Son of China's Bo Xilai defends his father

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Harvard-educated son of disgraced Chinese political leader Bo Xilai defended his father against charges of taking bribes and having improper sexual relationships, saying he believed in his father's good character.

"Personally, it is hard for me to believe the allegations that were announced against my father, because they contradict everything I have come to know about him throughout my life," Bo Guagua said in a statement posted on the microblog site Tumblr.

"Although the policies my father enacted are open to debate, the father I know is upright in his beliefs and devoted to duty," he added. Bo confirmed the statement, posted on Saturday, with Reuters.

Since graduating from Harvard University in May with a master's degree in public policy, Guagua, 24, has kept a low profile, in contrast to reports earlier this year of a playboy lifestyle in the United States that created a firestorm on the Internet back in China.

The younger Bo's statement came a day after China's ruling Communist Party accused his father of abusing his power, taking huge bribes and other crimes.

Bo will be handed over for criminal investigation, state media reported on the latest phase in a scandal of murder and cover-ups that has shaken China's leadership. Bo had been seen as a strong contender to become a member of the powerful Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Political Bureau later this year.

Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, and his former police chief, Wang Lijun, have both been jailed over the scandal stemming from the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood in the southwestern city of Chongqing, where Bo was Communist Party chief.

At her trial on August 9, Gu admitted to poisoning Heywood last November.

Gu and Heywood got into a dispute over a soured real estate deal, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Gu said she believed Heywood threatened Guagua's personal safety.

"I suffered a mental breakdown after learning that my son was in jeopardy," Gu said, according to official accounts.

Last week's government statement carried by Xinhua said that in the murder scandal, Bo "abused his powers of office, committed serious errors and bears a major responsibility".

Bo has been expelled from the party as well as the elite decision-making Politburo and Central Committee.

ONLY CHILD

Guagua is the only child of Bo and Gu. Though his friends and acquaintances say he would like to challenge the negative perception of his parents more forcefully, Guagua has said very little publicly because he fears it could only make matters worse.

"He has always taught me to be my own person and to have concern for causes greater than ourselves," Guagua said in his statement. "I have tried to follow his advice. At this point, I expect the legal process to follow its normal course, and I will await the result."

This past summer Guagua traveled along the Maine coast and visited Westchester County in New York, according to friends and acquaintances. He has been somewhat isolated, though, as he takes stock of his uncertain future. Friends said Guagua has had little or no communication with his mother since March, shortly before she was accused of murder. Communication with his father has been intermittent at best, they said.

Several friends and acquaintances interviewed said they did not want their names used because they fear fallout from being associated with the biggest scandal in Chinese politics in more than two decades.

"The whole thing is just radioactive," one of Guagua's friends told Reuters. "He's under tremendous pressure."

In private, Guagua, who declined to comment for this story, has told friends his father did not flirt with the extremism exhibited by Mao Zedong during China's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

According to Guagua's accounts to friends, Bo Xilai encouraged the singing of so-called red songs, but only as a means to promote unity and morality in Chongqing, a sprawling municipal district of about 30 million people that is wracked with street crime and other forms of corruption.

Bo Xilai promoted the reading of Maoist poems, but he also referenced the works of Thomas Jefferson, friends said, relating conversations with Guagua.

In August, Guagua bristled at the suggestion that his father may have given him documents as a sort of insurance policy against his enemies in the Communist Party.

"My father has no need for any such things because he has always been aboveboard, regardless of how people who don't know him can speculate," he said in an email exchange with Reuters.

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/son-chinas-bo-xilai-defends-father-193242417.html

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Who's watching? 3-D TV is no hit with viewers

In this Wednesday, June 27, 2012, photo, ESPN coordinating producer Phil Orlins shows a 3-D camera set up used by ESPN 3-D Network coverage at the ESPN X-Games held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Only 2 percent of TVs in American homes were able to show 3-D last year, according to IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million installed. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

In this Wednesday, June 27, 2012, photo, ESPN coordinating producer Phil Orlins shows a 3-D camera set up used by ESPN 3-D Network coverage at the ESPN X-Games held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Only 2 percent of TVs in American homes were able to show 3-D last year, according to IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million installed. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

In this Wednesday, June 27, 2012 photo, 3-D TV operator Cody Miles adjusts camera focusing settings for a 3-D production for ESPN 3-D Network at the ESPN X-Games at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Only 2 percent of TVs in American homes were able to show 3-D last year, according to IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million installed. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

In this Wednesday, June 27, 2012 photo, an unidentified 3-D TV operator checks camera settings for a 3-D production for ESPN 3-D Network at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Only 2 percent of TVs in American homes were able to show 3-D last year, according to IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million installed. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Phil Orlins knows everything about producing TV in three dimensions. The ESPN producer has captured the undulating greens of Augusta National and the flying motor bikes of the X-Games for ESPN's 3-D channel. But he can only guess how well his shows resonate with viewers. That's because 3-D audiences are so small they can't be measured by Nielsen's rating system.

"The feedback on The Masters was fast and furious. You could go on Twitter at any moment, and there'd be comments coming in every minute about 3-D coverage," said Orlins while giving a tour of a production truck at this summer's X-Games. "But then you go to some other events where it's pretty quiet."

Orlins' problem is that fewer than 115,000 American homes are tuned into 3-D channels at any one time. That's less than a hundredth of the 20.2 million-strong audience that saw television's highest-rated show "NCIS" this week. 3-D viewership is so small that The Nielsen Co.'s measurement methods are unable to capture its size.

ESPN 3D is one of nine 3-D channels that launched in the years following the late 2009 release of James Cameron's "Avatar." The 3-D blockbuster won three Oscars and ranks as the highest-grossing film of all time, garnering $2.8 billion at the global box office.

"Avatar" was supposed to change everything. Enthusiastic television executives expected the movie to spur 3-D's transition to American living rooms, boosting sales of new TVs and giving people a reason to pay more for 3-D channels.

That didn't happen.

Only 2 percent of TVs in the U.S. are able to show 3-D programming, according to the most recent data from research firm IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million. After this year's Christmas buying rush, IHS expects the number of 3-D-capable televisions installed in homes to jump to 19.3 million, mostly because 3-D viewing technology is being built into most new large-screen TVs. But even with the jump, 3-D TVs will amount to less than 6 percent of all sets.

"We've learned with every passing day that we were ahead of the curve further than we thought we were," said Bryan Burns, the business leader for ESPN 3D. "We hit the on-ramp earlier than we realized at the time."

Why 3-D television hasn't become a national craze is a mystery to some in the industry, considering the wide acceptance of 3-D movies at theaters. But 3-D content is expensive to produce, and as a result there's not a lot of it. Some of the content isn't very good. Some people find the special glasses required for 3-D TV uncomfortable. And many wonder whether it's worth the extra cost.

"It was kind of fascinating to me, but it's not all there," said Tim Carter, a graphic designer in Sarasota, Fla., who bought a large, high-end 3-D TV with other high-end features last year for about $1,800.

Today, the average 42-inch 3-D television costs about $900, according to IHS. They contain a high-tech chip and software that translates 3-D video feeds into the right- and left-eye images that create the 3-D effect for people wearing the right glasses. In some cases, special glasses can cost an extra $50 or so.

Watching home movies on disc requires a 3-D Blu-ray player that can cost another $120 and each disc set purchase runs around $27, according to IHS. (3-D movies are usually bundled with other discs.)

While operators like DirecTV and Comcast Corp. don't charge specifically for channels like ESPN 3D, they are generally bundled in packages that require other spending. At DirecTV that means a $200 high-definition digital video recorder and $10 per month for HD service. For Comcast, that means a minimum $65-per-month digital starter package with HD service costing another $10 a month.

All that for the privilege of watching 3-D at home in your pajamas.

Due to the cost, Carter said he's mainly sampled free 3-D movie trailers provided on-demand by his cable TV company. A trailer for the latest "Transformers" movie didn't make him more enthused. "One of the robots pops out at you, and it felt forced." ''It's not consistent," he said, noting that 3-D effects aren't noticeable much of the time. He said he's not knocking the technology, he's just disappointed with the way it's being used.

Nowadays, 3-D is just one feature on TVs with bigger screens. It is usually grouped with other upgrades that include motion-smoothing technology and light-emitting diodes that are smaller, more energy efficient and display color contrast better than traditional liquid crystal display sets. It's difficult to isolate how much 3-D adds to the price tag of an individual set because of this bundling, but according to IHS the average 42-inch set with 3-D is about $200 more than a similar-sized one without. Some 3-D TVs, however, can be found for cheaper than others of the same size.

"There's very little direct consumer demand," said Tom Morrod, a TV technology analyst with IHS in London. Some consumers buy TVs which happen to have 3-D, but they don't bother to get the glasses needed to watch them, he said.

"They don't see a value with it. Consumers associate value right now with screen size and very few other features."

Sluggish demand for 3-D on TV has caused programmers to hit pause on rolling out new shows and channels.

In June, DirecTV turned its 24-hour channel, n3D, into a part-time network that only shows special event programming like the Olympics, in part to avoid the heavy use of reruns caused by a lack of new material. Last year, AT&T dropped ESPN 3D from its lineup, saying the $10 per month cost to subscribers wasn't justified given low demand.

So far, ESPN 3D is the most aggressive network in terms of shooting original 3-D productions. It has about 140 per year. It also has the widest distribution, according to research firm SNL Kagan, no doubt because popular sports network ESPN includes it in negotiations with distributors. Though few own the hardware to watch the channel, ESPN 3D now pipes into 60 million U.S. homes.

Without extra subscriber fees, it could be difficult to make a big business out of 3-D production, especially because it's more expensive than 2-D. Every 3-D camera set-up requires two cameras. They have to be mounted on a special computerized rig that aligns them. And someone in a back room has to adjust a knob that determines how cross-eyed the lenses are. That can require twice the manpower for the same camera position, boosting costs when revenues aren't going up very much.

Advertising, the other pillar of the TV channel business, is also hampered because of the lack of audience data.

That has resulted in an odd arrangement. Companies that run advertisements on ESPN 3D, like movie studios, actually have their ads played a second time in 2-D on ESPN and other channels so they can meet their goal of reaching a measurable number of people, Burns said. That uses up 2-D commercial airtime that might have been sold to other customers.

While he wouldn't say if it's profitable, Burns said ESPN 3D is still a revenue-generating business that is "doing well," because of how the network accounts for revenue from distributors and advertisers.

3-D TV is not a complete bust. Burns and others expect that as more TVs are sold with the capability, the more viewership will grow, just like it did for high-definition sets and programs a few years ago.

"It took five years before reporting systems caught up and we knew who actually had the service," Burns said of the launch of HD. "It's not unfamiliar territory to us. We've been down this road before."

For TV signal providers, carrying 3-D channels before they really become mainstream wins them points with their savviest technophile customers, the kind who jumped on the HD bandwagon early ?a decade ago.

In many ways, though, the comparison to HD isn't a good one.

Watching 3-D is a problem for about 6 percent of Americans with certain eye problems, according to Dr. David Maino, a professor with the Illinois College of Optometry. They simply can't see in 3-D or suffer dizziness or nausea when watching.

And it won't get the same push that HD got by the hundreds of TV stations that switched to high-definition broadcasts in the last few years. Nor will it benefit from the nation's switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts in 2009.

Another awkward point: some people just don't like 3-D. In a phone survey last November of 1,300 Americans who had seen 3-D TV, Leichtman Research Group found that 38 percent rated it poorly at 3 or below on a scale of 10. That's twice as many as rated it excellently, at 8 or higher.

That's a knock against 3-D that HD didn't have.

"It's one of those examples where seeing isn't believing, thus far," said Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research. "That's certainly not a great place to start."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-09-28-3-D-TV/id-800590080ed34ec6a782c2bcc7c85bf9

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Democrats launch Florida voter sign-up effort in Tampa

Tampa?? The Obama campaign began a 10-day voter registration drive in Florida today, kicking it off in Tampa with visits from San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, a star of the party's Charlotte convention, and Jamal Simmons, a former Florida Democratic political strategist and now a CNN commentator. The campaign...

? Read More

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49226011/ns/local_news-tampa_fl/

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Sidelined

An all-male sideline

Photograph by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.

Go see a special live performance of Slate?s sports podcast "Hang Up and Listen" in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Oct. 1. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

Near the end of the trailer for Wildcats, a 1986 sports comedy with a 13 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, a voice-over actor informs prospective moviegoers that during the film, ?Goldie Hawn tackles the impossible.? The movie is about a woman who coaches a men?s football team, and the implication is that such an endeavor equates to doing that which is undoable.

Sadly, that disembodied voice from the mid-?80s was on to something. Huge numbers of otherwise reasonable people, in 2012, simply take it as a given that women couldn?t possibly coach a men?s sports teams. And so, regardless of ability, talent, or potential outcomes, a woman who aspires to lead a high-level men?s team is actually reaching for the near impossible.

There are exactly zero women working as coaches for the 122 teams playing in the NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL. Zero head coaches, zero assistant coaches, zero assistant to the assistant coaches. The average NFL team employs 18 coaches. Major League Baseball teams have six coaches and a manager. Most NHL teams carry at least four coaches, and a typical NBA squad has one head coach and four to six assistants. All together, that?s more than 1,000 jobs ... all held by men. To state it another way: 50.8 percent of the U.S. population has virtually no shot of becoming men?s football, baseball, basketball, or hockey coaches at any level that would involve payment for services due.

OK, fine, they have a tiny shot: At the college level, women coach fewer than 3 percent of men?s teams. And three people?Bernadette Maddox, Jennifer Johnston, and Stephanie Ready?represent the entire universe of women who have served as coaches for Division I men?s basketball teams. They were all assistants.

There are, to be sure, some women coaching men?s teams at the more than 36,000 high schools in the United States?in fact, more women than ever before. But if one of these individuals resides in your town, you are in the tiniest minority. Case in point: Natalie Randolph, a teacher at Washington, D.C.?s Calvin Coolidge Senior High School, appears to be one of only two women serving as head coach of a high school football team in the United States.

Women coach women?s teams at all levels. But so do men. In fact, the percentage of women?s college teams coached by women, for instance, has shrunk considerably since the passage and implementation of Title IX. (In 1972, 90 percent of women?s college teams were coached by women?that number is now down to 42.9 percent. And according to this ESPN story, men have been hired for 68.5 percent of the college women?s team coaching openings filled since 2000.) This is by no means meant to suggest that coaching men?s teams should be valued more highly than coaching women?s teams or represent the ultimate goal for a coach. The point here is simply that choosing a coach from an inherently flawed and unnecessarily narrow universe of candidates is probably not the best way to proceed. Not to mention that coaching women generally pays far less than coaching men.

There are all sorts of reasons why women almost never coach men?s teams, most of which fall under the category of Catch-22s: the lack of women actively seeking these jobs due to existing norms that are reinforced at every athletic level, the dearth of female candidates with the type of experience that is valued by those filling positions to coach men?s teams, the lack of female role models who have successfully coached men, the persistence of discrimination and stereotypes that die slowly, etc. Basically: Women never coach men?s teams because they?ve never coached men?s teams. Then there are these loopy justifications that you?ve surely heard, or maybe even uttered yourself: Women don?t play some men?s sports competitively, so they couldn?t possibly be good at coaching those sports; men won?t take orders from, or sufficiently respect, women; women have no place in men?s locker rooms; and, of course, women are way too [insert your stereotype of choice here regarding emotional fragility] to successfully coach men?s teams.

Here is the point in this article at which I would love to combat all of the above with numerous examples of women coaches killing it in men?s sports. Only there?s not much of a well from which to draw. So let?s look at the rationales when applied to men.

The claim that is perhaps trotted out most often is the one about how women couldn?t effectively coach sports such as football and baseball that they don?t play competitively, and how they wouldn?t be successful coaching men in the sports women do play, because they haven?t competed in them against men or at the highest of levels. (Remember: This is not about women playing against men, where, in some instances, strength and muscular advantages are unmistakable factors.)

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=bf2fa75be004776139487153dc97c1c2

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'Looper' Prop Team 'Beat Up' Film's Weapons

'I said, '... Drag it through the dirt. Stop being so precious about it,' prop master James Kroning told his crew while designing 'blunderbluss' gun.
By Kevin P. Sullivan

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "Looper"
Photo: Alan Markfield / TriStar Pictures

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1694495/looper-movie-weapons.jhtml

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Calif. man behind anti-Muslim film ordered jailed

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A federal judge on Thursday determined a California man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that inflamed parts of the Middle East is a flight risk and ordered him detained.

Citing a lengthy pattern of deception, U.S. Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula should be held after officials said he violated his probation from a 2010 check fraud conviction.

"The court has a lack of trust in this defendant at this time," Segal said.

Nakoula, 55, was arrested Thursday. He had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases, and he might face new charges that carry a maximum two-year prison term, authorities said. Nakoula will remain behind bars until another hearing where a judge will rule if he broke the terms of his probation.

Nakoula wore beige pants and a collared shirt when he was led into the courtroom handcuffed and shackled. He appeared relaxed, smiling at one point before the hearing and conferring with his attorney.

After his 2010 conviction, Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in prison and was barred from using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.

In July, a 14-minute trailer for the film "Innocence of Muslims" was posted on YouTube, leading to protests around the Middle East. Nakoula, a Christian originally from Egypt, went into hiding after he was identified as the man behind the trailer, which depicts Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester.

In court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale said Nakoula was flight risk, partially because of the uproar over the film. The violence in the Middle East broke out Sept. 11 and has spread since, killing dozens, including Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

"He has every incentive to disappear," Dugdale said.

The hearing had an unusual wrinkle as the news media were banned from the courtroom, and reporters had to watch the proceedings on a TV in a different courthouse a couple blocks away. Court officials didn't give a reason for the decision.

Nakoula's attorney Steven Seiden sought to have the hearing closed and his client released on $10,000 bail. He argued Nakoula has checked in with his probation officer frequently and made no attempts to leave Southern California.

Seiden was concerned that Nakoula would be in danger in federal prison because of Muslim inmates, but prosecutors said he likely would be placed in protective custody.

The full story about Nakoula and the video still isn't known.

The movie was made last year by a man who called himself Sam Bacile. After the violence erupted, a man who identified himself as Bacile spoke to media outlets including The Associated Press, took credit for the film and said it was meant to portray the truth about Muhammad and Islam, which he called a cancer.

The next day, the AP determined there was no Bacile and linked the identity to Nakoula, a former gas station owner with a drug conviction and a history of using aliases. Federal authorities later confirmed there was no Bacile and that Nakoula was behind the movie.

Before going into hiding, Nakoula acknowledged to the AP that he was involved with the film, but said he only worked on logistics and management.

When the judge asked him during Thursday's hearing what his true name was, Nakoula said his name was Mark Basseley Youseff. He said he'd been using that name since 2002.

Lawrence Rosenthal, a constitutional and criminal law professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, said it was "highly unusual" for a judge to order immediate detention on a probation violation for a nonviolent crime, but if there were questions about Nakoula's identity it was more likely.

"When the prosecution doesn't really know who they're dealing with, it's much easier to talk about flight," Rosenthal said. "I've prosecuted individuals who'd never given a real address. You don't know who you're dealing with, and you're just going to have very limited confidence about their ability to show up in court."

A film permit listed Media for Christ, a Los Angeles-area charity run by other Egyptian Christians, as the production company for "Innocence of Muslims." Most of the film was made at the charity's headquarters. Steve Klein, an insurance agent in Hemet and outspoken Muslim critic, has said he was a consultant and promoter for the film.

The trailer still can be found on YouTube. The Obama administration asked Google, YouTube's parent, to take down the video. But the company has refused, saying the trailer didn't violate its content standards.

Nakoula has put his home up for sale, disconnected his phones and gone into hiding since violence erupted over the film.

Enraged Muslims have demanded punishment for Nakoula, and a Pakistani cabinet minister has offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone who kills him.

First Amendment advocates have defended Nakoula's right to make the film while condemning its content. And federal officials likely will face criticism from those who say Nakoula's free speech rights were trampled by his arrest on a probation violation.

Meanwhile, a number of actors and workers on the film have come forward to say they were tricked. They say they were hired for a film titled "Desert Warrior" and there was no mention of Islam or Muhammad in the script. Those references were dubbed in after filming was completed.

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia has sued to get the trailer taken down, saying she was duped.

___

Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/calif-man-behind-anti-muslim-film-ordered-jailed-012117266.html

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The Real Housewives of Miami: A Mynt Meltdown

Source:

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Army restyles suicide prevention - Health & Fitness - The Olympian ...

ADAM ASHTON | Staff writer ? Published September 27, 2012 Modified September 26, 2012

When Vicki Duffy asks soldiers what comes to mind when they hear the words ?suicide prevention,? she gets an earful about stale command briefings and overplayed commercials on military television stations.

Duffy, who is Joint Base Lewis-McChord?s suicide prevention officer, said she doesn?t take it personally. She?s been in the trenches of the Army?s program to curb suicides for four years, and she knows those old briefings aren?t enough to do the job.

?They?re valuable,? she said, ?but they?re done in a way that is very old fashioned in the Army.?

Duffy and Lewis-McChord commanders this month updated their outreach down the ranks by ditching the old PowerPoint presentations in favor of one-on-one interactions between care providers and soldiers.

The effort peaked in the last two weeks with a leadership retreat for about 80 noncommissioned officers. At the same time, a suicide ?stand down? was held in which officers and enlisted leaders took a walking tour of the base?s social support services.

No one can say if those steps will save a life, but the idea is to empower more soldiers with resources they can use in a moment of crisis.

Better yet, the courses are intended to help noncommissioned officers monitor and improve the health of soldiers in their charge.

?This has been one of those nagging problems, and I hope we have found a way to positively affect it,? said Col. Jeffrey Galin, the top medical officer for Lewis-McChord?s I Corps.

The outreach marks a change from early in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when commanders did not pay as much attention to emotional or psychological issues.

?It used to be ?suck it up and drive on,?? said Sgt. Thomas Hollis, 46, of Lakewood, a four-tour combat veteran from Lewis-McChord?s 4th Squadron, 6th Air Cavalry Regiment.

??Suck it up and drive on? isn?t working anymore,? he said, citing alcohol abuse and suicides as signs of stress in the Army.

The effort follows Lewis-McChord?s worst year for soldier suicides since the war in Afghanistan began 11 years ago. Thirteen soldiers killed themselves at Lewis-McChord in 2011, up from nine in the previous two years.

This year, nine deaths at Lewis-McChord are under investigation as possible suicides.

Meanwhile, The Associated Press in June reported that active-duty suicides across the military were on pace to increase significantly this year after a couple years of leveling off. In the first half of this year, 154 service members killed themselves, up from 130 in the first six months of 2010.

Those numbers can generate feelings of futility among active-duty soldiers who have sat through countless sessions on suicide awareness over the past few years.

One grim but common joke among soldiers holds that an Army PowerPoint presentation on suicide awareness could bring someone to the brink of taking his own life.

?They teach the same classes over and over again. They?re not working,? said Sgt. Sid Garner, 26, of Lewis-McChord?s 14th Engineer Battalion.

Garner and Hollis were among the noncommissioned officers picked to attend the Soldier 360 retreat in Lacey this week. They had frank discussions about motivating soldiers, addiction, depression, post-traumatic stress and adjusting to life at home after a combat tour.

Soldiers also got to practice yoga as meditation and take a responsible wine tasting class so they can model healthy drinking habits to junior soldiers.

The course aims to get the noncommissioned officers working closest with younger soldiers to see the broad array of military resources they can provide to distressed troops, from alcohol counseling to chaplains to discreet counselors who don?t share notes with commanders.

?If you want to address the suicides, the alcohol abuse, the anger, you have to hit it at the front of the training,? said Mary Lopez, the retired Army colonel who developed Soldier 360.

Garner, Hollis and other sergeants were impressed with the course. They spoke up during the classes and tried to get their limbs to bend at new angles during a morning yoga class.

?I think every sergeant should take this,? Garner said, adding that it helps leaders address the causes of stress in the ranks instead of the symptoms.

Hollis took a sense of community from the classes.

?This program teaches you what you?re going through is not that different from what your soldier is going through,? he said, ?and you?re taking care of each other.?

Back at Lewis-McChord, commanders noted that more soldiers than they expected took part in walking tours of social service programs spread out across the sprawling base. They hope soldiers will take those lessons back to their units to connect troubled troops with the right resources.

?This is real on our installation,? Duffy said. ?There are soldiers suffering, and we need to treat them as human beings.?

JBLM SUICIDES

9 Number of soldier deaths under investigation as suicides so far in 2012.

13 Number of suicides in 2011 ? a record high.

9 Number of suicides in 2010.

9 Number of suicides in 2009.

Source: U.S. Army

adam.ashton@ thenewstribune.com 253-597-8646 blog.thenewstribune.com/military

Source: http://www.theolympian.com/2012/09/27/2265846/army-restyles-suicide-prevention.html

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In 2-minute ad, Obama touts 'economic patriotism'

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is pitching a broad economic argument to voters ahead of next week's debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney, buying TV time in seven battleground states to promote what he calls a "new economic patriotism."

In a two-minute ad, Obama looks into the camera as he promotes an economic plan he says will create 1 million manufacturing jobs, cut oil imports and hire thousands of new teachers.

The ad set to air in New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado comes as Obama and Republican Mitt Romney shadow each other while looking for votes in a closely contested race. On Thursday, the two candidates are scheduled to campaign in the same state for the third straight day, this time in Virginia, a critical battleground in the Nov. 6 election.

Romney is to appear in suburban Washington for a veterans event, while Obama speaks to a farm bureau in Virginia Beach.

The simultaneous visits follow an all-day duel Wednesday in Ohio, where Romney declared he can do more than Obama to improve the lives of average people. Obama scoffed that a challenger who calls half the nation "victims" was unlikely to be of much help.

Meanwhile, new Republican-leaning independent groups have entered the presidential advertising fray as polling suggests Romney's campaign may be losing ground against Obama in key states such as Ohio and Florida.

The commercials, aimed at voters who supported Obama in 2008 but are now undecided, join those from the campaigns and outside groups swamping a narrow and possibly shrinking map of competitive states in the fast-moving presidential contest. Americans for Job Security launched an $8.7 million ad buy in six battleground states, while the Ending Spending Action Fund, a new conservative group bankrolled by billionaire Joe Ricketts, was set to debut a $10 million, four-state ad campaign on Thursday.

Polls show Obama widening his lead in several key states amid backlash from a leaked video in which Romney disparages the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income tax as government-dependent Obama supporters who see themselves as victims and won't take responsibility for their own lives.

Obama's campaign was reveling in the latest public polling but trying to crush any sense of overconfidence. "If we need to pass out horse blinders to all of our staff, we will do that," campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

Romney went after working-class voters at three stops in Ohio, while Obama rallied college crowds at Bowling Green and Kent State. Early voting in Ohio begins next week.

"If President Obama were to be re-elected, what you'd see is four more years like the last four years, and we can't afford another four more years like the last four years," Romney told a boisterous crowd in Toledo at the day's final stop.

Romney said the country had lost more than half a million manufacturing jobs in the past four years. "This is not the path we want for America," he said.

Romney's campaign has been reeling from his caught-on-video comments at a Florida fundraiser last May. New opinion polls, conducted after the video became public last week, show Obama opening up apparent leads over Romney in battleground states, including Ohio and Virginia.

Romney told ABC News that the race was in a statistical tie in some national polls.

"I'm very pleased with some polls, less so with other polls, but frankly at this early stage, polls go up, polls go down," he said.

Obama was not about to let the video comments fade away. He said Wednesday that "America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us together, as one nation, as one people."

He added, "You can't make it happen if you write off half the nation before you take office."

Obama flubbed a line at Kent State while building to his argument for keeping jobs in the United States. He mistakenly said, "I want to see us export more jobs." He quickly corrected himself, saying he meant to say "export more products."

"Excuse me," Obama said. "I was a channeling my opponent there for a second."

___

Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt and Steve Peoples in Ohio, Beth Fouhy in New York and Ben Feller and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-minute-ad-obama-touts-economic-patriotism-070804791--election.html

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How To: Keep Wedding Budgets On Track | Stuff.co.nz

He's not the marrying type, but James Bond will be a lasting memory for newlyweds Grant McIntyre and Maxine Morrison on what's possible when saving for a wedding.

In the lead-up to their June wedding, the Melbourne couple were shocked at how easy it would be for costs to skyrocket, notably when Morrison couldn't find the right dress and faced the prospect of spending thousands on something that was not quite perfect.

So Morrison instead chose an off-the-rack dress that could be worn again. With the money saved, the couple treated themselves to an A$1300 (NZ$1635) vintage poster from the famous Bond movie Thunderball that they saw in a shop across the road. Not quite the typical wedding gift, but nonetheless striking.

"We could see there would be a lot of things the money could be better spent on," Morrison said of the approach they took towards their wedding.

The couple estimates they spent about A$24,000, and saved money on several fronts. A winter wedding kept the price down at their reception venue and holding separate "pre-parties" for extended family in their home towns meant the guest list at the wedding didn't swell out of hand.

While pleased with how they organised the wedding, they acknowledge it grew from what was originally intended to be a small occasion with immediate family.

For many couples, a wedding budget is well intentioned but easily stretched as the big day nears. Extra outlays can be justified by the dream of the perfect day or putting on a memorable show, but what if it means going into financial difficulty?

Melbourne wedding planner Rob Greca, of Vogue Weddings & Events, says there is little point in a couple paying for an extravagant wedding if it puts strain on the relationship.

"We always tell the bride and groom that they need to understand that the last thing they want to do is tie the knot and then have a burden that they need to pay off - the wedding," he says.

"Having all these elements in the wedding, they need to be sure it's not going to be an issue later on ... we don't want people to spend A$60,000 on their wedding and feel like they're celebrities if afterwards they'll struggle to make the payments and have pressure put on the partnership."

Financial planner Laura Menschik, a director at WLM Financial, says discipline is the key in paying for a wedding as things can get out of hand with so many elements to consider.

"It's natural to say 'I've seen that and it's going to be so fabulous. I must have it'," she says.

"But do you need to have it or can you compromise and have something else?"

Menschik says it's vital for couples to be aware of all the costs they will incur, and to consider what resources they have - the relative who bakes, for example, or the friend with a vintage car - and to even consider creating a "slush fund" in case there are last-minute costs.

She says couples should start saving as soon as the proposal is accepted, so they form good saving habits and learn their capabilities. But above all, don't deviate from the budget, even if the in-laws are paying.

"Sometimes it's worth having everyone sit down at the beginning when the couple has announced their engagement with both sets of parents," she says.

"I've seen where one set of parents is quite well off and the other is not ... it can get a bit stressful on all parts, so if people can agree at the beginning that these are the rules of the game, nobody is put out or flustered or disappointed."

Greca says there is no "standard" wedding, but says on average, his company's clients spend about A$35,000 for about 150 guests.

He says a lot of his clients are "time poor" when it comes to planning such a big event - or leave things too late - and so often prefer someone with proven organisation skills.

"We see a lot of people come to us with six months to go panicking when the pressure is on, can we help them out regarding the event," he says.

Wedding planners take a cut of the budget, but Greca says having someone objective in charge means there is no exceeding the budget.

Justin and Anna Klietz, also of Melbourne, said they had a stress-free lead-up to their May wedding by saving beforehand, which allowed them to make early deposits on their biggest expenses.

Their wedding cost A$38,000 and they were satisfied with value for money, although some costs couldn't be avoided despite their research.

"We feel that the same services would no doubt have been cheaper had we not mentioned the word 'wedding' during the negotiations," Justin Klietz said.

"But there's not much you can do about that."

- Sydney Morning Herald

Comments

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7737831/Avoiding-a-wedding-budget-hangover

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4 DIY SEO Tips for the Small Business Owner | Search Influence ...

My husband and I have some friends who are in town every year at the end of August, without fail, so we know we have a dinner date with this couple at the peak of hurricane season every year.

This year, we met our friends on the Saturday night after Hurricane Isaac passed through. Our friends had another couple in New Orleans who had been without power going on five days, so they were desperate to get out of their hot, humid house and enjoy good food in the air conditioning and possibly have a drink or three. The more the merrier, so the four of us were meeting the two of them at the bar.

This restaurant is usually very popular, but was especially hopping that night because they had power. Most of the items on the menu were sold out, but we enjoyed the few things the kitchen still had. So in conversation she asked did I work?? what did I do? ? the way these conversations usually go. When I told her, her eyes lit up, and I was her best friend that evening. She had a 2 year old yoga studio that was doing decently, and she wanted the yoga business to be strong and really successful. She recognized that the web was an untapped potential for her, and she was overwhelmed with her known options and with the options she knew probably existed but didn?t know about.

Search Influence has a mission that simply states ?We are here to help small business succeed online.? It is our company goal to help this small business owner who was sitting across from me, and I would love to be able to help her dominate the yoganistas in her city.

I have had this experience more than a few times, where a very small, very local business has absolutely no marketing budget, but they know they need to do ?stuff? online to grow or even just to survive. I?m not talking about businesses local to their city; I?m talking about businesses that serve their neighborhood primarily. Super local.

A few suggestions for a very small business who has done almost nothing online yet.

If I met the owner of a very small, very locally-focused business who had done virtually nothing online and had very little time to devote to online marketing, what priorities would I tell that SMB owner for DIY SEO?

I polled our Account Managers to see how much they agreed/disagreed with me, so these priorities are the collective answer of most of our accounts team. The difficulty is there is so much an SMB owner could be doing, but my intent was to focus on those things that are not technical ? i.e. no website edits. A lot of business owners that I meet that offer services to a very specific community don?t know how to edit their websites because they have never had to, and they are busy working on growing the business, taking care of personnel, managing operations, et cetera.

With that in mind, here is by no means a comprehensive list of all things a business owner can do on his/her own ? just a few things that came up in my conversation and then bounced around our accounts team.

Countdown of DIY SEO Tips based on number of responses of my totally unscientific internal survey ?

#4 ? with only 1 survey responder considering it as the priority for an SMB?s very limited time and money ? monthly newsletters. Monthly newsletters are a great tool for many businesses. However, the business has to build up an email list of recipients first. You can buy a list, but it?s so much better to build the contacts yourself with your customers optioning in to receive your message in their inbox. You also have the challenge of deciding what message makes an impact on your business but also is interesting to your email group.

You need to grow your email list first, and realize that you are messaging people who are likely already customers. In all I agree that this is a valuable tool, but not for a super small business at such an early phase of operations.

#3 ? 1 response suggesting an offer made through Facebook. This also is a valuable tool, but again, the business generally has to have some Fans on Facebook before they start offering coupons and contests and all of that jazz. My yoga-diva dinner companion did not have a Facebook Page worth mentioning, so this would not be an option for her yet.

#2 ? 4 responses voted for regular Facebook updating. Our accounts team sees every day how a well-maintained Facebook Page can work for a small business. It?s exciting to see strong fan building, active commenting, and referral traffic driving to the client?s website. All of this can be very effective (and fun!). It absolutely be a valuable tool when developed at the right time in a business?s growth.

One of our accounts team responded to my internal survey, ?Facebook Updates and Newsletters are great, but they are worthless unless they have a following. To me, Facebook could be easier for one person to manage, but significant effort would have to be made to promote the Facebook Page.?

Just like monthly newsletters and making an offer on Facebook, you have to build to a level where you have an audience to whom you can broadcast your message. Lots of work has to be done for the Facebook Page before it?s going to work for you.

#1 ? Tied for #1 ? 5 responses for ?Create/edit listings in 10 online directories other than Google+.? If a small business owner had only 1 hour to devote to their online identity, 5 of our accounts team suggested that s/he should review the businesses? listing in 10 directories other than Google+. My totally unscientific survey didn?t indicate which 10 directories, but it can be assumed that the list would include directories such as Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, YellowPages, and Superpages. There are countless other examples, but you want to devote your time only to those directories that you have seen often enough like Kudzu or Merchant Circle.

#1 ? Tied for #1 ? 5 of the accounts team responded that claiming Google+ Local Page is the thing you should spend a few minutes claiming and filling up with your business information, maybe some pictures.

This was my priority suggestion at dinner that night. She wasn?t sure what a Google+ Local listing was, a lot of business owners don?t, and they should.

(TIP! If you claim your G+ Local listing, claim it in an email box that you won?t mind sharing with an SEO agency ? that is, don?t claim G+ with your personal email account. One day you might hire a website promotion company like Search Influence to help your rank better in Google results, and when you do, you will want your account manager to have the login to your G+ ? but if it?s the same account as your personal email, you might not want to share it.)

There are countless small business DIY SEO tips for the savvy owner out there. What are some of your favorites?

Source: http://www.searchinfluence.com/2012/09/small-business-diy-seo/

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Anti-austerity clashes in Spain turn violent

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/evictions-hurt-families-in-spain-slideshow/

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Microsoft extends free Windows Server 2008 support through January 15th, 2015

Now that its successor is available, you're unlikely to hear much excitement for Windows Server 2008 around IT water coolers, but that's not to suggest it'll fade into oblivion anytime soon. In fact, Microsoft has extended its mainstream support of the server OS -- previously set to expire on July 9th, 2013 -- through January 15th, 2015. The company will continue to deliver free security fixes for the operating system beyond this cutoff date, however maintenance updates will require the purchase of extended support from Microsoft. According to the company's revised product lifecycle, paid updates for Windows Server 2008 will now be available through January 14th, 2020. For those curious, the new dates were largely determined by Microsoft guidelines, which guarantee a minimum five years of support, or in this case, two years of mainstream support beyond the release of the successor product. Naturally, it pains us to imagine firms chugging along with Windows Server 2008 into 2020, but you just know it'll happen. Now, at least someone in Redmond will be watching out for them.

Filed under: Software

Microsoft extends free Windows Server 2008 support through January 15th, 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink ZDNet  |  Microsoft  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/microsoft-extends-windows-server-2008-support/

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Another iPhone Fail: Siri Gives New Yorkers Weather for Texas

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/another-iphone-fail-siri-gives-yorkers-weather-texas-184948710.html

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ?disappointed? by iOS 6 Maps

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Wozniak thinks the criticism may be overblown, however. \u201cI have been reading about the problems, and I don\u2019t know if they are that severe,\u201d","sUltBucketId":"test1","sUltSection":"sentirating","sUltBeaconUrl":"","sUltRecordPageviews":"1","sUltBeaconEnable":"1","serviceUrl":"\/_xhr","publisherContextId":"","propertyId":"2fcd79b5-b3a3-333e-b98e-722536a6698f","configurationId":"435db9ee-c55e-3766-b20d-c8ad3ff889d1","graphId":"","labelLeft":"Not even an hour","labelRight":"At least a week","labelMiddle":"","itemimg":"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/a\/i\/ww\/met\/yahoo_logo_us_061509.png","selfURI":"","aggregateRatingCount":"30319","aggregateReviewCount":"0","leftBlocksNum":"27926","rightBlocksNum":"2392","leftBlocksPerCent":"92","rightBlocksPerCent":"8","ugcrate_apihost":"api01-us.ugcl.yahoo.com:4080","publisher_id":"news-en-US","yca_cert":"yahoo.ugccloud.app.trusted_proxies","timeout_write":"5000","through_proxy":"false","optionStats":"{\"s1\":21574,\"s2\":3036,\"s3\":1342,\"s4\":1111,\"s5\":863,\"s6\":2392,\"s7\":0,\"s8\":0,\"s9\":0,\"s10\":0}","l10N":"{\"FIRST_TO_READ\":\"You are first to read this. 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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-disappointed-ios-6-203018564.html

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18 Creative Content Marketing Ideas for Your Online Business

Content marketing is turning out to be one of the most sought after ways to promote your business on the Internet. If you look around, you?ll find that most of the successful web businesses are using content marketing to spread the word about their product or service. It?s also a great way to educate your prospects about your niche and get them involved.

However, in order to make content marketing work for you, it?s important that you focus on delivering your content creatively. In other words, the content that you?re using for marketing should be valuable and at the same time be engaging enough.

The following article talks about eighteen content marketing ideas that you can use right now to grow your online business and take it to the next level:

1) Create a free e-course educating people about your niche. You can deliver this e-course via email or you can also create a dedicated member?s only area where you share the lessons. Since people like e-courses, they?ll find your offer appealing in more than one way.

2) Convert your 15-20 most popular blog posts into a free report and offer it for download for your visitors. Compiling your blog posts into a useful PDF report can help you in bringing in more traffic when it spreads around and also helps you in building your brand.

3) Find some popular blogs within your niche and spend a few minutes every day commenting on their blog posts. This not only helps you build a strong relationship with other bloggers, but also helps you get more exposure and also grow your brand/build an authority.

4) It doesn?t matter if you?re selling a product or a service, you can always create a buying guide for your prospects. This guide can include specific information about your product, how it can be used and any other ideas that makes your offer more appealing.

5) Twitter is becoming a hot business hub where you can make great contacts and also get more exposure to your company. One way to tap into Twitter is to start a niche specific Twitter chat where similar minded professionals from your industry can hold discussions. You can even invite other guests to co-host the chat with you.

6) Start a blog series that is highly informative and teaches your target audience something they really want to learn. This gives you an opportunity to not only attract relevant traffic, but also display your expertise in your chosen field.

7) Begin publishing an email newsletter that goes out every month or every two weeks. Newsletters are a great way to connect to your audience and at the same time deliver consistent value through useful content. Your newsletter can help you build better relationships with your subscribers.

8) Conduct video interviews with influential people in your industry. This video content can be used to demonstrate your authority and as well as deliver real value to your target audience. It?s also an simple way to build relationships with the influencers.

9) Do a podcast on a specific topic that you feel needs to be addressed. Make sure the topic you choose is something that your audience can connect with. It would be better if it helps solve a problem or answers important questions.

10) Write high quality guest posts for authority blogs within your niche. Guest posting is one of the most effective ways to get the word out about your website, attract targeted attention from your audience and in the process build your brand.

11) Create and promote case studies for your site since your prospects will find it useful in terms of understanding your products or services. Social proof is what people are looking for these days, and you can provide them this proof with your case studies.

12) Host a monthly or a weekly Google+ hangout where you share valuable information on current topics and discuss sensitive issues related to your niche. This is an effective way to disperse useful content to your audience since it?s not only interactive but also educative.

13) Create and give away complete ebooks that teach the ins and outs of your niche. Take your readers towards a solution in a step by step manner. Show them how they can apply different techniques or tactics to get real world results.

14) Partner up with other business owners within your niche and hold a joint webinar. In the webinar can take the participants through a sort of a tutorial or just create presell content for your product or service. Webinars have a high perceived value, which is why they work so well.

15) Write a white paper focused on a targeted issue within your industry, how it?s affecting, and what you have to say about it. If possible, get other experts on board to get their view and include them in the whitepaper.

16) Have other known experts within your niche guest blog on your blog. Get in touch with them and let them know the benefits they will derive from guest blogging for you, such as brand building, increased exposure, etc. Make a clear offer to them and if needed get them on Skype to further your conversation and convince them to contribute to your blog.

17) Produce a high quality infographic that reveals some really interesting facts about your industry. Get this infographic designed by a professional firm rather than doing it yourself. Communicate your ideas to the designer clearly so that your infographic not only stands out of the crowd but also delivers real value.

18) Publish a controversial manifesto because it?s a fact that controversial content gets read and spread. You?ll attract both sides of the crowd: one which agrees with you and takes your side ? the other which disagrees and holds a debate. In both the cases, you are getting the attention of your target audience and grabbing more eyeballs.

In conclusion, regardless of what your online marketing goals are, by adding well designed and tailored content to your marketing mix can take your web business to the next level. So never ignore the power of content marketing.

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Source: http://www.howtoee.com/18-creative-content-marketing-ideas-for-your-online-business/

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