Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/11/29/jennifer-lawrence-bradley-cooper-after-hours/
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Friday, November 30, 2012
Jennifer Lawrence And Bradley Cooper Know Each Other In After Hours!
How well do you know your co-workers? Do you know what color their eyes are, or what kind of dress they wore to the Academy Awards? That last one might not be relevant to you, but when MTV News' Josh Horowitz put the "Silver Linings Playbook" co-stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper to the test [...]
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Inside The M@dison, Downtown Detroit?s Tech Startup Hub [TCTV]
Downtown Detroit has sadly not been known in recent years for having a bustling business vibe, but the people at the M@dison Building are working overtime to turn that around. Housed in a nearly 100 year old building that used to house Detroit's first major movie theater, the M@dison is a 5-story, 500,000 square foot space dedicated to all things that go along with technology and digital startups: Entrepreneurs, developers, business people, and investors are all in the mix.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-0Bn1YHYCWc/
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Christian College No Longer 'Too Religious' for Florida Grants
Beginning in 2013, students at Florida Christian College (FCC) in Kissimmee, Florida, will be eligible to receive funds from the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG), a popular grant program that previously excluded FCC for being too religious.
But a federal court ruled in favor of FCC earlier this month, allowing four student plaintiffs in the case to receive FRAG grants next semester and requiring the state's Department of Education (DOE) to admit FCC as an eligible institution next fall.
FCC previously had been excluded from FRAG eligibility for failing to meet the "secular purpose" requirement outlined by Florida state law. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the school filed suit in March because the state's DOE "had determined that FCC was 'too religious,' even though many of its courses address 'secular' subjects and it prepares many of its students for 'secular' vocations."
As part of the settlement, Florida's DOE must revise its eligibility requirements "so that it no longer asks institutions to declare whether they are 'secular' or 'non-secular.'"
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Video: On the strength of Lincoln?s conviction
Polar ice melting faster than thought, scientists warn
What had been a blurry picture about polar ice ? especially how it impacts sea levels ? just got a whole lot clearer as experts on Thursday published a peer-reviewed study they say puts to rest the debate over whether the poles added to, or subtracted from, sea level rise over the last two decades.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/50001352#50001352
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Egypt crisis raises fears of 'second revolution'
In this Friday, July 13, 2012 photo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi holds a joint news conference with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, unseen, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's Islamist president may look like he's running out of options as he faces an appeals court strike and massive opposition protests over decrees granting himself near absolute power. Will he back down now? Most likely not. Mohammed Morsi's next move may be to raise the stakes even higher. Signs are growing the constitutional panel at the heart of the showdown could vote on a draft this week despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Friday, July 13, 2012 photo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi holds a joint news conference with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, unseen, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's Islamist president may look like he's running out of options as he faces an appeals court strike and massive opposition protests over decrees granting himself near absolute power. Will he back down now? Most likely not. Mohammed Morsi's next move may be to raise the stakes even higher. Signs are growing the constitutional panel at the heart of the showdown could vote on a draft this week despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Egyptian protesters clash with security forces near Tahrir square, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. Egyptian state television says the country's highest appeal court has decided to suspend its work nationwide to protest the president's decrees giving himself nearly absolute powers. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
Egyptian protesters clash with security forces near Tahrir square, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. Egyptian state television says the country's highest appeal court has decided to suspend its work nationwide to protest the president's decrees giving himself nearly absolute powers. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)
In this Friday, July 13, 2012 photo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi holds a joint news conference with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, unseen, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's Islamist president may look like he's running out of options as he faces an appeals court strike and massive opposition protests over decrees granting himself near absolute power. Will he back down now? Most likely not. Mohammed Morsi's next move may be to raise the stakes even higher. Signs are growing the constitutional panel at the heart of the showdown could vote on a draft this week despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
In this Friday, July 13, 2012 photo, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi holds a joint news conference with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, unseen, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's Islamist president may look like he's running out of options as he faces an appeals court strike and massive opposition protests over decrees granting himself near absolute power. Will he back down now? Most likely not. Mohammed Morsi's next move may be to raise the stakes even higher. Signs are growing the constitutional panel at the heart of the showdown could vote on a draft this week despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
CAIRO (AP) ? Faced with an unprecedented strike by the courts and massive opposition protests, Egypt's Islamist president is not backing down in the showdown over decrees granting him near-absolute powers.
Activists warn that his actions threaten a "second revolution," but Mohammed Morsi faces a different situation than his ousted predecessor, Hosni Mubarak: He was democratically elected and enjoys the support of the nation's most powerful political movement.
Already, Morsi is rushing the work of an Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly at the heart of the power struggle, with a draft of the charter expected as early as Thursday, despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members that has raised questions about the panel's legitimacy.
The next step would be for Morsi to call a nationwide referendum on the document. If adopted, parliamentary elections would be held by the spring.
Wednesday brought a last-minute scramble to seize the momentum over Egypt's political transition. Morsi's camp announced that his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists will stage a massive rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the plaza where more than 200,000 opposition supporters gathered a day earlier.
The Islamists' choice of the square for Saturday's rally raises the possibility of clashes. Several hundred Morsi opponents are camped out there, and another group is fighting the police on a nearby street.
"It is tantamount to a declaration of war," said liberal politician Mustafa al-Naggar, speaking on the private Al-Tahrir TV station.
Morsi remains adamant that his decrees, which place him above oversight of any kind, including by the courts, are in the interest of the nation's transition to democratic rule.
Backing down may not be an option for the 60-year-old U.S.-educated engineer.
Doing so would significantly weaken him and the Brotherhood at a time when their image has been battered by widespread charges that they are too preoccupied with tightening their grip on power to effectively tackle the country's many pressing problems.
Morsi's pride is also a key factor in a country where most people look to their leader as an invincible figure.
He may not be ready to stomach another public humiliation after backing down twice since taking office in June. His attempt to reinstate parliament's Islamist-dominated lower chamber after it was disbanded in July by the Supreme Constitutional Court was overturned by that same court. Last month, Morsi was forced to reinstate the country's top prosecutor just days after firing him when the judiciary ruled it was not within his powers to do so.
Among Morsi's first acts after seizing near-absolute powers last week was to fire the prosecutor again.
Unlike last year's anti-Mubarak uprising, calls for Morsi's ouster have so far been restricted to zealous chants by protesters, with the opposition focusing its campaign on demands that he rescind his decrees, disband the constitutional panel and replace it with a more inclusive one, and fire the Cabinet of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil.
"There is no practical means for Morsi's ouster short of a coup, which is very, very unlikely," said Augustus Richard Norton, a Middle East expert from Boston University.
Still, the opposition, whose main figures played a key role in the anti-Mubarak uprising, may be tempted to try to force Morsi from office if they continue to draw massive crowds like Tuesday's rally, which rivaled some of the biggest anti-Mubarak demonstrations. They will also likely take advantage of the growing popular discontent with Morsi's government and the fragility of his mandate ? he won just 51 percent of the vote in a presidential election fought against Mubarak's last prime minister.
With the country still reeling from the aftershocks of the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak's 29-year regime, activists and analysts warn that any escalation carries the risk of a second, and possibly bloody, revolution ? pitting Islamists against non-Islamists, including liberals, women and minority Christians.
Ominous signs abound. Anti-Morsi crowds have attacked at least a dozen offices belonging to the Brotherhood across the nation since last week. Clashes between the two sides have left at least two dead and hundreds wounded.
The violence and polarization has led to warnings from some newspaper columnists and the public at large of the potential for "civil war."
"As opposed to seeking face-saving compromises, (escalation by Morsi) would indicate starkly that Egypt's leaders have increasingly come to understand the current moment in zero-sum terms," said Michael W. Hanna, an Egypt expert from the New York-based Century Foundation.
"Beyond the political dangers it poses, the move will increase the risks that the contests for power will spill over into the streets, with civil strife a real possibility."
While potentially destabilizing, Morsi's tug-of-war with the liberal opposition pales in comparison to his battle with the powerful judiciary, which considers the president's decrees an unprecedented assault on its authority.
On Wednesday, judges of the nation's highest appeals court and its lower sister court went on strike to protest the decrees, joining hundreds of other judges who have not worked since Sunday.
The Supreme Constitutional Court, which is to rule Sunday on the legality of the constitutional panel and parliament's upper chamber ? both dominated by Morsi's Brotherhood and other Islamists ? admonished the president for accusing it of trying to bring down his government.
The loss of the judiciary's goodwill could prove costly for Morsi.
Already, the judges are warning that, unless their demands are met, they will not assume their traditional role of supervising a referendum on a new constitution or the parliamentary elections that would follow. Without them, the legitimacy of any vote would be in question.
"This is the highest form of protest," said Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession. "The judges felt that the constitutional declaration has taken away from them the dearest and most important mandates" ? oversight of government decisions.
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Texas Out To Seize Warren Jeffs' Polygamist Ranch ? CBS Dallas ...
AUSTIN (AP) ? Texas wants to take ownership of Warren Jeffs? polygamist ranch where the convicted sect leader and his followers sexually assaulted children, state prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Texas attorney general?s office filed a seizure warrant in rural Schleicher County on Wednesday. A judge will determine whether the state can take control of the 1,600-acre property owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the attorney general?s office, said the court filings do not mean FLDS members still living at the Yearning for Zion Ranch must immediately leave.
He said the warrant instead begins the final chapter in the state?s five-year prosecution against sect?s indicted leaders and followers.
?This is simply the next step,? Strickland said.
Strickland said it was too early to speculate what the state would do with the property if given ownership.
It?s unknown how many families are still living at the ranch in Eldorado, located about 200 miles west of San Antonio.
Jeffs was convicted last year of sexually assaulting two of his underage brides. Prosecutors used DNA evidence to show he fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl prosecutors say he took as one of his spiritual wives. Jeffs is serving life in prison in Texas but has continued to try and continue to lead his church while serving his sentence.
Earlier this year, a new 100-foot concrete tower at a ranch was torn down by FLDS members.
In the four years since Texas authorities swarmed the ranch, state prosecutors have spent more than $4.5 million racking up swift convictions against him and 10 loyal followers on child sex and bigamy charges, according to state records.
(? Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Source: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/11/28/texas-out-to-seize-warren-jeffs-polygamist-ranch/
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Iran: Uranium enrichment to be speeded up
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran will step up its uranium enrichment program by sharply increasing the number of centrifuges used to make nuclear fuel, a senior official said Wednesday, in direct defiance of Western demands.
The statement by Iran's nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, is likely to escalate tensions. The West suspects Iran's nuclear program could be headed toward weapons production and has imposed punishing sanctions to try to persuade Tehran to stop enrichment.
Iran has denied the charges, saying its program is peaceful and geared toward generating electricity and producing radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.
Uranium enriched to a low level is used to produce nuclear fuel for reactors, but high level enrichment would make it suitable for use in atomic warheads.
Abbasi said Iran is making nuclear advances in the face of the severe economic measures imposed by the U.N. and the West.
"Despite sanctions, we will most likely see a substantial increase in the number of centrifuge machines this year. We will continue enrichment with intensity," Abbasi was quoted by state TV as saying Wednesday. The Iranian calendar year ends on March 20.
Abbasi did not say if Iran's stepped up work would be at the five percent fuel level or the higher 20 percent quality, which has worried the West because it can be purified to weapons grade more quickly. There have been indications that Iran may push its enrichment even higher than the 20 percent acknowledged to U.N. nuclear watchdogs.
His remarks came days after the U.N. agency said Iran is about to double its output of higher enriched uranium at its fortified Fordo underground facility. That could move Iran closer to weapons capability.
A Nov. 8 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has installed about 2,800 centrifuges at Fordo and is poised to double the number of operating centrifuges, from the current 700 to nearly 1,400.
Iran says it needs 20 percent enriched uranium to make fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran that produces isotopes for about 1 million patients annually.
Abbasi also said Iran will soon conduct a test run of its heavy water reactor in Arak in central Iran, despite demands from the U.N. to stop the work. The test will use virtual fuel, not actual radioactive material, he said.
He said construction of the 40-megawatt research reactor is progressing on schedule, but he noted that experts are handling the project with greater care in anticipation of possible sabotage attempts.
"The Arak reactor is progressing without any problem according to the schedule. Only because of security considerations, we are moving with caution, since enemy intends to harm this reactor," he was quoted by state TV as saying. "All the equipment needed to operate this reactor has been purchased."
The West is concerned that the heavy water reactor could produce enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon each year, if the spent fuel is reprocessed. That would be another pathway for bomb-grade material, but Iran is not known to possess a plutonium reprocessing facility
Iran has experienced explosions and malfunctions at its nuclear and industrial sites, partly due to faulty equipment secretly procured on the global market.
Also, Iran says it is the target of a campaign that has included the abduction and assassination of scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of a destructive computer worm known as Stuxnet, which briefly brought Iran's uranium enrichment activity to a halt in 2010.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-uranium-enrichment-speeded-164043288--finance.html
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Saturday, November 24, 2012
Gas blast levels Mass. strip club; 18 people hurt
Gas company workers stand where a building once stood, which was leveled by an explosion in downtown Springfield, Mass. on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Springfield Republican, Don Treeger)
Gas company workers stand where a building once stood, which was leveled by an explosion in downtown Springfield, Mass. on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Springfield Republican, Don Treeger)
Glass and debris litter a street after a nearby building was leveled by an explosion Friday, Nov. 23, 2012 in downtown Springfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Springfield Republican, David Molnar) MANDATORY CREDIT
A firetruck is parked next to a damaged building after a nearby gas explosion leveled another building in downtown Springfield, Mass. on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Springfield Republican, David Molnar)
An injured firefighter is wheeled from the scene after a building was leveled by an explosion in downtown Springfield, Mass. on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Springfield Republican, Don Treeger)
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) ? A natural gas explosion in one of New England's biggest cities on Friday leveled a strip club with a boom heard for miles and heavily damaged a dozen other buildings but didn't kill anyone, authorities said.
Firefighters, police officers and gas company workers in the area because of an earlier gas leak and odor report were among the 18 people injured in the blast, authorities said.
"This is a miracle on Worthington Street that no one was killed," Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said at a press conference.
The explosion in Springfield, 90 miles west of Boston, blew out all windows in a three-block radius, leaving three buildings irreparably damaged and prompting emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said.
Police Sgt. John Delaney marveled at the destruction at the blast's epicenter, where a multistory building housing a Scores Gentleman's Club, evacuated earlier because of the gas leak, was leveled.
"It looks like there was a missile strike here," he said.
The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. None of their injuries was considered life-threatening, officials said. Those hurt were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas of Massachusetts workers, two civilians and another city employee.
Firefighters responded to the scene at 4:20 p.m. and were investigating the gas leak when the blast happened about one hour later. The cause of the explosion hadn't been identified but was under investigation, they said.
Springfield, which has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not in the vicinity of the blast.
The city has been rebuilding from damage it sustained in a June 2011 tornado.
The explosion happened in an area of downtown Springfield with commercial properties and residences. Area resident Wayne Davis, who lives about a block away from the destroyed strip club building, said he felt his apartment shake.
"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.
The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.
The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities for miles around. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.
Mayor Domenic Sarno said it was through "God's mercy" that nobody had been reported killed in the explosion.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the individuals that have been injured and the people who have been displaced," he said, adding that emergency shelter was being set up for those unable to go home.
An official of the gas company said there were no signs of any additional gas leaks in the area but crews would be monitoring the area closely over the next two days.
___
Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this story.
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Friday, November 23, 2012
Texans score disputed TD against Lions
DETROIT (AP) ? Houston's Justin Forsett scored on an 81-yard touchdown run in the third quarter Thursday against the Detroit Lions, even though replays clearly showed his knee touching the ground near midfield.
It appeared Detroit coach Jim Schwartz helped the touchdown stand by throwing his challenge flag.
The TD counted and Detroit was called for unsportsmanlike conduct. A Lions spokesman said a coach is not allowed to challenge a scoring play, which is automatically reviewed ? and if the coach does throw a challenge flag, the automatic review is negated.
Detroit coach Jim Schwartz was seen tapping his chest on the sideline, saying "it's on me" while talking to coaches and players.
The irate crowd at Detroit's Ford Field kept booing the call for several minutes, even as the game continued.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texans-score-disputed-td-against-lions-201341810--nfl.html
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Sarah Palin And The Greatest Turkey-Related Disaster In The History Of Politics (VIDEO)
For one day each year, the turkey gets its time to shine. While most of that shining is done quite literally, as the glazed centerpiece of Thanksgiving feasts around the nation, a few fortunate fowl are granted pardons and given a chance to live out their not-so-long lives in greener pastures, awkwardly bobbing their heads, crying gobble-gobble and whatever else it is that turkeys do.
Those symbolic pardons may make the turkey eaters among us feel somewhat better about stuffing our faces with coma-inducing amounts of gravy-smothered poultry, yet during one such event in 2008, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) managed to tear the mask (or head?) off the whole charade. We'll call it the greatest turkey-related disaster in the history of politics.
Fresh off a defeat in the 2008 presidential election, Palin headed to a turkey farm in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, to pardon a local bird -- a common practice among governors.
Palin delivered her prepared remarks over frequent interruptions from clucking birds not as fortunate as the turkey getting the reprieve. She even touted herself as a "friend to all creatures great and small" before posing for a photo op.
What happened next was entirely unexpected. While many had recently learned that Palin could be unpredictable -- even a maverick, perhaps -- Americans couldn't have foreseen her conducting a lengthy on-camera interview while live birds were being fed into a machine of mass turkey murder mere feet behind her.
Palin seemed to unwittingly nail her remarks, commenting on the need to find "levity" in her job as turkey after turkey was decapitated by the metal cone of death in the background. The man shoving the struggling birds into the device even looked up toward Palin and the camera as the governor presciently predicted that the spectacle would invite skepticism.
(The goriest moments have been censored in the video above.)
Although her office later denied that she'd known what was playing out behind her, Palin was reportedly asked if she wanted that particular backdrop for her interview, to which she replied, "No worries."
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/22/sarah-palin-turkey_n_2167436.html
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It Is Never Too Early To Start Retirement Planning | Penny Stocks
Posted on 22 November 2012.
Why Retirement Planning Is Important
Many young people just starting out their careers do not put much thought into retirement planning; however, it is never too early to start retirement planning, because the earlier one starts saving for retirement, the more money they will likely have when the day of retirement inevitably comes.? In fact, if one starts retirement planning and investing money for retirement early in their career, they can expect to earn rates of long-term retirement investment returns that are much better than those that try to play catch up with their retirement investing late in their careers.
The days of solid company-provided pensions for retirement are long gone.? Many companies these days contribute to employee?s retirement savings by contributing to the periodic funding of 401-K retirement accounts; however, employees can no longer rely on their employer to provide for them during retirement.? The other pillar of retirement funds, the government run Social Security program, is unreliable due to the fiscal challenges the government faces.? Social Security has always provided a minimal amount of payments to those that are in retirement, and cannot be relied upon to provide enough money for a comfortable retirement.? The lack of company provided retirement pensions and the lack of money provided by Social Security make retirement planning more important than ever for young people entering the work force.
Long-Term Retirement Planning
It is important to start retirement planning and investing money for retirement early, because investments in the stock market, which offer the best long term returns of any investment class, require a long period of time to achieve their expected annual gains of 7% to 15%.? The stock market is notoriously volatile, and in any given year retirement investments can lose or gain in value.? The gains in the stock market are made by being invested in the stock market over many decades to capture the long-term upside movement that the stock market traditionally makes and to capture dividend payments from stocks held in a retirement account.
A good strategy for young workers to pursue when considering retirement planning is to aggressively invest in the stock market through mutual funds or other diversified investment products when they are between age 20 and 50.? Since many workers invest in the stock market via mutual funds in their 401-K retirement accounts or Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), an important part of retirement planning is to research which mutual funds have historically beat their benchmark stock market tracking averages and invest in outperforming mutual funds.? Approximately half of the long-term stock market gains are made through dividend payments rather than actual gains in stock prices, and therefore proper retirement planning should include stocks or mutual funds that pay healthy dividends.? Once a worker reaches the age of 50, they should start to shift money out of the volatile stock market and into more stable investments, such as bonds or fixed-income investments.? By age 65, proper retirement planning dictates that workers move the bulk of their money into safe fixed-income investments, so their retirement savings is available to them during retirement.
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Source: http://www.stockrockandroll.com/retirement/it-is-never-too-early-to-start-retirement-planning/
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Thursday, November 22, 2012
Madrid, AC Milan into last 16 of Champions League
By NESHA STARCEVIC
AP Sports Writer
Associated Press Sports
updated 5:25 p.m. ET Nov. 21, 2012
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -Real Madrid and AC Milan, with 16 Champions League titles between them, advanced to the knockout stage on Wednesday, along with Borussia Dortmund and Schalke to make it three out of three teams from Germany.
Nine-time champion Madrid held on for 1-1 at Manchester City with 10 men, eliminating the English Premier League champion in the process. Also in Group D, Dortmund beat Ajax 4-1 to go through as the top team.
Seven-time winner Milan got a spectacular overhead goal from defender Philippe Mexes as it went through with a 3-1 win at 10-man Anderlecht. Malaga drew 2-2 at Zenit St. Petersburg to win Group C.
Schalke defeated Olympiakos 1-0 and Arsenal beat Montpellier 2-0 to progress out of Group B.
Paris Saint-Germain won 2-0 at Dynamo Kiev to go through from Group A with FC Porto, which beat Dinamo Zagreb 3-0. Zagreb still hasn't scored a goal, let alone earned a point.
On Tuesday, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Shakhtar Donetsk and Valencia also reached the knockout stage, while Chelsea was on the verge of becoming the first titleholder to fail to make it out of the group stage.
Chelsea's 3-0 loss at Juventus cost Roberto Di Matteo his job as coach despite leading the London club to the title in May. Rafa Benitez, who won the 2005 title with Liverpool, was hired to replace him in an interim role.
The goal of the day belonged to Mexes against Anderlecht.
Receiving a free kick outside the box with his back to goal, Mexes sent a perfectly executed overhead kick from 20 meters out that dipped over goalkeeper Silvio Proto and into the far corner.
The goal resembled the fourth strike by Zlatan Ibrahimovic against England last week. Ibrahimovic failed to score on Wednesday, but Ezequiel Lavezzi notched a double as Paris Saint-Germain cruised in Kiev.
Germany forward Lukas Podolski also had an eye-catching goal in Arsenal's win over Montpellier that also featured Jack Wilshere's first strike in two years. The Gunners advanced from the group stage for the 13th straight year.
Podolski met Olivier Giroud's floated pass with a powerful first-time strike from the edge of the area in the 63rd.
Assured of a top-two finish, Arsenal will go into its last Group B game at Olympiakos a point behind Schalke. Both sides will want to finish top to secure what would likely be an easier last-16 match.
"That's 13 times in a row - it's not the most glamorous thing but it's the most difficult, being consistent at this level," said Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, whose team has gone on to reach the final only in 2006 when it lost 2-1 to Barcelona.
Manchester City's campaign ended in the group stage for the second successive season. City needed a win to keep its hopes alive, but Karim Benzema exploited sloppy defending to put Madrid ahead after just 10 minutes at Etihad Stadium.
City secured a lifeline in the 74th when Alvaro Arbeloa was sent off for fouling Sergio Aguero, who subsequently equalized from the penalty spot.
But in Jose Mourinho's 100th match managing in the Champions League, Madrid held on for the draw to qualify behind leader Borussia Dortmund with a game to spare.
"The only two times I finished second in the group, I won the Champions League," said Mourinho, who won the competition with FC Porto and Inter Milan. "It means something (to finish top), but my experience is, it doesn't mean so much."
City was at the bottom with just three points from five matches.
"With the array of players at their disposal it is amazing they have been eliminated at the group stage two years running," Mourinho said.
Young Italy forward Stephan El Shaarawy scored one goal and set up Alexandre Pato in injury time as Milan beat Anderlecht. Milan is compensating for its struggles in the Serie A.
Dortmund, which failed to advance from the group stage last season, extended its impressive run, with Germany midfielder Mario Goetze involved in all four goals, including two by Robert Lewandowski.
Dortmund, the 1997 champion, sealed the win before halftime at Amsterdam Arena thanks to its clinical finishing on the break and Goetze's skill and vision.
Ajax captain Siem de Jong was impressed.
"In the first half they were only in front of goal three times and they scored three goals. They were so effective," De Jong said.
Schalke left it late to secure its win, with defender Christian Fuchs driving home from long range with 13 minutes remaining.
"When you get such a chance you have to take it with both hands," Fuchs said.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsWhat's next for Beckham?
??SportsTalk: The MLS Cup will be the last game David Beckham plays for the L.A. Galaxy. What's his next move?
Getty ImagesPST: Tons of tentacles in Beckham departure
PST: David Beckham splitting amicably with the Galaxy after six strong seasons is hardly the checkered flag at the finish line. There are tons of tentacles branching out on this one.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44508831/ns/sports-soccer/
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Brainy babies: Research explores infants' skills and abilities
ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2012) ? Infants seem to develop at an astoundingly rapid pace, learning new things and acquiring new skills every day. And research suggests that the abilities that infants demonstrate early on can shape the development of skills later in life, in childhood and beyond.
Read about the latest research on infant development published in the November 2012 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls per Day
How do babies learn to walk? In this study, Adolph and colleagues recorded 15- to 60-minute videos of spontaneous activity from infants. They then coded the videos for the time infants spent walking and crawling, the number of crawling and walking steps infants took, and the number of falls infants experienced whether walking or crawling. The researchers found that the infants moved a tremendous amount and that new walkers moved faster than crawlers but had a similar number of falls at first and fewer as they became more experienced. This suggests that infants are motivated to begin walking because they move faster without falling more and that they dramatically improve their walking skills through immense amounts of practice.
Authors are Karen E. Adolph, Whitney G. Cole, Meghana Komati, Jessie S. Garciaguirre, Daryaneh Badaly, Jesse M. Lingeman, Gladys L. Y. Chan, and Rachel B. Sotsky.
Implications of Infant Cognition for Executive Functions at Age 11
Do basic information processing skills in infancy have any bearing on later executive functioning skills in children? Infants were assessed for memory, processing speed, and attention at age 7-12 months and age 24-36 months. When they were 11 years old, the children returned to the lab and were assessed for various different kinds of executive functioning skills, including working memory, inhibition, and shifting. Rose and colleagues created a statistical model that used infant abilities to predict executive functioning later in childhood and they found that this model fit the data well. The model indicated that processing speed in infancy significantly predicted working memory and shifting ability at age 11 and that memory in infancy significantly predicted shifting at age 11. This research supports the idea that infant cognitive abilities provide a foundation for the later development of executive functioning abilities.
Authors are Susan A. Rose, Judith F. Feldman, and Jeffery J. Jankowski.
One-Year-Old Infants Follow Others' Voice Direction
Can infants determine what adults are paying attention to by listening to their voices? Rossano and colleagues conducted an experiment in which infants were placed in front of a wooden barrier that had a box sticking out of either side. A member of the research team hid behind the barrier and spoke in the direction of one of the boxes. The researchers then watched to see which box the infants moved toward. Rossano and colleagues found that infants moved toward the box that was in the direction of the researcher's vocalization. A follow-up study that examined the same task with chimpanzees found that they showed no ability to follow voice direction. This suggests that infants -- but perhaps not chimpanzees -- can infer what an adult is paying attention to based on voice alone.
Authors are Federico Rossano, Malinda Carpenter, and Michael Tomasello.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- K. E. Adolph, W. G. Cole, M. Komati, J. S. Garciaguirre, D. Badaly, J. M. Lingeman, G. L. Y. Chan, R. B. Sotsky. How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls per Day. Psychological Science, 2012; 23 (11): 1387 DOI: 10.1177/0956797612446346
- S. A. Rose, J. F. Feldman, J. J. Jankowski. Implications of Infant Cognition for Executive Functions at Age 11. Psychological Science, 2012; 23 (11): 1345 DOI: 10.1177/0956797612444902
- F. Rossano, M. Carpenter, M. Tomasello. One-Year-Old Infants Follow Others' Voice Direction. Psychological Science, 2012; 23 (11): 1298 DOI: 10.1177/0956797612450032
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Tuesday, November 20, 2012
UN Security Council puts sanctions on Congo rebels
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to sanction the leaders of Congo's M23 rebel force, which hours earlier occupied the eastern Congolese city of Goma as U.N. peacekeepers stood by without resisting.
But it did not name two countries accused of supporting the Congo rebels: Rwanda and Uganda.
The council demanded that the M23 rebels withdraw from Goma, disarm and disband, and insisted on the restoration of the crumbing Congolese government authority in the country's turbulent East.
The resolution adopted imposes targeted sanctions, including a travel ban and assets freeze, on the M23 rebel group leadership. Individual nations are supposed to enforce the sanctions and report to the council.
The resolution also calls for an immediate end to external support to the rebels and asks the U.N. secretary-general to report on the allegations of foreign support while expressing its readiness to take appropriate measures.
It took the rare step in a resolution of singling out two M23 commanders by name: Innocent Kaina and Baudouin Ngaryu, and called for the council's sanctions committee to review their activity and unnamed other individuals.
Unnamed in the resolution were Rwanda and Uganda, which have been identified as supporters of the M23 rebellion by a U.N. panel of experts' report due out Friday and leaked to the AP.
Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that an advance copy of the report that it has reviewed names Rwanda and Uganda as supporting M23.
"Sadly, this resolution fails to name Rwandan officials known by the U.N. to have supported M23's atrocities from day one," said the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, Philippe Bolopion. "Despite its influence on Rwanda, in public the U.S. government has been inexplicably silent," he added.
Rwanda's representative spoke to the council after the vote to deny that his country is involved in the Congolese rebellion. Uganda has previously denied involvement.
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Doug Kennedy acquitted in clash over baby
By Jonathan Dienst, NBCNewYork.com
Updated at 3:57 p.m. ET: NEW YORK --?A son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy has been acquitted on all counts in a trial stemming from a clash at a Westchester hospital in January.?
Douglas Kennedy never took the stand at the trial in which he faced child endangerment and physical harassment charges after a scuffle on the maternity floor of Northern Westchester Hospital. ?Kennedy was arrested after an altercation with nurses as he tried to remove his newborn from the maternity ward.
According to a Mount Kisco, N.Y., police report, Kennedy took his baby from the hospital's newborn unit on Jan. 7, against the instructions of hospital staff who told him the infant needed to stay there.
"The Court is not determining whether the defendant's behavior was wise or prudent but only whether the facts and the evidence support a finding that the defendant is guilty of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt," Mount Kisco Town Justice John J. Donohue wrote in his opinion.
Kennedy was accused of kicking one nurse and twisting the arm of another as they tried to prevent him from taking his newborn son, Anthony, outside.
The nurses claim Kennedy was violating hospital policy. But a doctor testified that Kennedy had permission to take the baby.
The judge sided with the defense, noting in his opinion that?"It was clear that the defendant was going outside the hospital on an unseasonably warm winter evening for a short period and then returning with the child."
Donohue also wrote that the nurses placed themselves in Kennedy's way to stop him from leaving the maternity floor with the newborn and at one point tried to remove the child from his arms.
The judge agreed with the defense that any contact between Kennedy and the nurse was "spontaneous response...to prevent her from removing the baby from his arms."
Elliot Taub, the attorney for Anna Margaret and Cari Maleman Luciano, ?the nurses who scuffled with Kennedy, said his clients were disappointed with the verdict but that it wouldn't impact whether they would proceed with a civil case against Kennedy.
Kennedy's attorney said the case "should never have seen the light of day."
"The Westchester DA was wrong to bring the case,." ?said attorney Robert Gottlieb.?
Jonathan Dienst is WNBC's chief investigative reporter.
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Come Get About Brandon Marshall Jersey Concerning This ...
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Monday, November 19, 2012
Who?s hiring? $100K jobs that nobody wants
"The best social program is a good job," President Ronald Reagan once remarked. Those words ring especially true during times like today's, with high unemployment, modest hiring and government expenditures off the charts.
As much as the unemployment rate has been steadily declining for the better part of three years, it's still stuck near 8%, and tens of millions of Americans are either out of work, working less than they want, or worst of all, have simply given up looking. And yet, unbeknownst to many, the number of available jobs has been steadily rising, and now sits at a four-year high of nearly 3.2 million vacant positions.
While many companies are still, understandably, reluctant to hire, plenty of others are not and in fact are actively looking to add employees. In the attached video, the third part of our Who's Hiring? series, we've dug up a pair of industries that are not only hiring, but are actually struggling to find the right people.
For example, President Obama's recent re-election campaign was, in no small part, built upon the comeback of the auto industry. The hiring has been brisk, and not just at the Big 3 manufacturers -- it's been even more pronounced at the supporting and surrounding businesses. Data from the Department of Labor project that the need will be above average for auto service technicians in the coming years, and that the auto industry is going to need to find, train and hire more than 100,000 new people who can get under the hood and keep our cars and trucks running smoothly.
No easy task to be sure, but it's one that General Motors (GM) and thousands of its dealers are trying to get ahead of. It's also why we traveled to Detroit for an inside look at the problem -- and the solution. Let's just say this: The job of an auto service tech today is as much about laptops as lube jobs, and the pay, benefits and opportunity to grow that come with it are very real.
At the same, we'll take you inside another core American industry that's fretting about its future staffing needs and trying new and different things to attract qualified workers. In this case, I'm talking about the trucking business and its need for an estimated 330,000 tractor-trailer drivers over the next 10 years. Our team traveled to Omaha, Neb., to meet with the president of Werner Enterprises (WERN) to see how one of the biggest players in the business is addressing this shortage of drivers. Not only are they training more, paying better and putting their people in an almost brand new fleet of trucks, they're also reinventing themselves in a way that allows their drivers to get home to their families a lot more often.
We all know that the job market is tough right now, but what you may not know is that many businesses are still adding to their headcount and looking to grow. So if you're out of work or know someone who is, and you find yourself wondering who's hiring, here's hoping the attached piece gets your wheels turning and moves you closer to your next new job.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/hiring-100k-jobs-nobody-wants-133726536.html
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Sunday, November 18, 2012
Insurance Brokers Under Scrutiny | Stuff.co.nz
DEAN KOZANIC/Fairfax NZ
WAY TO GO: Developer Antony Gough make his case at the Central City Plan hearings at Riccarton Racecourse.
KIRK HARGREAVES/Fairfax NZ
DOWN TO EARTH: Christchurch property developer Richard Peebles, owner of almost 70 commercial properties before the earthquakes, has no idea how much he pays his insurance broker.
Insurance brokers shop around for deals for their customers but the size of their commissions is a mystery, even to the Insurance Council.
On one level, insurance is simple. You need coverage, you shop around, settle on a policy and pay the premium. You're covered.
Beneath the surface, many earthquake-hit Christchurch residents are finding out it is much more complicated than that.
Getting the type of cover you need is not always straightforward, which is where insurance brokers come in.
Many insurers are "direct" providers, meaning they do not deal with brokers. These include AMI, Tower, State and AA Insurance. Insurers that use brokers include Vero, NZI and Lumley.
Brokers do the research and shopping around for you, and take a cut for their troubles. How much they take, they don't have to say.
A broker's share comes from the premium. If you use their services, the figure you end up paying as a premium will not all go to your insurer. The broker takes commission out of that.
How much brokers get will usually be agreed in advance with the insurance company.
It ranges from about 15 to 25 per cent. They can go as low as 10 per cent, but in extreme cases can be more than 30 per cent.
Alternatively, a fee system, sometimes disclosed, can be used and is increasingly preferred on large, corporate accounts.
The Press learnt of the case of one Wellington businessman who, concerned at rising premiums, asked his broker for a cost breakdown and found he was paying 50 per cent.
"The only people that really know are the brokers themselves. That is the difficulty we have," Insurance Council chief executive Chris Ryan says.
"I, as head of the Insurance Council, cannot tell you what the commissions being paid in the industry are."
The council has pushed for compulsory disclosure of commissions in the past, without success.
The issue was before lawmakers in 2008 and 2010, but no change was forthcoming - a result Ryan describes as "very disappointing".
"We believe that customers should be able to see . . . the underwriting premium and . . . the commission being earned by the broker," he says. "Then they can compete on the cost to the insurer and the cost of commission."
Few would begrudge brokers their dues. Their expertise covers a complex industry.
Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand chief executive Gary Young is for transparency but does not see the need for compulsory disclosure.
"What would tend to happen is people would say, 'I don't want to pay that fee', and go to direct insurers," he says.
"If that were to happen, then people would be buying insurance based on price without any advice as to what was best for them."
Instead, the association expects its members to divulge their commission if a client asks.
Major New Zealand broker Crombie Lockwood backs this. A spokesman said the company was happy to follow the association's lead.
However, Young's Australian counterpart, National Insurance Brokers Association of Australia chief executive Dallas Booth, disagrees.
For the past decade, Australian brokers have had to provide every new client with a "financial service guide", which sets how they will charge and, if they earn commission, how much they get.
"Has that changed the nature of purchasing decisions by clients of brokers? I would suggest not at all," Booth says.
Christchurch property developer Richard Peebles owned almost 70 commercial properties before the earthquakes.
He has no idea how much he pays his broker. "I've never asked, but I don't think they'd have a problem telling us."
Peebles would be concerned if his broker's commission was about the 30 per cent mark, but doubted it was.
"We've gone to the market and had the pricing done. I'm pretty happy really," he says.
Fellow developer Antony Gough confesses to having "never actually thought about" what he paid his broker.
However, he was surprised commissions were even in double figures.
"That's huge. I would have thought 2 or 3 per cent."
Christchurch has another factor in play.
As post-quake premiums soar, brokers working on commission will do very nicely, but Young dismisses the idea it is money for jam for brokers.
"What used to take a few hours to organise and place in the past now takes a few weeks [in Christchurch]," he says.
"I think you'd find the hourly rate has gone down rather than up."
Former commerce minister Lianne Dalziel presided over the Financial Advisers Act 2008 and its 2010 amendment, which regulates insurance brokers.
Disclosure of brokers' commissions was not considered, she says, because the focus then was on the new bad boys on the block, finance companies.
Long-term financial investments were classed category 1 under the act; most insurance instruments came under category 2.
Category 1 includes life insurance policies, but little else.
"We were really focused on upping the ante on those selling category 1 products where there is an element of risk," Dalziel says.
Insurers have since proven themselves just as vulnerable to rogue practices.
Western Pacific Insurance, which failed last year, had its policy book labelled "absurd" by its receivers.
The company's lack of reinsurance was made worse by its habit of aggressively chasing a market share, which included paying brokers up to 25 per cent commission.
Commerce Minister Craig Foss says the latest amendment to the 2008 act was fully implemented only in July last year and the Government is monitoring its progress.
Further intervention in the industry "must be appropriate and the imposition of further compliance costs on the wider financial sector must be fully justified," Foss says.
Officials will update him on the issue early next year, he told The Press.
Labour commerce spokesman Clayton Cosgrove supports compulsory disclosure, likening it to a real estate agent's obligations.
"If the industry is saying, 'If you ask, I'll tell', they should have no problem with being required to tell."
The current system presents a problem, he says.
"A person needs to be assured that the recommendation their broker is making to take A, B or C insurance policy is based on good sound advice that it will deliver the product they want, not necessarily around which insurance company's giving the best commission.
"And you'd have to argue that that could be a motivating factor."
The onus to find out costs should not rest with the customer, he says, especially in Christchurch, where policies are becoming more complicated than ever.
"Now I think people are far more aware of the complexities of insurance," he says.
"The advice one now expects from [brokers] is, 'Will this policy do what I want it to do?' I know of constituents who are now wanting a high degree of skill and knowledge about their insurance policy, especially commercially."
- ? Fairfax NZ News
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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/7967175/Insurance-brokers-under-scrutiny
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OSU runs away with NCAA cross country title
The Cowboys earned 72 points on Saturday to claim the school's 51st overall NCAA team title.
Tulsa, led by Chris O'Hare's 20th-place finish, came in seventh.
Oklahoma finished in the top 10 for the third consecutive year, placing eighth with 262 points.
Girma Mecheso led the Cowboys, finishing in fifth place with a time of 29:14.8. That time - his best all season - placed him fourth all-time on OSU's 10,000-meter record list. It was also his best finish ever at the national championships.
"I'm really proud of the way the guys ran," said head coach Dave Smith. "I'm thrilled with the way they responded and bounced back from last year. We were second last year and were dejected and left with our heads down. We could have folded up camp and crumbled and not have been a trophy team this year."
Also running his best time of the season, Tom Farrell finished in ninth place with 29:26.3. Shadrack Kipchirchir (29:43.0) and Joseph Manilfasha (29:48.8) rounded out the top 25 by finishing in 18th and 24th place. Kipchirchir and Manilfasha also turned a season-best time. All three runners also earned their best finish at the national championships.
"It went the way we planned," said Kipchirchir. "Dave told us to run together and we did. We stood our ground and we finished well. It was amazing."
By finishing in the top 40, Mecheso, Farrell, Kipchirchir and Manilfasha all earned All-American honors. This is the third time for both Mecheso and Farrell and the first time for Kipchirchir and Manilafasha to be named an All-American.
Tulsa's O'Hare ran the 10K in a personal-best 29:46.4 to score 13 points for the Golden Hurricane, which totaled 247 points as a team. All five TU scorers placed among the top 100 runners at the meet.
Redshirt senior Bill Kogel was the top OU finisher with a 30:19.8 effort to be the 51st runner to cross the finish line. Fellow redshirt senior Patrick Casey followed in 67th place with a time of 30:29.7, while Riley Masters, also a redshirt senior, finished in 30:30.5 for a 73rd place effort.
2012 NCAA Cross Country Championships
E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park, Louisville, Ky.Men?s Team Results (Top 10)
1. Oklahoma State (72)
2. Wisconsin (135)
3. Colorado (158)
4. Northern Arizona (191)
5. Florida State (238)
6. BYU (245)
7. Tulsa (247)
8. Oklahoma (262)
9. Texas (291)
10. Arkansas (327)
Top individual results
1, Kennedy Kithuka (Texas Tech), 28:31.3.
2, Stephen Sambu (Arizona), 28:38.6. 3, Lawi
Lalang (Arizona), 28:51.8. 4, Anthony Rotich
(UTEP), 29:13.5. 5, Girma Mecheso (Oklahoma
State), 29:14.8.
Source: http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/articlepath.aspx?articleid=20121118_93_B10_LOUISV934063&rss_lnk=93
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Chad Lowe Welcomes a Daughter
The Pretty Little Liars star and wife Kim welcomed their second daughter on Thursday, Nov. 15, the actor announced via Twitter.
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/6660ekSzt-8/
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Saturday, November 17, 2012
What happens if Twinkies really do go away?
FILE - This 2003 file photo originally released by Interstate Bakeries Corporation shows Twinkies cream-filled snack cakes. Twinkies first came onto the scene in 1930 and contained real fruit until rationing during World War II led to the vanilla cream Twinkie. (AP Photo/Interstate Bakeries Corporation via PRNewsFoto)
FILE - This 2003 file photo originally released by Interstate Bakeries Corporation shows Twinkies cream-filled snack cakes. Twinkies first came onto the scene in 1930 and contained real fruit until rationing during World War II led to the vanilla cream Twinkie. (AP Photo/Interstate Bakeries Corporation via PRNewsFoto)
FILE - This Jan. 10, 2012 file photo shows Hostess Twinkies in New York. Twinkies first came onto the scene in 1930 and contained real fruit until rationing during World War II led to the vanilla cream Twinkie. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
Let's not panic. We all know that Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Wonder bread and the rest of Hostess Brands' oddly everlasting foods aren't going away any time soon, even if the food culture that created them is gasping its last.
Yes, Hostess is shutting down. And odds seem to favor the roughly century-old company disappearing from our corporate landscape. But before you rush out to stockpile a strategic Twinkie reserve, consider a few things. Namely, that Twinkies never die. You know full well that the snack cakes down at your corner 7-Eleven are going to outlive us all. Probably even after they've been consumed.
And then there's the acquisition-happy nature of the business world, an environment that increasingly prizes intellectual property above all. It's hard to imagine the fading away of brands as storied and valuable as Ho Hos, Ring Dings and Yodels. Within hours of announcing the closure Friday, the company already had put out word that Zingers, Fruit Pies and all the other brands were up for grabs.
Even if production really did stop, how long do you think it would take for some enterprising investor intoxicated by a cocktail of nostalgia and irony for the treats Mom used to pack in his G.I. Joe lunch box to find a way to roll out commemorative Twinkies? Special edition holiday Ho Hos? It's just the nature of our product-centered world. Brands don't die, even when perhaps they should.
But let's pretend for a moment they did. What would we lose if Twinkies fell off the culinary cliff?
Certainly few obesity-minded nutritionists would bemoan the loss. With some 500 million Twinkies produced a year, each packing 150 calories... Well, let's just leave it by saying that shaving 75 billion calories from the American diet sure could add up to a whole lot of skinny jeans.
Except that Twinkies aren't merely a snack cake, nor just junk food. They are iconic in ways that transcend how Americans typically fetishize food. But ultimately, they fell victim to the very fervor that created them.
Despite the many urban legends about the indestructability of Twinkies ? Did you know they are made with the same chemical used in embalming? Or that they last 5, no 15, no 50 years? ? and the many sadly true stories about the atrocious ingredients used to create them today, these treats once upon a time were the real deal.
They started out back in 1930, an era when people actually paid attention to seasonality in foods. James A. Dewar, who worked at Hostess predecessor Continental Baking Company in Schiller, Ill., wanted to find a way to use the bakery's shortbread pans year round. You see, the shortbread was filled with strawberries, but strawberries were only available for a few weeks a year.
So he used the oblong pans to bake spongecakes, which he then filled with banana cream. Bananas were a more regular crop.
Let's pause so you can wrap your mind around that for a moment. Twinkies once contained real fruit. Twinkies were created because of seasonality.
All went swimmingly until World War II hit and rationing meant ? say it with me ? Yes! We have no bananas. And so was born the vanilla cream Twinkie, which was vastly more popular anyway. Even then, there was a crafted element to these treats. The filling was added by hand using a foot pedal-powered pump. Pump too hard and the Twinkies exploded. These days you only see that when teenagers post YouTube videos of themselves microwaving them.
It was around this time that American food culture did an about face. It was an era when the industrialization and processing of cheap food wasn't just desired, it was glorified. Cans and chemicals could set you free. And they certainly set Twinkies free of the nuisance of a short shelf life. It's not formaldehyde that keeps these snack cakes feeling fresh, it's the lack of any dairy products in the so-called "cream."
"Something about it just absolutely grabbed the popular culture imagination," says Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies ? and no fan of junk food. "It's the prototypical indestructible junk food. It was the sort of height to which American technological ingenuity could go to create a product that was almost entirely artificial, but gave the appearance of eclairs."
When Twinkies signed on as a sponsor of the "Howdy Doody" show during the 1950s, their cultural legacy was sealed. Taglines such as "The snacks with a snack in the middle" began etching themselves into generations of young minds and it was considered perfectly fine that Twinkie the Kid would lasso and drag children before stuffing his sugar bombs in their faces.
It was the snack cake heyday. Twinkies were being deep-fried at state fairs, doing cameos in movies like "Ghost Busters" and "Die Hard" and being pushed by Spider-Man in comic books. A pre-vegan President Bill Clinton even signed off on including Twinkies in the nation's millennium time capsule (the two-pack was later removed and consumed by his council overseeing such matters for fear mice would add themselves to the time capsule).
Sure, not all the attention was positive. Somewhere along the line, Twinkies became the butt of jokes, mostly about their perceived longevity (though Hostess staunchly maintains 25 days is the max). And not all associations were great. The so-called "Twinkie defense" came out of the 1979 murder trial of Dan White, whose lawyers included his junk food obsession among the evidence of his supposed altered state of mind.
Then something happened. Suddenly, Americans who for decades had been tone deaf to how food was produced suddenly started paying attention, seeking out organic goat cheeses made from the milk of an unoppressed herd raised on a fence-free collective within a 20-mile radius of home. Even Doritos went artisanal, and an awareness of seasons and availability crept back into the culinary consciousness.
Suddenly products that had so prospered by their artificiality lost their allure. Even Hostess, which blamed this week's shutdown mostly on a labor dispute that hobbled its facilities, has acknowledged that consumer concern about health and food quality changed the game. People just weren't buying snack cakes like they used to.
So what would we lose if Twinkies really did go away? From a culinary standpoint and from a nutritional standpoint, it's hard to love the Twinkie (or pretty much any Hostess product). It's hard not to wonder how the American diet, the American palate, would be different if the parents of the '50s hadn't begun a cycle of turning to processed packages as the de facto snack of childhood.
And does nostalgia alone justify the continuation of something so patently bad for us?
Of course nostalgia, even irony, taste awfully good.
And I notice that a growing number of ? dare I say it ? artisanal bakeries are going retro, creating their own inspired takes on classic processed snack cakes. Treats like red velvet "twinkies" made with real ingredients. So perhaps it isn't time for Twinkies to go away. Or to stay the same. Maybe it's time for them to go back to their roots. And then, we lose nothing.
___
J.M. Hirsch is the AP's Food Editor. Follow him to great eats on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JM_Hirsch or email him at jhirsch(at)ap.org.
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