lionfish conjoined twins justin bieber paternity justin bieber paternity denver news kym johnson how old is justin bieber
Monday, January 23, 2012
International Organization To Assess Earth Defense From Space Dangers
arisvega writes in with a story about an international organization that is trying to come up with options to save the planet from a large asteroid or comet collision. "NEOShield is a new international project that will assess the threat posed by Near Earth Objects (NEO) and look at the best possible solutions for dealing with a big asteroid or comet on a collision (PDF) path with our planet. The effort is being led from the German space agency's (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, and had its kick-off meeting this week. It will draw on expertise from across Europe, Russia and the US. It's a major EU-funded initiative that will pull together all the latest science, initiate a fair few laboratory experiments and new modelling work, and then try to come to some definitive positions. Industrial partners, which include the German, British and French divisions of the big Astrium space company, will consider the engineering architecture required to deflect one of these bodies out of our path."
Joe Paterno Near Death, Reports Say
Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, the all-time Division I leader in wins, and who resigned amid the university's child molestation scandal just months ago, is reportedly near death due to complications from lung cancer.
On Saturday, as friends and family were being summoned to State College, Pa., Hospital, a family spokesman said the coach had taken a turn for the worse.
Penn State student website Onward State reported that PSU team members were notified of Paterno's passing via email. However, a Paterno family spokesperson denied the report and his son tweeted that his father "continues to fight."
Known for his "success with honor" motto, thick glasses, rolled-up pants and black cleats, Paterno left an indelible mark on Penn State and college football in general.
Joe, 85, has five children with wife Sue and 17 grandchidlren.
A Brooklyn native and Brown University graduate, Paterno began coaching the Nittany Lions in 1966 and his tenure stretched to October of this year.
In his 46 years as head coach, Paterno holds the all-time Division I record for football coaching wins with a 409-136-3 record and two national titles.
After a highly celebrated career and iconic status, Paterno's career as coach ended as a result of a scandal involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky.
Sandusky allegedly sexually assaulted young boys, including a 10-year-old. Paterno was fired over his handling (or lack of handling) of the scandal.
Announcing his retirement, he said, “This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
"I'm sick about it. I didn’t know exactly how to handle it, and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was."
"So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way."
In November, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and his health rapidly deteriorated.
Though the scandal sullied Paterno's image in his final days, the coach enjoyed decades of success and reverence on the campus he and his wife helped build.
That's not likely to change anytime soon.
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/joe-paterno-dies-at-85-reports-say/
apple ii pixar growing pains growing pains cupertino htc flyer review westboro
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Musings on Markets: Snowmen and Shovels: Investing Lessons?
I live near New York and woke up this morning to our first snowstorm of the winter (we had a freak one in the fall but no snow in November and December). As I looked out of my window, I heard two sounds. The first was of small children squealing in delight, as they tromped through the snow and started building snowmen and throwing snowballs. The second was the grating sound of snow shovels being used by their (mostly morose) parents to clear the snow from their driveways. Three things came to mind. The first was the oddity of the same phenomenon (a snow storm) evoking such different reactions from two different groups. The other was the irony ?that the parents were one day (long ago in the past) happy to see the snow and today's ?happy children will one day grow up and be wielding their own snow shovels. The third is that a week from now when it warms up, the snowmen will melt away, and the unshoveled driveways will look just as good as the shoveled ones.
I am sure that there are some deep life lessons in this phenomenon but I am not a philosopher. I do see some investing and valuation lessons in snowmen and shovels. After all, you can divide the world of active investors into two broad camps: growth investors and value investors. Consider the extremes in each camp. Extreme growth investors (you know the ones.. they go for momentum, love IPOs and are dazzled by high growth) remind me of the happy children, looking at snow and seeing snowmen, whereas extreme value investors (and you also know these ones.. they love net net investing and read Ben Graham's Security Analysis for inspiration) ?more closely resemble the snow-shoveling parents. Each group views the other with disdain. Extreme value investors consider growth investors to be dilettantes, unserious and unwilling to grow up, who see the world through rose-colored lens. Extreme growth investors view value investors as boring, stuck-in-the-mud pessimists, who see only the dark side of things.
So, which side is right? I think both sides are right and both are wrong. While each side sees a portion of reality, each side is also missing a piece of the real world. While the value investing group is right in its view that most growth companies will not make it through the challenges of the real world, the growth investing group is also right in its view that some of these growth companies will be the big winners of the future. By staying dogmatic, both groups open themselves to significant investing/valuation mistakes.?A growth investor who closes his eyes to the very real likelihood that a growth company will not survive will over value that company. By the same token, a value investor who insists on incorporating only the worst case scenarios, estimates cash flows ?conservatively? and then applies a huge ?margin of safety? before investing will never find growth companies to be bargains.
The key to investing, as in so much in life, is to maintain balance, recognizing that dreams sometimes come true, while keeping your feet grounded in reality.?Put in valuation terms, the key to valuing a company well is to estimate what will happen (to earnings and cash flows) not only in good scenarios (let?s call these the snowman scenarios) but also in bad ones (the shovel scenarios). ?It is a challenge I face whenever I do valuation. As I value a company, I have to constantly stop and look at the assumptions I am making and whether I am tilting too much to one side (snowman or shovel). If I find myself tipping too much into the ?snowman? camp, I have to bring in some of my ?shovel? side to play to get back to synch. If, on the other hand, I am letting my pessimistic shovel side dominate, I have to consciously force my fun snowman side come into play.?
So, here is how I am going to start today?s path back to balance. I shoveled this morning, just before I came in and wrote this post. My kids are too ?old? to enjoy building snowmen, but I am not. I am going to go out and build a snowman, make a snow angel and perhaps throw some snowballs. Why should those kids have all the fun?
Source: http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2012/01/snowmen-and-shovels-investing-lessons.html
john henry zack greinke zack greinke siri san diego news ford evos ford evos
Pele: Messi's not me
updated 1:55 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2012
PARIS - Pele thinks Lionel Messi still needs to improve at international level before he can be considered the greatest soccer player ever and needs to score more goals to come close to matching the Brazilian great.
The 24-year-old Messi already has won three straight FIFA Player of the Year awards.
"When Messi's scored 1,283 goals like me, when he's won three World Cups, we'll talk about it," Pele told Le Monde. "Football changes. Records are there to be broken, but it will be hard to break mine.
"People always ask me: 'When is the new Pele going to be born?' Never. My father and mother have closed the factory."
Although many observers consider Pele or Diego Maradona to be the greatest ever, Messi's form for Barcelona has him being mentioned in the same group.
Messi scored 55 goals in 2011 for Barcelona and already has 213 in 300 games for the club, 22 shy of Cesar Rodriguez's team record for goals. Messi is the club's leading scorer in the Champions League, scoring in victories over Manchester United in the 2009 and 2011 finals.
"I like Messi a lot, he's a great player," Pele replied when asked who his favorite current player is. "Technically, we're practically at the same level."
But Pele was also quick to point out that Messi has not scored at the same rate for Argentina in big tournaments. Messi failed to score in both the 2010 World Cup and Copa America last year, and has a modest tally of 19 goals in 67 international matches.
"He's a great player for Barcelona, but when he plays for Argentina he doesn't have the same success," Pele said.
Pele also feels he may have had more natural ability than Messi.
"No one knew which foot I was going to shoot with, I was two-footed. I also scored a lot of goals with my head," Pele said.
However, Pele knows that the debate over who is the world's greatest ever player will always divide opinion.
"Some people will say Beethoven couldn't play the piano. Others will say Michelangelo couldn't paint and that Pele couldn't play football," he said. "But we all received a gift from God."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
advertisement
More newsReutersPele: Messi's not me
Pele thinks Lionel Messi still needs to improve at international level before he can be considered the greatest soccer player ever and needs to score more goals to come close to matching the Brazilian great.
Getty ImagesLoyalty
David Beckham considered other offers but decided nothing was better than his adopted home with the L.A. Galaxy.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46073608/ns/sports-soccer/
anencephaly jordans prometheus movie indianapolis colts posterior michelle obama adam lambert arrested
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Theresa Shaver: The White Ribbon Alliance: 10 Years In
Picture this: a world where childbirth is the biggest killer of young, healthy women. A world where many girls and women have no choice about who they marry, or how many babies they have or when.
This is how it was when we began the White Ribbon Alliance a little more than a decade ago. In those days, the scandal of maternal and newborn death was scarcely known or acknowledged, especially in Western countries. While struggling to fix the problem from afar, the voices of those women most at risk in the poorest countries -- and those on the ground trying to save them -- were rarely heard.
The White Ribbon Alliance decided to do things differently.
Why not work globally and collectively, we said.
Starting at the grassroots, we brought together those who cared. To listen. To share. To take action.
We called on the big U.N. agencies and small charities, business people and journalists, health professionals and government officials, all over the world to add their voices in a groundswell of demand for change.
We chose the white ribbon as the emblem to unite us; white representing death in some cultures, hope in others. We became a growing band of volunteers, taking time out of our day jobs to connect with each other and figure out how to share scarce resources and open the doors to change.
India led the way in 2002 with the first White Ribbon Alliance march to the Taj Mahal, an iconic memorial to the Shah's young wife who died in childbirth centuries ago. The march attracted thousands of supporters, celebrities, ordinary women, health workers -- and the media, including CNN. The government of India began to listen. Policies were changed to allow nurses in India's half a million villages to perform life-saving procedures. In time, women won the right to free health care in childbirth. The death rates began to go down.
Africa learned from India. One midwife from Tanzania heard what was happening and went to Delhi to find out more. She came back to found the White Ribbon Alliance of Tanzania.
Less than a decade later there are 4,000 members in Tanzania alone, including WHO, Save the Children, UNICEF, the Nurses and Midwives Association, as well as hundreds of smaller groups and thousands of committed individuals. The President of Tanzania himself now joins every march on White Ribbon Day, and the government has changed its policies to train more midwives and give them jobs. The maternal death rate is dropping.
Ten years down the line White Ribbon Alliance has more than 20,000 members in 155 countries, and there are established National Alliances in 15 countries. Sarah Brown is our Global Patron, hugely contributing to the surge in political will for change.
This has led to unprecedented U.N. commitments of $40 billion in 2010, which have risen to $70 billion in 2011. And globally, we are seeing a significant decline in maternal death rates -- a one third reduction since 1990.
And yet we still have a long way to go. Childbirth remains the biggest killer of young women around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, half of women are still giving birth with only a family member or neighbor to help.
For the world still has less than one health worker for every thousand people. In India alone, over a million newborns die each year -- most from preventable causes -- while globally the figure is 4 million babies dying in the first month of life.
The $70 billion recently pledged by the U.N. is only half of what's needed -- and we have to push hard to make sure these pledges are delivered and spent where it will make the biggest difference. That means investing in the training of health workers, and giving them decent pay and conditions, so that they will stay in their jobs -- and take good care of mothers and babies.
A century ago, more women died in childbirth than men died in wars around the world. Starting in the 1930's, with advances in medicine and political will from governments of wealthier countries, the tide began to turn, so that dying in childbirth is now largely seen as a 'thing of the past' in countries like the U.S. and U.K.
So, we do know what to do and how to save women's lives; we just need the investment and political commitment to do it, for every woman, no matter where she lives.
The White Ribbon Alliance is pushing hard to make this happen.
Please make a donation and share this blog post with friends; together we can make needless deaths in childbirth a thing of the past.
?
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theresa-shaver/white-ribbon-alliance_b_1213877.html
hank baskett beyonce dance for you beyonce dance for you nba lockout over gone with the wind nba lockout news nba lockout news
4 French soldiers killed in Afghanistan (AP)
PARIS ? France's president says four French soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
Nicolas Sarkozy says that France is suspending its training programs for Afghan troops after the killing. The U.S.-led coalition said an Afghan soldier shot and killed four NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan on Friday.
Sarkozy said it's "unacceptable" that Afghan troops fire at French soldiers. He said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe is heading to Afghanistan.
The attack was among the most deadly for French forces in the 10 years they have been serving in the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.
pumpkin carving patterns lizzie borden lizzie borden 20/20 maps directions josephine baker pumpkin patch
Friday, January 20, 2012
Coalition touts renewable energy for Maine (AP)
AUGUSTA, Maine ? A coalition that's pushing for a referendum to mandate increased use of renewable energy in Maine says its initiative would reduce dependence on foreign oil, strengthen the economy and promote energy efficiency.
The Maine Citizens for Clean Energy held a news conference Wednesday in support of a referendum proposal to require that at least 20 percent of Maine's electricity come from new renewable energy sources by 2020. Leaders of the initiative said they're confident they'll collect more than 57,000 valid signatures needed by the end of January to get the question on the ballot.
Environment Northeast's Maine director, Beth Nagusky, said Wednesday that residential electric bills would rise initially, but then decrease if the measure passes.
Gov. Paul LePage says the initiative would result in increased energy costs.
daylight savings time humpback whale humpback whale barrel roll anagram 180 degrees askew
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)