1990s, according to a new study -- but only among people with at least a high school education.

Researchers said that may be due to higher rates of smoking and other oral cancer risks among less educated, poorer Americans, and because they're also less likely to have access to timely health care.

Similar trends have been shown in rates of death from lung and breast cancers, for example, they added.

"We have a lot more to do in terms of (the fact that) socioeconomic status probably is a really significant factor in mortality from oral and oropharyngeal cancers," said Dr. Joseph Califano, who studies those cancers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore but wasn't involved in the new research.

"Clearly access to health care to detect cancer in early stages is very important."

The study, led by Dr. Amy Chen at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, included mouth and throat cancer data from 1993 through 2007 in 26 states. Among adults age 25 to 64, there were about 19,300 deaths during that period.

Cancer deaths declined during the 1990s and 2000s by two to five percent every year, on average, researchers found.

By the end of the study period, the cancers killed three out of every 100,000 white men, six out of every 100,000 black men, and one each of every 100,000 white and black women annually.

But when Chen and her colleagues broke those findings down by education level, they found the downward trends only held up among black people with at least a high school education, and only among whites who'd completed some college.

That throat and mouth cancers are the latest type of cancer to show such a socioeconomic pattern is one more reason to make education a priority, Chen told Reuters Health.

"Investment in education is very important not only for the health status of the population, but also for the economic status of the population," she added.

Chen said that smoking, alcohol abuse and the human papillomavirus (HPV) have all been linked to mouth and throat cancers -- and smoking especially is known to be more common among poorer people with less education. Those same people are also less likely to have insurance or to see a primary care doctor regularly, which may mean that cancers are further along by the time they're caught.

Mouth and throat cancer symptoms include persisting sore throat or ear pain, trouble swallowing and a lump in the throat that lasts more than a couple weeks, Chen said. "Anything like that should be checked out and made sure it's not something as dire as throat cancer."

Among the 4,000 cases of cancers in sites known to be associated with HPV, like the throat, tonsils and tongue, death rates only dropped significantly among more-educated black men, the study found.

Those rates increased among white men and some white women, especially the less educated, Chen and her colleagues reported in Archives of Otolaryngology--Head & Neck Surgery this week.

Chen highlighted the importance of using protection during sexual contact, including oral sex, and said that vaccinating both boys and girls against HPV may help bring down this rate -- but probably not for some years.

"The incubation period, and the indolent phase of these cancers is a long time," she said. "We're talking about sexual behaviors that could have occurred 20 or 30 years before the incident cancer."

Califano cautioned that researchers haven't established whether the vaccine can definitely prevent mouth and throat cancers, saying there are still many questions about how oral sex and cancer are linked.

"It's a really interesting study," he concluded. "It probably opens more questions than it answers."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/vXJyOS Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, online November 21, 2011.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/hl_nm/us_oral_cancer

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers v Green Bay Packers

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Nine days after 11-11-11, the 11th Sunday of the 2011 regular season was played.

In the AFC, we?re no closer to knowing which teams are the best teams.? In the NFC, ineffectiveness and injuries are allowing two franchises with eight Lombardi Trophies between them to continue to separate from the pack.

But let?s go deeper than the same-old ?if the season ended today? scenarios or the other fairly obvious stuff you?ll see on certain four-letter networks today.

For some reason, I always can come up with only 10 things to say.

1.? Moral victory for the Bucs.

They say there are no moral victories.? I say ?they? say a lot of things, plenty of which are wrong.

In this specific case, here?s why.

Blown out 48-3 by the 49ers and 37-9 by the Texans, the Bucs desperately needed to avoid a similar fate at Lambeau Field.? It wasn?t looking good early, what with the Packers up 14-0.

But the Bucs scratched and clawed their way back into the game, making it competitive and keeping the score respectable.? For coach Raheem Morris, whose contract situation puts the team in a fire-him-extend-him-or-let-him-do-the-lame-duck-thing trilemma for 2012, avoiding an embarrassment was the next best thing to pulling what would have been a most unlikely upset.

That said, a couple of ill-advised onside kicks likely won?t help the ?keep Raheem? cause.? Overall, however, the Bucs have nothing about which to be ashamed ? apart from their recent effort to make excuses for their 4-6 record by pointing out how difficult their schedule is.

2.? Michael Bush, Kevin Smith prove the fungible nature of tailbacks.

On Sunday morning, an item from one of the Bay Area websites presumed that Raiders running back Michael Bush will be swimming in gold coins come free agency in 2012.? Though Bush definitely won?t be pitching a tent in Zucotti Park, he will still be earning a fraction of the game?s truly elite backs.

Bush, while talented, possesses skills that aren?t uncommon at the NFL level.? Every year, college programs throughout the country churn out men who will move the chains, with competent blocking.? Though Bush, who would have been a first-round pick but for a gruesome leg injury in the first game of his final season at Louisville, lands on the high end of the curve, he?s not in the Adrian Peterson/Chris Johnson financial district, yet.

The performance of guys like Lions? reclamation project Kevin Smith underscores that point, and eventually will undermine Bush?s case for big dollars.? Unwanted by the Lions after three seasons with the team and drawing zero interest elsewhere, Smith hung around and hung around until the Lions decided that their running game was sufficiently bad to justify bringing back one of the lone bright spots from that 0-16 team of 2008.

Smith responded Sunday with 201 total yards and three touchdowns.

Though the performance may have given Smith a short-term assignment pending the return of Jahvid Best, Kevin Smith?s career nevertheless will be remembered more like Timmy?s than Emmitt?s.? Yes, playing the position requires speed and toughness and courage and durability.? But of all the things that NFL players are required to do (other than kicking, punting, holding, and long-snapping), those traits seem to be the most common.

That?s why only a few get paid a ton of money, and that?s why veterans like Larry Johnson, Clinton Portis, and Tiki Barber are spending the 2011 season unemployed, and flabbergasted.

3.? Percy Harvin would be special, if he got the touches.

There?s a guy in Minnesota who has those interchangeable tailback skills, but at a far higher level than most.? The only problem is that, for reasons neither known nor apparent, the Vikings don?t use him as much as they should.

Percy Harvin made a big splash in 2009 as a rookie receiver and kickoff returner.? Lost in the shuffle of last year?s disappointing season, Harvin nevertheless had more yards from scrimmage.

This year, with not even a mention of an issue with migraines that previously plagued him at the pro level, his workload hasn?t spiked the way that it should for a third-year player who has shown a ton of potential.

Maybe it?ll come in 2012, after quarterback Christian Ponder gets more comfortable and the Vikings upgrade their offensive line via free agency and/or the draft.? Maybe it?ll eventually have to come after Harvin joins a new team.

Regardless, at some point Percy Harvin deserves a chance to become the total package ? whether as a full-time receiver or a part-time wideout/tailback or even as a full-time Darren Sproles-style option out of the backfield.? Harvin could be so much better than he has been, and he?s one of the few true stars that remain on the roster of a 2-8 team.

4.? Caveat emptor, quarterback edition.

Titans tailback Chris Johnson still isn?t earning his money.? A week after racking up 100-plus rushing yards for the first time since getting paid, Johnson?s average plunged to 1.1, with 13 yards on 12 carries.

The lesson to the Titans, and the rest of the league, is becoming more obvious:? Don?t pay big money to a running back who has held out for all of training camp and the preseason, especially when there are so many others who can do the job.

In Buffalo, quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick has provided another piece of advice for NFL teams: ?Don?t pay an up-and-coming quarterback during the season in which he?s up-and-coming.

Fitzpatrick?s game has evaporated since he put his name at bottom of a six-year, $59 million contract.? Yes, the Bills celebrated the new deal with a 23-0 win against the Redskins in Toronto.? But the team, and most importantly Fitzpatrick, had their mojo (along with their Deux Deux Deuxs) confiscated at the Canadian border.

Outscored 106-26 in games against the Jets, Cowboys, and Dolphins, Buffalo now finds itself in a 2008-style free-fall, with any realistic chances of a postseason appearance riding on the ability to somehow get their groove back.

And, please, don?t point out that the 2001 Patriots were also 5-5 after 10 games.? The Pats? arrow was pointing up a decade ago.? The Bills? tank is, by all appearances, on empty.

By giving Fitzpatrick that big contract, it will be harder for the Bills to effectively consider all their options come January, given the money that has been tied up in the contract for Fitzpatrick.

5.? It?s time to extend the goal posts, somehow.

On Sunday, a pair of field goals created a little controversy, due in part to the fact that today?s kickers routinely blast the ball higher than the uprights extend.

In Cleveland, Phil Dawson believed a 38-yarder that would have put the Browns up by seven points late was good, even though the officials disagreed.? The lost three-pointer nearly ended up haunting the Browns, who had to hold off one final charge by the Jaguars.

In Washington, Redskins coach Mike Shanahan didn?t agree that a 39-yard try in overtime from Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey had satisfied the standard for chalking up a field goal.

In both cases, the ability to determine whether the kick was good was complicated by the fact that the ball went above the uprights.

For kicks that go over the U-shaped structure, the rule book requires the ball to pass fully within the outside edge of the uprights.? Which basically means that if an official standing directly under the outside edge of the upright looks straight up and sees no portion of the ball, the kick is good.

Good luck getting in the right spot and making the right judgment while the ball is soaring right through the air at least 30 feet above the ground.

The easy fix would be to make the uprights taller.? Sure, they already look goofy with the extra-long extensions that would dwarf the H-shaped contraptions of yesteryear.? And the laws of physics would result in much greater stress being placed on the corners of the crossbar as wind blows the very tops of even longer beams.

Still, it?s 2011.? The NFL eventually found a fake grass that performs much better than green cement, and the NFL easily could find a material that would perform well when elongated by an extra 10 feet, even in high winds.

At a minimum, the league should consider a high-tech solution that would use sensors or lasers to visibly extend the post, or that would allow the officials to determine easily whether the ball indeed passes inside the outer edge of the uprights.

As the sport grows and the importance of the outcome of each game (or, for the fantasy football crowd, each extra point and field goal) becomes more significant, the league needs to be prepared to take all reasonable steps to iron out any potential glitches in the rules.? After Sunday, it?s obvious that the league needs to address the height of the goal posts.

6.? Sorting out the offsetting penalties in Eagles-Giants.

The PFT email box and Twitter pipeline exploded on Sunday night, after a penalty for illegal use of hands against the Giants during a 50-yard pass to Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson and a post-play taunting penalty on Jackson completely wiped out the gain and gave Philly an unwanted do-over from their own two yard line.

The prevailing thought was that Eagles should have been able to decline the penalty against the Giants, and then to have the 15 yards walked off after the play, giving Philly a 35-yard gain.

But the outcome reflected the proper application of a strange donut hole in the rule book.

The process gets started at Rule 14, Section 1, Article 9:?? ?If there has been a foul by either team during a down and there is a dead ball foul by the other team in the action immediately after the end of the down, it is a double foul, and all rules for enforcement of double fouls apply (see 14-3-1).?

Regarding double fouls, Article 14, Section 3, Rule 1 provides as follows:? ?If there is a double foul . . . without a change of possession, the penalties are offset and the down is replayed at the previous spot.?

In this case, a key exception almost applied, but ultimately didn?t.? ?If one of the fouls is of a nature that incurs a 15-yard penalty and the other foul of a double foul normally would result in a loss of 5 yards only (15 yards versus 5 yards),? the rule book states, ?the major penalty yardage is to be assessed from the previous spot.?? Since the penalty on the Giants entailed a five-yard penalty AND an automatic first down, the exception didn?t apply in Jackson?s case.? Even if it had (for example, if the Giants had simply been offside), the Eagles would have had the 15 yards walked off (or, in this case, half the distance to the goal) from the previous spot.

Either way, the penalty on the Giants ultimately penalized the Eagles.? Though the officials sorted it all out properly in real time, the rule book definitely needs to be tweaked to prevent such unfair outcomes.

7.? Vince Young clinches a second chance to start.

The stats weren?t pretty, especially with three interceptions and a passer rating of 69.0, but Vince Young?s performance in the clutch during a primetime game for the squad he unintentionally gave the ?Dream Team? label could go a long way toward giving him a shot at a starting job in 2012.

After Young signed with the Eagles following his unceremonious exile from Nashville, Eagles president Joe Banner told PFT Live that Young wanted a one-year deal, even though the Eagles had hoped to lock him up for two.? Young?s insistence on a shorter term lets him get back to the market again in March. Even if he doesn?t take another snap this year, he has done enough to earn extra consideration in this quarterback-need league.

Young, quite simply, is Tim Tebow plus the ability to throw the ball reasonably accurately, albeit unconventionally.? Young still can perform at a high level; the challenge will be to match him up with a coach who?ll be able to shepherd Young through the adversity he?ll inevitably face as a starting quarterback.

Young faced plenty of it last night, and he did enough to keep the ?Dream? alive, even if it dies for good next week against the Patriots.

8.? Eli catches the Romo disease.

Two weeks ago, many were singing the praises of Peyton Manning?s kid brother.? Since then, Eli has been playing like the evil twin of Tony Romo.

Late turnovers in losses to the 49ers and the Eagles have dropped the Giants from 6-2 to 6-4, plunging them into a tie with the Cowboys and giving the Eagles a glimmer of hope, especially since Philly currently holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over both Dallas and New York.

In each of the last three weeks, Eli?s passer rating for the season has dropped.? And last night?s 74.0 doesn?t take into account the play that killed the Giants? late hopes for a comeback ? a fumble when Eli was hit from behind by Jason Babin.

As the Giants find themselves in the midst of yet another late-season collapse, Eli needs to find a way to turn those late opportunities into something other than turnovers.? If he can?t, plenty of jobs could be turning over in New York after the season ends.

9.? Bears could be in a real bind.

Peter King explained late night for an exclusive SNF Extra video that the thumb injury to Bears quarterback Jay Cutler could be a killer for Chicago.? Contrary to the classic design of the Mike Martz offense, Cutler had been moving more out of the pocket in order to buy time behind a work-in-progress offensive line.

With Caleb Hanie getting the nod, the Bears either need to get him comfortable doing what Cutler was doing, or hope the offensive line gets a lot better.

In the interim, it could mean more reps for Matt Forte, who?ll only add to his pay-the-man case if the Bears climb onto his back while Cutler is out.

And as to anyone who thinks that my lobbying last week for the Texans to pursue Brett Favre in lieu of Matt Leinart applies to the Bears, my perceived lunacy doesn?t extend to Illinois.? The Martz offense is too complex, the Bears are too cheap, and Martz is too obsessive-compulsive to ever make Favre a potential match there, even though it would give Brett a shot at the Vikings and at least one crack at the Pack.

The best bet for the Bears is to hunker down with Hanie, and hope for the best.

Unless Marc Bulger, who ran the Martz offense in St. Louis, decides to emerge from retirement.

10.? Catching up with what?s a catch.

It had been five weeks since the last time the Calvin Johnson rule reared its head in a game situation.? On Sunday, the Bengals lost a touchdown pass to Jermaine Gresham via the application of a rule that routinely defies with the expectations of the reasonable fan.

Gresham bobbled the ball near the end zone, got possession of it in the vicinity of the goal line, took two steps, fell to the ground with the ball in one hand, and lost the ball when the hand holding it struck the ground.

This year, the league has emphasized the element of time, treating such plays as valid receptions if the receiver who, while going to the ground, had enough time to make a football move, regardless of whether a football move was actually made.? And that seems to be what Gresham did.? Or at least could have done.

Perhaps more importantly, the fact the officials in real-time called it a catch (and thus a touchdown) would require conclusive 100-drunks-in-a-bar evidence to overturn the play.? With the question of whether Gresham had enough time to make a football move a topic that strays into the realm of professional judgment, referee Ron Winter should have deferred to the ruling on the field that Gresham had possession long enough to make a football move.

The outcome reconfirms that the league needs to clean up the rule book once and for all regarding what is and what isn?t a catch when a receiver hits the ground.? The ?football move? exception is a twist on the uncodified ?second act? rule, which allowed the requirement of maintaining possession through the ground to be disregarded when the receiver manages to break the plane of the goal line while falling.

The NFL needs to just start over, crafting a simple rule that the officials can consistently apply ? and that meshes with what a reasonable person would regard to be a catch, or not a catch.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/21/eagles-optimistic-vick-could-return-for-patriots-game/related/

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CHICAGO (Reuters) ? A Catholic priest wanted in Colorado on charges that he sexually assaulted a boy was arrested in Chicago on Monday by members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI said.

Father Richard James Kurtz, 67, who worked as a chemistry teacher at the University of Detroit High School in Detroit, Michigan, was turned over to Cook County authorities for extradition to Colorado, the FBI said.

Child abuse controversies have rocked the Catholic Church in the United States in the last decade, and the church has paid out some $2 billion in settlements to victims, bankrupting a handful of dioceses.

Kurtz faces felony charges for sexual assault and attempted sexual assault of a male under the age of 18 while they were in Colorado in 2001. Authorities did not give the boy's age.

The alleged crimes had no connection to any Colorado church, according to Sergeant Ron Hanavan, spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in Castle Rock, Colorado. Kurtz has been booked into a Chicago jail on a $100,000 bond.

The investigation began in June 2011 when the Society of Jesus Chicago-Detroit Province notified the Douglas County Sheriff's Office of the alleged crimes, Hanavan said in a statement. A warrant was issued for Kurtz' arrest last Friday.

A spokesman for the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, was not immediately available for comment.

(Writing by Mary Wisniewski, Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111121/us_nm/us_priest_arrested

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This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Stock Market Holiday. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://stuff-ari.com/2011/investing-stock-market-place-forex-comparison/

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Click here to read Lost Coves: Iceberg Firebird (Live)

Meet Lost Coves. I'm always at a loss for how to describe them. Experimental stoner rock? Hallucinogenic post-punk crash and bang? I'm not good with genres. What I know is that Lost Coves create soundscapes that suck you in. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ZnI_0hi1d7E/lost-coves-iceberg-firebird-live

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President Obama says there are still too many in the GOP who are unwilling to compromise. He also adds that there is no imminent threat of a U.S. default on debt.

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Monday, November 28, 2011

Zoe P. Strassfield: My Friend, Mars Curiosity

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Black Friday: Is Shopping A Workout?

Black Friday: Occupy Protests Discourage Shopping On One Of Retail's Biggest Days

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Saturday video break: Got The Time (Offthekuff)

Cyprus to launch new offshore oil and gas search

Friday, November 25, 2011

This Year, Give Them Brains

Oral cancer deaths declining among well-educated (Reuters)

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Video: ?America?s Got Talent? winner performs on TODAY

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

PFT: Eagles might get Vick back for Pats game

Catholic priest arrested on charges of sexual assault of boy (Reuters)

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Investing Stock Market place Forex Comparison | All Stuff Ari

Lost Coves: Iceberg Firebird (Live) [Video]

Video: President Obama on Failed Compromise

Monday, November 21, 2011

Signs of progress in debt talks non-existent (cbsnews)

Keen On? Esther Dyson: Investing Is Like Having Sex (TCTV ...