You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/the-daily-roundup-for-03-12-2013/
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Mar. 11, 2013 ? A new study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Adelaide, Australia, has produced the strongest evidence yet that fluoride in drinking water provides dental health benefits to adults, even those who had not received fluoridated drinking water as children.
In the first population-level study of its kind, the study shows that fluoridated drinking water prevents tooth decay for all adults regardless of age, and whether or not they consumed fluoridated water during childhood.
Led by UNC School of Dentistry faculty member Gary Slade, the study adds a new dimension to evidence regarding dental health benefits of fluoridation.
"It was once thought that fluoridated drinking water only benefited children who consumed it from birth," explained Slade, who is John W. Stamm Distinguished Professor and director of the oral epidemiology Ph.D. program at UNC. "Now we show that fluoridated water reduces tooth decay in adults, even if they start drinking it after childhood. In public health terms, it means that more people benefit from water fluoridation than previously thought."
The researchers analyzed national survey data from 3,779 adults aged 15 and older selected at random from the Australian population between 2004 and 2006. Survey examiners measured levels of decay and study participants reported where they lived since 1964. The residential histories of study participants were matched to information about fluoride levels in community water supplies. The researchers then determined the percentage of each participant's lifetime in which the public water supply was fluoridated.
The results, published online in the Journal of Dental Research, show that adults who spent more than 75 percent of their lifetime living in fluoridated communities had significantly less tooth decay (up to 30 percent less) when compared to adults who had lived less that 25 percent of their lifetime in such communities.
"At this time, when several Australian cities are considering fluoridation, we should point out that the evidence is stacked in favor of long-term exposure to fluoride in drinking water," said Kaye Roberts-Thomson, a co-author of the study. "It really does have a significant dental health benefit."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/CzuieRa3jpk/130311151255.htm
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AMMAN (Reuters) - Twenty-one United Nations peacekeepers held by rebels for three days in southern Syria crossed into Jordan on Saturday, after an ordeal which highlighted how Syria's civil war is ratcheting up tensions on its volatile borders.
The Filipino peacekeepers - part of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) that has been monitoring a ceasefire line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights since 1974 - were seized by the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade on Wednesday.
They were taken by the rebels on Saturday to the Jordanian border, about 10 km (6 miles) south of the village of Jamla where they had been held since being captured.
"They are all on the Jordanian side now and they are in good health," said Abu Mahmoud, a rebel who said he had crossed over into Jordan with them.
In the Syrian capital, Mokhtar Lamani, who heads the Damascus office of U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, confirmed that the men had crossed into Jordan.
Jordan appeared surprised by the arrival of the peacekeepers - who had been expected to be retrieved instead by a U.N. convoy inside Syria and possibly taken to Damascus - and Syria expressed dismay at how they were spirited across the border.
The move would "encourage terrorists to repeat these events", the foreign ministry in Damascus said, adding that Syria had complied fully with its commitment to ensure the peacekeepers' safety.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the release of the peacekeepers but called on "all parties to respect UNDOF's freedom of movement and the safety and security of its personnel", Ban's spokesman said.
The peacekeepers had been held in Jamla, a village one mile east of the Israeli-occupied Golan and 6 miles north of the Jordan border. After their capture insurgents described them as "guests" and said they would be freed once President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from around Jamla and stopped shelling.
A brief truce was agreed on Saturday morning to allow for the peacekeepers' retrieval. Although the two-hour window of that ceasefire passed at midday (1000 GMT) before they could be extracted, the relative calm prevailed long enough for the rebels to take them south to Jordan, rebels said.
A rescue effort on Friday was delayed by heavy bombardment and abandoned after nightfall, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said.
REGIONAL SPILLOVER
Syria's two-year-old civil war has spilled periodically across the Golan Heights ceasefire line and Syria's borders with Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, threatening to engulf the region. The conflict began as peaceful protests, but turned violent when Assad ordered a crackdown on the demonstrations.
Ladsous warned on Friday that once the peacekeepers were freed, "we would strongly expect that there would not be retaliatory action by the Syrian armed forces over the village and its civilian population".
Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the army had been targeting areas outside Jamla where he said the rebels were concentrated, not the village itself. "We know for sure what we are doing and we know where the peacekeepers are," he said.
"The Syrian government forces are doing exactly what they have to do in order to bring back safely the peacekeepers, guarantee the safety and security of the inhabitants of these villages (and) get these armed group terrorists out of the area."
In several videos released on Thursday, the peacekeepers said they were being treated well by civilians and rebels.
The United Nations said the captives had been detained by about 30 rebel fighters, but Abu Issam Taseel, a Martyrs of Yarmouk activist, said the men were "guests", not hostages, and were being held for their own safety.
Under an agreement brokered by the United States in 1974, Israel and Syria are allowed a limited number of tanks and troops within 20 km of the disengagement line.
(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Stephen Powell)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/freed-u-n-peacekeepers-cross-jordan-syria-035138534.html
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YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? Aung San Suu Kyi was selected Sunday to remain head of Myanmar's main opposition party, keeping her leadership post even as the party undergoes a makeover to adjust to the country's new democratic framework.
The Nobel laureate was named chairwoman of the National League for Democracy's new executive board on the final day of a landmark three-day party congress attended by 894 delegates from around the country.
The congress also expanded the group's Central Executive Committee from seven members to 15, in a revitalization and reform effort ahead of Myanmar's 2015 general election. The party is seeking to infuse its ranks with new faces, expertise and diversity without sidelining long-standing members.
"We have to see how effectively and efficiently the new leaders can perform their duties," said Suu Kyi, who has led the NLD since its inception in 1988. "We hope they will learn through experience."
Suu Kyi is the sole holdover from the party's original executive board when it was founded, but the other new members are also mostly long-serving party loyalists. A broader Central Committee of 120 members was elected by the delegates and endorsed the executive board, which was given five reserve members.
The party, which came into being as the army was crushing a mass pro-democracy uprising in 1988, won a 1990 general election that was nullified by the then-ruling military. The NLD boycotted a 2010 general election, but after a military-backed elected government took office in 2011 and instituted democratic reforms, it contested by-elections in 2012, winning 43 of 44 seats and putting Suu Kyi into parliament.
Emerging from repression that limited its actions ? not least because Suu Kyi and other senior NLD members spent years under detention ? Suu Kyi vowed in her opening speech Saturday to inject the party with "new blood" and decentralize decision-making.
She said the NLD would go through an experimental stage with the new leadership and should anticipate some obstacles but "not be discouraged."
Although the 2012 by-election results showed that the NLD still has broad and deep appeal, the party faces challenges.
The army-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party of President Thein Sein, besides being well-financed and enjoying the benefits of controlling the bureaucracy, has staked out a position as reformist.
It can boast of freeing the press, releasing most of the country's political prisoners and convincing foreign nations to lift most economic sanctions they had imposed against the former military regime for its poor human rights record. It hopes that opening up Myanmar, also known as Burma, to foreign investment will kick-start a moribund economy and win it popular appeal.
On the other side of the political spectrum, the NLD's agreement to play by parliamentary rules ? in effect endorsing Thein Sein's reform efforts ? leaves an opening for more hard-core anti-military activists to win over a share of disaffected voters who prefer a quicker pace of change than now allowed under the army-dictated constitution.
Speaking to the party meeting after her selection as chairman on Sunday, Suu Kyi said that in choosing executive board members there was an effort to include women, members of ethnic minorities and younger people, in addition to members with a record of continuous party service. Four women and several ethnic minority members are on the new board.
Suu Kyi acknowledged to reporters that younger members were underrepresented on the Central Executive Committee compared to the bigger Central Committee.
"We need experienced members who know the policies, tradition and history of the party and who had been in the party for the last 25 years," said Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest. "After some time, the younger generation will take over their place. There should be connectivity between the past, present and future."
Suu Kyi's colleagues expressed satisfaction with the meeting's results.
"The new CEC and Central Committee members will enjoy the trust of the majority because we are elected democratically. I believe we will be able to carry out our work more effectively," May Win Myint, a veteran NLD member jailed many times for her activities, said after being elected to the executive board.
Kyi Phyu Shin, a well-known film director who became an NLD member six months ago and was elected to the Central Committee, said she was "very confident that the NLD will become a tight organization, very active and competitive. The congress helps institute better democratic practices in the NLD."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suu-kyi-selected-remain-myanmar-opposition-head-100539922.html
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In this Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo, editor Toni Ortez works in a conference room at the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City, Mo. The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal, was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
In this Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo, editor Toni Ortez works in a conference room at the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City, Mo. The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal, was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
In this Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo, reporters and editors work in the newsroom of the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City, Mo. The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal, was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
In this Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo, editor Toni Ortiz, right, looks over pages with copy editor Teresa Malcolm while working in the newsroom of the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City, Mo. The National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal, was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? A newspaper known for unflinching coverage of the Catholic church scandal was rebuked by a bishop in its own backyard after calling for his ouster in a battle that illustrates tensions between U.S. bishops and groups that call themselves Catholic but aren't sanctioned by the church.
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent Kansas City, Mo.-based weekly, called for Bishop Robert Finn's removal or resignation in September, after he was convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse.
Finn, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, later wrote in an editorial in his own diocesan newspaper that parishioner anger is growing over the NCR's challenges to Catholic orthodoxy on topics ranging from the ordination of women to contraception.
In the last several years, church leaders have been trying to shore up the religious identity and mission of organizations that call themselves Catholic, including trying to bar groups from saying they have ties with the church if bishops believe the organizations stray from church teaching. Conflict over the issue intensified in the 2008 presidential election, when some Catholic advocacy groups backed Barack Obama despite his support for abortion rights.
Finn, who declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, wrote in his editorial that a local bishop first asked the paper to remove Catholic from its name in 1968 ? "to no avail."
"In light of the number of recent expressions of concern, I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name 'Catholic,'" Finn wrote in The Catholic Key. "While I remain open to substantive and respectful discussion with the legitimate representatives of NCR, I find that my ability to influence the National Catholic Reporter toward fidelity to the Church seems limited to the supernatural level."
Thomas Groome, professor of religious education at Boston College, said he was surprised Finn was "picking such a public fight." Finn is the highest-ranking U.S. church official convicted of a crime related to the sex abuse scandal. The misdemeanor charge stemmed from the case of an area priest who pleaded guilty in August to producing child pornography. Finn and other church officials knew about photos on the priest's computer six months before they turned him in.
Groome said the Catholic Church benefits from publications such as the National Catholic Reporter.
"There are all kinds of ways the church's position has evolved, and if that's to happen you need publications like the NCR that raises critical issues, controversial issues, and I think it does that respectfully with a sense of faithfulness to the church's core teaching," he said.
NCR, founded in Kansas City in 1964, has been widely lauded for its coverage of the church and garnered widespread recognition for its reporting on child sex abuse in the 1980s. The newspaper, which has a circulation of about 35,000 and is available online, has won several awards from the Catholic Press Association, including for general excellence for 13 straight years. The CPA, while independent, works closely with church hierarchy, according to Timothy Walter, CPA's executive director.
"We don't present official teaching, and we don't pretend to," said the newspaper's editor, Dennis Coday. "What we do is report on what's happening in the church. And part of what's happening is dissent and questioning, and that's what we report about. And that's why we remain Catholic and continue to call ourselves Catholic."
Coday said the question for the paper is: "Are we upholding the deepest values set out in the Gospel, the message Jesus preached?"
Finn is not alone in complaining about NCR, which has also called for the church to reverse its teaching on women's ordination and supported re-examining the church's approaches to contraception and sexuality.
Canon lawyer Edward Peters, the Vatican's expert witness in U.S. sex abuse lawsuits and an adviser to the Vatican's highest court, said in a recent blog post that Finn was "too kind" in his remarks about NCR and noted that other groups have stopped using "Catholic" in their names.
Peters said the newspaper has carried on "a steady tirade against ecclesiastical authority in general, and against numerous Church teachings in particular, for several decades."
"But the last few years have seen a shrillness that should discomfort even its dwindling number of friends," Peters wrote.
The tension between NCR and Finn likely won't resolve easily because it's tied to an ongoing battle over authority in the church, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
"The vision of the Vatican and the hierarchy is that the Catholic media should support and ... promote the positions taken by the hierarchy," said Reese, who was removed from his position as editor of the Jesuit magazine America in 2005 after it published stories on topics including gay marriage.
"But you know," Reese said, "many people in the Catholic media think that they should also criticize those positions or be a forum where there can be discussion and argument and dialogue on issues facing the church."
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I've been watching too much reality TV. Well, maybe you have too. And I just had a dream the other night that, as a public philosopher, I was hosting a new show. Then, I realized that if it was a hit, I could have a huge new empire of reality TV shows on my hands. Here's what I mean.
My first dream show is an inevitable twist, from my point of view, on the standard HGTV real estate series:
Million Dollar Open House... With a Philosopher: This show offers the ultimate opportunity to think through a major New York City real estate purchase. I'll co-host open house extravaganzas at Manhattan's finest apartments. The other host, a licensed real estate broker, can talk to potential buyers about square footage, neighborhood amenities, and price. I'll help them reflect on image, convenience, wealth, and the importance of location in America -- all connected, of course, with meaning of life issues. The philosopher is in.
And, if this is a success, there are other, even more exciting possibilities. I can see the pitch line-up now:
Dinner With a Philosopher: Something for The Food Network, reminding us that great meals aren't ultimately just about food, but provide the ideal contexts for amazing conversations with friends and family. Think: My Dinner With Andre, but with more laughs and more people. Or: Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five, but with more pondering. And of course, remember the wine: In Vino Veritas.
Top Sage: A group of young philosophers are rounded up and taken to a famous philosophy department, posed thorny problems, and forced to whip up short lectures and dish out new ideas under severely ridiculous time constraints. Sometimes, their hands are tied with limited resources. "You have one hour and have to do this using only classic pragmatism." Or: "Draw only from ingredients in Wittgenstein's thought." They go, "Oh, no!" on camera. A team of experts ridicules or praises them. At the end, we discover who has what it takes to be Top Sage. And of course, it's announced by Padma Lakshmi and Tom Collichhio, both wearing, "I Think Therefore I Am" T-shirts.
The Brain: For a major network. Like The Voice, only with no songs.
Semantic Survivor: Plato's Cave Version: A group of highly driven personalities are taken to a remote cave, divided into two rival tribes, and forced to compete in a series of increasingly impossible semantic arguments, where they seek to separate reality from illusion. Each week one member of the tribe is refuted out of the cave. The tribe has spoken. Q.E.D.
Philosophy on the Beach: The Tom Morris Show: Featuring me, Tom Morris, and executive produced by me, Tom Morris... and Oprah Winfrey (for the money part). This is perfect for Oprah's network. The way I see it, O can have me over to her place in Hawaii and we can philosophize on the beach. Hey, somebody's gotta do it. Whatever it takes for ratings.
Repo With a Philosopher: Something for TruTV. Yeah, TruTV. I ride with a repo man and engage the stunned targets of his employment with lively discussions on the concepts of ownership and debt, the vicissitudes of loss, and the transience of all things physical, while he hooks up the Mercedes.
S.W.A.T. -- Philosophy (Special Wisdom, Analysis, Talk): This is for TLC, if they don't go for Honey Boo Boo -- Thinker. I ride with L.A.'s finest as the ultimate hostage negotiator. Sample: "Gimme the phone. Can you hear me? OK. Don't you realize that we're ALL hostages... to fate? All of us! So this particular act of hostage taking is fundamentally REDUNDANT, given our existential condition! Utterly superfluous! Do you hear me? Therefore, lay down your weapon now, or be prepared to justify its ownership in the face of formidable arguments to the contrary."
The Biggest Thinker: For a major network. Big brains weigh in with heavy thoughts once a week. A panel of judges puts them on a seriously restricted diet: No historical references, no obscure technical terms, no name-dropping, and we watch how the discussions shrink.
The Real Philosophers of Boston: The cameras follow five well-groomed Boston area academics from elite institutions, all of whom are obvious narcissists, augmented by a supporting cast of young graduate school bimbos or himbos (an emphasis on himbos if pitched to Bravo). World-class cattiness ensues.
Bachelor of Philosophy: Again, major network fodder. Single, eligible young philosophy major meets a bevy of brainy beauties in a major bookstore, intent on an intellectual hookup, despite his employment options. Steamy discussions ensue. Maybe the winner gets a girl and a job, both otherwise highly unlikely prospects for philosophy majors.
Seminar Impossible: A Robert Irvine type visits undergraduate and graduate seminars that are struggling, and turns them around in two class sessions. His top-notch crew of seminar designers gives the classroom an amazing makeover, and after repeatedly insulting both the syllabus and the pathetic methods of pedagogy on display, he shows the professor how to spice up the sessions. There will be a website where we can check on how the seminar did in student course evaluations, and whether it's ever offered again.
Fear Factor -- Philosophy: This one's almost too obvious. Contestants are taken to the smallest section in a major bookstore, back near the restrooms, and are forced to read aloud and explain unintelligible passages in major and minor philosophers. "Oh, No! The Kant! God, No! Not Again!"
Keeping Up With the Kierkegaardians: For the E! network. Several dark-haired Danes philosophize with professional athletes, rappers, and rich boys with no discernible source of income, surrounded by all the trappings of great wealth, in L.A. and Miami. Many sessions take place in the backseats of new Bentleys.
Project Professorial Runway: I'll co-host this one with Heidi Klum. And I want the old panel of judges -- Michael Kors, Nina Garcia, and some other celebrity each week. For over 2,000 years, philosophers have been identified with one garment, the toga. Not exactly flattering couture for most of us. The only accepted alternative has been the tweed jacket. A group of hot young designers will be tasked to create a new look for thinkers. Tim Gunn will spur them on, despite endless drama. ("That design makes you look like Aquinas!") "Make it happen!"
Divine Design on a Dime: For A&E or The History Channel. A young intellectual fashion-savvy philosopher considers theological thought structures inspired by the interior design of our entire universe. The goal is to empower the viewer: "You can use the public library, contemplate the starry skies, consider the moral law within, and think these thoughts on your own, for no more than a dime!" (There's a parking meter outside the public library.)
What Not to Think: Like the famous show What Not to Wear, but we'll be doing makeovers on middle-aged people's attitudes, beliefs, and values. "OK, that thought is SO '80s! And frumpy! You should be embarrassed! We need to get it out of the closet of your mind FOREVER." At the end will be a "reveal" where the family of our makeover recipient gets to see his or her new worldview on display. Family reactions sell the show. "Mom! Your reasoning is SO incredible! You sound 10 years younger!" And "I could never imagine my wife would think like this!"
Million Dollar Library: I visit homes where the owners have spared no expense in building ornate personal libraries emphasizing philosophy. We'll feature lavish rooms filled with the best bound books and adorned with swag and... hot tubs, and whenever possible, connected to indoor pools or bowling alleys. This will be a fascinating look at Retro Book Lux in a day when most home libraries consist of nothing more than an iPad or a lonely Nook lying on a table.
And, of course, if any of these shows work, and especially if they all do -- in which case I'll be richer than Croesus and Regis put together -- then there's one more. I know: I can't do everything. There's only one Ryan Seacrest. But still, consider:
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Philosopher? This is for NBC (alas, for the moment, No Body Cares), to help with ratings. Out of an audience of "ordinary people" (i.e. not philosophy students or professors), clueless contestants will be picked, put in a Throne of Thought, and asked unanswerable questions. They will have three lifeline phone calls available, to equally unenlightened friends, or to a few specially selected engineering majors (just for laughs). Perplexity results, and for everyone involved, not just for the TV critics and culture commentators -- unlike the rest of reality TV.
So, Andy Cohen, if you're out there wondering what in the world is next for the broadening realm of reality television, I offer you a shot at co-producing any of these exciting real-world dramedies. And I'm happy to be the on-air host for any of them. "But," my friends all say, "What about the public humiliation factor?" I reply, "For me, it's nothing new. In our current culture, I call myself a philosopher."
Full Disclosure: I have to admit that I'm not just suggesting all this as a massive act of national altruism. There's a lot in it for me, too, as you might have noticed already. I mean, in addition to all the clip-on microphones, free pancake makeup, and magazine covers that will surely get me reservations for the first time ever in all the hot restaurants, I can almost taste the major, massive golden book deal at the end of this rainbow. And of course, the new line of Metaphysical Margaritas by Morris that will be enjoyed nationwide by Internet intelligentsia and culture mavens as I expand my new empire all over America. And, with all that, I may be able to get my own perch in the back seat of a very contemplative Bentley.
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Follow Tom Morris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TomVMorris
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-morris/philosopher-king-of-reality-tv_b_2805823.html
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A winter storm warning has been issued by the National Weather Service for Northern Illinois, Chicago, and Northwest Indiana, beginning at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning and lasting until midnight. Snow will start to fall as early as Monday evening in Chicago's southern and western suburbs, with accumulations of about an inch before the more severe weather begins.
The worst of the snow will be late Tuesday afternoon into the evening, with snow projected to fall at a rate of over an inch per hour. This will make Chicago's evening commute especially treacherous for those travelling. Last week's storm hit at around the same time, causing several businesses and local schools to close early and cancel evening activities. Many people heeded the storm's warning and stayed off the roads, making the commute much better than expected. Both O'Hare and Midway airports are expected to cancel flights Tuesday evening as the storm passes through.
Storm projections have the most snow falling around the Midway airport area, as well as the far north suburbs. The northern suburbs have endured most of the brunt of the storms that swept through the Chicago area in the last two weeks. This storm's projected totals are in the 7-10-inch range; however, forecasters are being conservative in their predictions. The last two storms were supposed to wallop the city but stayed under the 6-inch mark. Perennial WGN-TV weather expert Tom Skilling says that this will be Chicago's biggest single snowfall of the season. Amy Seeley with the National Weather Service told the Chicago Tribune that the worst part of the snow will be during rush hour Tuesday evening and cautioned against travel.
The winds will pick up while the storm moves through Chicago, creating poor visibility, but the storm won't bring bitter cold. The temperatures are expected to hover around freezing and move back up into the mid-30s and 40s as the storm leaves town. If the storm does dump the over 10 inches of snow the computer models are predicting, it will bump the area past the snowfall average we usually see this time of year. For a winter that began balmy and dry, it seems to want to leave with a reminder for Chicagoans of how nice they had it in December.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/winter-storm-warning-issued-chicago-211900258.html
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict left the Vatican on Thursday after pledging unconditional obedience to whoever succeeds him to guide the Roman Catholic Church at one of the most crisis-ridden periods in its 2,000-year history.
The first pope in six centuries to step down, Benedict flew off in a white Italian air force helicopter for the papal summer villa south of the capital where he took up temporary residence.
Bells rang out from St Peter's Basilica and churches all over Rome as the helicopter circled Vatican City and flew over the Colosseum and other landmarks to give the pontiff one last view of the city where he is also bishop.
"As you know, today is different to previous ones," he told an emotional, cheering crowd in the small town of Castel Gandolfo in his last public remarks as pope.
"I will only be the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church until 8 p.m and then no longer. I will simply be a pilgrim who is starting the last phase of his pilgrimage on this earth."
He turned and went inside the villa, never to be seen again as pope.
In an emotional farewell to cardinals on Thursday morning in the Vatican's frescoed Sala Clementina, Benedict appeared to send a strong message to the top echelons of the Church as well as the faithful to remain united behind his successor, whoever he is.
"I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next few days, so that you are fully accepting of the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope," he said. "May the Lord show you what he wants. Among you there is the future pope, to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience."
The pledge, made ahead of the closed-doors conclave where cardinals will elect his successor, was significant because for the first time in history, there will be a reigning pope and a former pope living side by side in the Vatican.
Some Church scholars worry that if the next pope undoes some of Benedict's policies while his predecessor is still alive, Benedict could act as a lightning rod for conservatives and polarize the 1.2 billion-member Church.
Before boarding the helicopter, Pope Benedict said goodbye to monsignors, nuns, Vatican staff and Swiss guards in the San Damaso courtyard of the Holy See's apostolic palace. Many of his staff had tears in their eyes as the helicopter left.
As the helicopter took off, he sent his last message on Twitter: "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives".
Benedict will spend the first few months of his retirement in the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, a complex of villas boasting lush gardens, a farm and stunning views over Lake Albano in the volcanic crater below the town.
At 8 p.m. (1900 GMT/2 p.m. ET) the papacy will be officially vacant and two Swiss Guards that ceremonially watch over the summer villa will march away and not return until the new pope takes possession of the hilltop residence.
Benedict will stay until April when renovations are completed on a convent in the Vatican that will be his new home.
PAPAL PROBLEMS
With the election of the next pope taking place in the wake of sexual abuse scandals, leaks of his private papers by his butler, falling membership and demands for a greater role for women, many in the Church believe it would benefit from a fresh face from a non-European country.
A number of cardinals from the developing world, including Ghanaian Peter Turkson and Antonio Tagle of the Philippines are two names often mentioned as leading candidates from the developing world who listen more.
"At the past two conclaves, the cardinals elected the smartest man in the room. Now, it may be time to choose a man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church," said Father Tom Resse, a historian and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
Benedict, wearing the white papal cassock and red cape he will shed after his resignation becomes official, urged the Church to strive to be "deeply united".
A lover of classical music, he compared the Church hierarchy to an orchestra with many instruments which should always seek to be harmonious.
"Let us remain united, dear brothers," said Benedict, who alluded to the scandals and reports of infighting among his closest aides.
"In these past eight years we have lived with faith beautiful moments of radiant light in the path of the Church as well as moments when some clouds darkened the sky," he said.
The pope said he had "tried to serve Christ and his Church with deep and total love".
NEW POPE FOR EASTER
Once the chair of St Peter is vacant, cardinals who have assembled from around the world will begin planning the conclave that will elect his successor.
One of the first questions facing these "princes of the Church" is when the 115 cardinal electors should enter the Sistine Chapel for the voting. They will hold a first meeting on Friday but a decision may not come until next week.
The Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead the Holy Week services that culminate in Easter on the following Sunday.
In the meantime, the cardinals will hold daily consultations at the Vatican at which they discuss issues facing the Church, get to know each other better and size up potential candidates for the 2,000-year-old post of pope.
There are no official candidates, no open campaigning and no clear front runner for the job. Cardinals tipped as favorites by Vatican-watchers include Turkson, Tagle, Brazil's Odilo Scherer, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Italy's Angelo Scola and Timothy Dolan of the United States.
Benedict, a bookish man who did not seek the papacy and did not enjoy being in the global spotlight, proved an energetic teacher of Catholic doctrine but a poor manager of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that became mired in scandal.
He leaves his successor a top secret report on rivalries and scandals within the Curia, prompted by leaks of internal files last year that documented the problems hidden behind the Vatican's thick walls and the Church's traditional secrecy.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-benedict-pledges-obedience-successor-110019683.html
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19 are reported dead after a balloon crash in Luxor, Egypt. The dawn hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings is popular with tourists, even after the post-Mubarak tourism slump.
In these stills from amateur video obtained by Al Jazeera, smoke pours from a hot air balloon over Luxor, Egypt, top left, before bursting, top right, and plummeting about 1,000 feet to earth, bottom left and right, on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. The balloon crash left 19 people dead.
Al Jazeera / AP
EnlargeAt least 19 people, most of them Asian and European tourists, died on Tuesday when a hot air balloon caught fire and crashed near the ancient Egyptian town of Luxor after a mid-air gas explosion, officials said.
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The balloon came down in farmland a few miles from the Valley of the Kings and pharaonic temples popular with tourists. Rescue workers gathered the dead from the field where the charred remains of the balloon, gas canisters and other pieces of wreckage landed.
One Egyptian was also killed, Health Minister Mohamed Mostafa Hamed told Reuters, listing the other victims as tourists from Japan, China, France, Britain and Hungary. Earlier, officials had said all the dead were foreigners.
The balloon crashed on the west bank of the Nile, where many of the area's major historical sites are located.
Konny Matthews, assistant manager of Luxor's Al Moudira hotel, said she heard an explosion at about 7 a.m. "It was a huge bang. It was a frightening bang, even though it was several kilometres away from the hotel," she said by phone. "Some of my employees said that their homes were shaking."
Ahmed Aboud, head of an association representing Luxor balloon operators, said the fire had begun in the pipe linking the gas canisters to the burner. He said it was an accident.
The deaths were caused by burns and injuries sustained in the fall, said Mohamed Mustafa, a doctor at the hospital where the injured were treated.
The pilot survived by jumping from the basket, Aboud said.
The British government said two British citizens and a British resident of Egypt had been killed. "We can also confirm that one other British national was involved and is in a stable condition," a British foreign ministry statement said.
Two French citizens were killed, according to France's foreign ministry. The Japanese embassy in Cairo said it believed four Japanese had been aboard and had sent staff to Luxor to confirm this.
Transport accidents are frequent in Egypt. Dozens of children were killed in November when the bus they were on collided with a train. Accidents affecting foreign tourists are rarer, but not unusual. Five Germans were killed in December in a bus crash near a Red Sea resort.
U.S. photographer Christopher Michel, who was on board another balloon, told Britain's Sky News television that the balloon was one of eight flying at the time. "We heard a loud explosion behind us. I looked back and saw lots of smoke. It wasn't immediately clear that it was a balloon," he said.
Hot air ballooning at dawn is popular with tourists, who are a mainstay of the Egyptian economy, although visitor numbers have fallen sharply since a 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Two years of political instability have kept many foreign tourists away.
Tourism accounted for more than a 10th of Egypt's gross domestic product before the revolt. In 2010, about 14.7 million visitors came to Egypt, but this slumped to 9.8 million the next year.
Wael Ibrahim, head of the tour guides' syndicate in Luxor, said he did not expect the accident to make the situation worse for tour operators in the area than it already was. "We've already been affected badly in Egypt," he said.
Some tourists may be more wary of activities like hot air ballooning, he said, but added: "This (type of) accident could happen anywhere in the world."
Last year a balloon plunged to the ground in flames in Slovenia, killing four people and injuring 28.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Wael el-Maadawi said a committee from the ministry was heading to Luxor to investigate the incident. He said hot air balloon flights would be stopped until an investigation into the cause of the accident.
"We cannot say whether this was because of maintenance or human (error) until the investigation committee is completely done with its investigation," he told Al Jazeera TV's Egyptian channel.
(Reporting by Tom Perry, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed and Asma Alsharif in Cairo, Michael Holden, Estelle Shirbon and Tim Castle in London and Vicky Buffery in Paris; Writing by Tom Perry and Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)
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Authentic Moroccan food at Shak Shuka, Twilight Hawkers Market
It?s time to get into your eating pants again. Eat Drink Perth 2013 is on throughout the month of March in the City of Perth. I?m one of five official bloggers for Eat Drink Perth this year. The full program is available at the Eat Drink Perth website, but here are some events and features that have caught my eye.
Twilight Hawkers Market ? win a trip to South East Asia
Regular readers will know what a big fan I am of the Twilight Hawkers Market, at Forrest Place in Perth every Friday night 5-9pm until end of April 2013.
During Eat Drink Perth month, there?s more than delicious street food to enjoy ? visit Twilight Hawkers Market on Fridays in March (1, 8, 15 or 22 March) and for every meal purchased, you?ll get a chance to win a trip for two to Holiday Hawker Heaven ? Bangkok, Penang, Singapore or Taipei, with thanks to Air Asia.
Note: the market will not be on 29 March due to Easter.
Perth Home Grown
Forrest Place will host a Sunday market with locally grown produce including fruit and vegetables, free range eggs, honey, home-baked and hand crafted goods. Get there early and grab some brunch ? bacon and egg burgers, crepes and organic smoothies.
Sunday 3, 10, 17 and 24 March. Free entry.
10am to 3pm in Forrest Place.
Perth City?s Greatest Dish Photo Wall
In March, post your food photos to the Show Me Perth Facebook page or to Instagram (use hashtag #eatdrinkperth), including the restaurant name and date taken. Every day, Show Me Perth will select one image to be displayed on the giant photo wall in Forrest Place. All entries will go into a draw to win a dinner for two at a City of Perth restaurant.
Bishop?s House Pop-Up Bar.
Weeknights in March, 4pm to 8pm ? sounds like a good place to unwind with mates, especially if you work in the city. No entry fee (but you?ll have to pay for your drinks, of course).
Lamont?s Bishop?s House, corner Spring St and Mounts Bay Rd, Perth.
Gin fans, there?s a Pop-Up Gin Garden at the WA Museum. Note: door sales will be limited, so visit the WA Museum?s Pop-Up Gin Garden page for booking details.
Progressive dinners
There are three progressive dinners available, each showcasing one or more of the city?s newest dining venues. If you?re keen, get your booking in quick. I?m sure these will be very popular.
Cake Blessing and Aussie BBQ
For Mothering Sunday on 10 March there will be a Cake Sale and BBQ in aid of the Perth Women?s Refuge, 5pm at St George?s Cathedral, 38 St Georges Terrace. More info: 9325 5766.
Classes and workshops
There are classes and workshop to suit a range of tastes and budgets, including:
Sadly, some of the classes that appeal to me will be held in the middle of the day and I?ll be at work ? but if you go to any, I?d love to hear what you thought/learned/ate.
Tastings and classes at European Foods
If you can get yourself to Northbridge around lunch time on Thursdays, European Foods at 93-101 Aberdeen Street is holding free tastings and classes. For more information: 9328 7455.
Yum Cha in the Park is back for 2013, with yum cha and other food stalls, live music, lion dances and a roving magician. Also back is the chicken feet eating competition, which was hotly contested last year.
23 March, 11am to 2pm in Northbridge Piazza. Free entry.
My write-up of Yum Cha in the Park 2012.
Chicken feet eaters at Yum Cha in the Park, 2012.
The Eat Drink Perth passport is packed with over 60 exclusive dining offers from Perth city food retailers. You can preview the passport here, but only original vouchers will be accepted by the participating retailers, so make sure you order yours online or grab one at the i-City Information Kiosk in Murray Street Mall. You can also pick up Small Bar, Coffee Stops and Food and Drink guides at the i-City Kiosk.
I?ve only mentioned some of the events for Eat Drink Perth. To find out more and get the latest info:
I?ll be out and about at events during March, so if you see me (probably pointing my camera at something), do say hi.
This isn?t related to Eat Drink Perth but food lovers may be be pleased to know the City of Perth will be reviewing/revising local laws that govern mobile food and beverage operations in the city. The underlying principle is to encourage mobile food/drink vendors to make use of under-utilised city spaces, especially where there may currently be limited food options, and outside of normal trading hours, to avoid direct competition with other rate-paying fixed businesses.
Those who follow me on Facebook know I am all for regulations that take into account the established businesses in the area as well support mobile vendors. Well done to Roy Chin of Jumplings for starting the Perth Gourmet Food Van initiative last year and to the City of Perth for agreeing to review/revise the mobile food and beverage vendor regulations.
Source: http://www.thefoodpornographer.com/2013/02/22/eat-drink-perth-is-back-march-2013/
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(PRWEB UK) 21 February 2013
Kaplan International Colleges has opened the voting process for their Love at Kaplan Facebook video competition.
Inspired by Valentine?s Day, Kaplan International Colleges launched Love at Kaplan; a competition designed to encourage students and staff to share messages of love to their friends, families and partners by using video messaging and social media.
The competition was met with great enthusiasm by staff, students and fans alike who declared their love via video. All the entrants are competing for the prize, which is a romantic meal for two at a restaurant of the winner?s choice.
Voting for the competition has now officially opened on the Kaplan Facebook page and will last a week. The winner with the most votes will receive the prize of restaurant vouchers to the amount of ?100.
Hazel Marie Francis, Kaplan?s social media assistant, said: ?Valentine?s is a great time of year for engagement with our social media channels and Love at Kaplan has sparked creative and fun video content. I?m looking forward to seeing who will win the prize ? and how their date goes!?
Kaplan, a leading provider of English language courses, recently reached a social media milestone by reaching more than 75,000 fans on their global Facebook page.
About Kaplan International Colleges
Kaplan International Colleges is part of Kaplan, Inc., an international education services provider offering higher education, professional training, and test preparation. Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO). http://www.kaplaninternational.com
Source: http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10454744.htm
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The spirit still exists, but public enthusiasm is waning for "Operation Sweettooth."
In December, with Christmas being the traditional busiest time for orders for cookies to be sent to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the project's coordinators, Roger and Diane Ahrens, sent only six boxes of the holiday treats.
"And many of those boxes went to the USO site in Bahrain airfield (in the Middle East)," Diane said. "We hardly had any orders this Christmas. Maybe people are getting too used to the project."
The Ahrens own the Piece-A-Cake Bakery in East Dundee. For seven years, they have been shipping cookies and Rice Krispie Treats to Dundee Township area residents in the military and stationed in the war zones.
When they started their project, they mailed from 15-17 boxes during December. Families of the soldiers ordered the cookies and paid for the postage. The North River Street business owners, baked them, wrapped them individually, and mailed them to the military men and women.
"We put 75 sugar, chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin cookies, and Rice Krispie Treats in each box," Diane said. We wanted the people receiving them to be able to share them with the people they are will."
Christmas wasn't the only time the confections were ordered.
"We received orders all year and for all different occasions: birthdays, Valentine's Day," Diane said. "One time we sent cookies to a father who was stationed overseas. It was a baby announcement; his wife had twins."
The couple knows how important it is to receive packages from home. Both of them served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Remembering the excitement of opening her mail, they vowed to continue with "Operation Sweettooth" until the troops are home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We still have troops in Iraq, and we have troops in Afghanistan," she said. "I've promised to continue this until they are home. I don't want them to think they are forgotten. I know what it's like to be hot and tired. I've received thank-you notes from many of the soldiers. I know that their whole moods change by receiving the packages."
The program will continue in 2013.
"I'll keep going until they are home."
To order cookies or to make a donation to "Operation Sweettooth" call the bakery at (847) 836-6703.
Source: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130213/news/702139785/
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For the past eleven years I have been teaching a class at the Wharton School of Business on strategic thinking/planning, and in preparation for my return in a few weeks for year number twelve, I decided to take a hard look at where the practice of strategic thinking and creating organizational strategy stands today.
During the past decade the velocity of change, hyper-fast technological shifts, globalization and turbulence in the global economy has dramatically impacted the way organizations create strategies. I have some very strong opinions about this, which I will share with you at the end of this memo, but I thought this wonderful blog from the Harvard Business Review would be a good place to start a discussion on strategy, strategic thinking and strategic planning.
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Don?t Let Strategy Become Planning?? By Roger Martin
I must have heard the words ?we need to create a strategic plan? at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard ?we need to create a strategy.? This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned. Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called ?strategies.? That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies. But how does a strategic plan of this sort differ from a budget? Many people with whom I work find it hard to distinguish between the two and wonder why a company needs to have both. And I think they are right to wonder. The vast majority of strategic plans that I have seen over 30 years of working in the strategy realm are simply budgets with lots of explanatory words attached. This may be the case because the finance function is deeply involved in the strategy process in most organizations. But it is also the cause of the deep antipathy I see, especially amongst line executives, toward strategic planning. I know very few who look forward with joy to the commencement of the next strategic planning cycle.
To make strategy more interesting ? and different from a budget ? we need to break free of this obsession with planning. Strategy is not planning ? it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns. I find that once this is made?clear to line managers they recognize that strategy is not just fancily-worded budgeting and they get much more interested in it.
Obviously you can?t execute a strategy without initiatives, investments, and budgeting. But what you need to get managers focused on before you start on those things is the strategy that will make these initiatives coherent. That strategy is a singular thing; there is one strategy for a given business ? not a set of strategies. It is one integrated set of choices: what is our winning aspiration; where will we play; how will we win; what capabilities need to be?in place; and what management systems must be instituted? That strategy tells you what initiatives actually make sense and are likely to produce the result you actually want. Such a strategy actually makes planning easy. There are fewer fights about which initiatives should and should not make the list, because the strategy enables discernment of what is critical and what is not.
This conception of strategy also helps define the length of your strategic plan. The five questions can easily be answered on one page?and if they take more than five pages (i.e. one page per question) then your strategy is probably morphing unhelpfully into a more classical strategic plan. This definition of strategy can be?disconcerting to those who have spent a lifetime generating traditional strategic plans. Not long ago I facilitated a day long strategy session with the senior team of a very successful $10 billion company with an outstanding CEO. By the end of the day (in part thanks to a goodly amount of pre-work by the head of strategy), we got to a nice set of integrated choices. I congratulated the group on its great thinking and working and affirmed what I judged to be?an excellent strategy. My enthusiasm notwithstanding, the CEO was troubled. I asked him why. ?Is that all we have to do?? he asked, as if he thought he had cheated on an exam. I am sure he expected that he had to fill binders and long lists of initiatives to feel that he had been thorough in this year?s strategic planning process. I reassured him that he had given strategy anything but short shrift. And that day strategy prevailed over planning. I suspect that CEO will never go back.
So if you pass the five-page mark is time to ask: Are we answering the five key questions or are we doing something else and calling it strategy? If it is the latter: eject, eject!
Roger Martin (www.rogerlmartin.com) is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada.
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Five questions, five pages, not a budget? I agree completely with all of these, I very much like the way, Roger Morton approaches the idea of strategy and strategic planning. Let me share with you some other fantastic thoughts from a gentleman named Max McKewon who wrote a superb book called: ?The Strategy Book? (super creative title!!). Here are a few samples of what resonated with me out of Max?s book?
?There are strategy tools and processes that can help, but the real heart of strategy is the strategist. It?s what you know, how you think, and how you get people to care enough about what you?re doing to achieve your goals.?
?There is no guarantee that the future will turn out the way you want. Just writing a plan does not mean that the plan will happen. The world is more complex than our ability to plan, but that?s part of what an effective strategist learns to accept. You learn that reacting and responding to events is just as important as planning.?
?Strategy is about the shortest route between means and ends. It?s either about out-thinking the competition ? or ? even better ? about finding new, even greater opportunities. Opportunities that the competition hasn?t found yet, or opportunities the competition doesn?t understand because it hasn?t been doing the kind of thinking that you have.?
?It?s possible to be?a strategic thinker without using any strategy tools, but it?s not possible to create brilliant strategy without being a strategic thinker. There is an important difference between creating strategy documents and creating strategy to get you where you want to be. There?s also a valuable difference between managerial thinking and strategic thinking.?
?It?s difficult for some people to accept that reacting (not just planning) is a good thing. Managers have been taught?the value of being (or looking!) organized. They have learned that being ?proactive? is what the business world wants. They have been told that being reactive is a bad thing. It?s good to plan but it?s bad to think that you can plan for everything. You need a prepared mind ready to recognize unplanned opportunities.?
Reactive as well as proactive ? being a strong strategic thinker- understanding that the complexity of today?s business world is too great to plan long-term ? yet that it is still imperative that you make a plan? again, I find myself in very close agreement.
Here are a few things that I?ve learned in more than a decade of thinking about and teaching strategic thinking/strategic planning and conducting hundreds of strategic planning retreats?
?
?
Please reread the equation I just presented, it is deceptively simple and extremely powerful.
?
?
Again, please reread the idea I just presented, it is deceptively simple and extremely powerful.
?
Max said in his book, but I will reiterate it here, it is impossible to create great strategy without being a great strategic thinker ? unfortunately the vast majority of managers/leaders that I work with do not invest an adequate amount of time in building their business acumen and exposing themselves to great/unique/different/new ideas ? which is exactly what they must do if they endeavor to become a strong strategic thinker. The first step of being a superior strategic thinker is being a lifelong student of business, strategy, marketing, positioning, branding? all the elements that create differentiation.
This is exceedingly simplistic, but I basically see the entire process of creating an effective strategic plan as six core steps:
As I look over this list a few things come to mind:
Well, I think that?s enough for right now, my main goal in this memo was simply to get you thinking about strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning and strategic execution.
I very much welcome your questions, comments, thoughts and suggestions ? there?s still much to be learned about the art of strategy.
Take good care, and as always if you need anything please do not hesitate to send or a call, I?m here to assist in any way I can ? John
John Spence?has twice been named by Trust Across America as one of the Top 100 Business Thought Leaders in America and has been recognized?by that organization as one of the top 100 Thought Leaders in the world in the area of ?Trustworthy Business Behavior.? Other recipients of this award include: Sir Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Group, Howard Schultz ? CEO of Starbucks, Tony Hsieh?- CEO of Zappos, acclaimed business consultant Ram Charan, internationally renowned author Thomas L. Friedman, and business authors Patrick Lencioni, Tom Peters, Rosabeth?M. Kanter and Jim Kouzes. In 2011 John was also selected as a leading small business influencer?in America along with Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin and Apple.
Source: http://blog.johnspence.com/2013/02/thoughts-strategic-palnning/
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TIANJIN, China ? Fifty years ago, during a time of food shortages, China?s young socialist government singled out a few farm villages as role models for the nation, saying that their high crop yields made them examples that other communities could learn from.
Today, facing challenges like runaway urbanization, soaring energy consumption and environmental degradation, China ?is hoping to establish a different set of paragons. With its cities expected to swell by another 350 million residents in the next 25 years, ?according to World Bank estimates, the government is scurrying to find sustainable urban solutions. ?To that end, it hopes to have 100 model cities, 200 model counties, 1,000 model districts and 10,000 model towns by 2015.
But already, some of the model cities mapped out early on, like Dongtan, an eco-city that was to house 500,000 people on Chongming Island near Shanghai, have been abandoned because of a range of problems like official corruption and goals that proved overly ambitious.
Conversely, an eco-city in Tianjin created in concert with the government of Singapore is the latest, biggest and most successful of the projects to date. The Chinese government hopes that it will emerge as an economic powerhouse along the lines of regional agglomerations of cities in the Yangtze River and Pearl River Delta regions.
A little more than five years ago, this area on Tianjin?s outskirts was a blend of nonarable saline and alkaline land that was virtually uninhabitable. But today, in contrast to water in much of the rest of China, the tap water here is drinkable. More than 400 residents have already moved into the pilot district, which is nearing completion. Around 5,000 apartments have been sold. The city plans eventually to house some 350,000 residents.
This eco-city also stands out because of the attention afforded to it by the Chinese central government. China?s deputy prime minister, Wang Qishan, is a co-chairman of its steering committee.
Tianjin has some of China?s strictest building energy-efficiency standards, and the eco-city is trying to go beyond this by offering developers certification based on more advanced green building standards, said Axel Baeumler, the lead author of a 2012 World Bank report on Chinese eco-cities and a 2011 book about Tianjin.
Perfecting technologies like these could prove useful and cost- effective for retrofitting projects in other Chinese cities, he suggested.
?This is as serious as an experiment currently gets in China and the most advanced of China?s eco-cities, Mr. Baeumler said. ?I think they have a fair chance of getting it as right as one can get it right.?
?The key is that they take stock now, after phase one, and see what works, what isn?t working, and extract lessons learned,? he said.
Looming wind turbines can be spotted as you drive into the city along an avenue lined with solar photovoltaic street lights, but Dalson Chong, a government official said the wind power is apparently not yet connected to the grid. According to a 2009 World Bank report, the city?s heat and power supply will come mainly from outside the city, and renewable energy resources in the area are relatively scarce.
Questions are also being raised about other eco-friendly aspects of the city. Government officials assert that by 2020, 90 percent of travel within the city will be made on foot, by bicycle or via public transportation. Tian Xian, a new resident of the eco-city, said that she walked to work and to stores and traveled by bus when she left the areas.
Each apartment also comes with an underground parking space, however, and government officials said that charging stations and subsidies for electric cars are planned. ?The question is,?If I drive an electric car, how do I charge it?? ? said Yang Fuqiang, a senior adviser on climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. ?It has to be convenient,? he said. ?If, in the beginning, they get the details wrong, it is hard to make changes later.?
Wide tarmac roads designed for cars dwarf the narrow bike lanes and sidewalks running alongside them here. And while many of the city?s tall slimmer buildings are clustered together to increase walkability, these giant blocks are about four times the size of a typical block in Manhattan and make pedestrian and bike journeys cumbersome, said Arish Dastur, an urban specialist at the World Bank.
It is this lack of a human scale in the basic urban plan, which will be nearly impossible to change once the city is fully built, that has drawn the most criticism.
Critics also say that little is being done to educate residents about energy efficiency and recycling. Although neighborhood centers intended to teach people about sustainable practices will be scattered across the eco-city, each would serve an average of about 20,000 residents. The eco-city has a more complicated recycling system than the rest of the country, with residents being asked to separate their discards into five categories.
Some experts suggest that generous government investment, a strong partnership with Singapore and the city?s location on the bustling coast make what successes Tianjin has achieved hard to replicate.
But Mr. Baeumler is more optimistic about the prospects for other eco-cities and about Tianjin itself. ?It?s very easy to say, ?Look at Tianjin, it won?t work,? and a lot of people do,? he said. ?But the other way of looking at it is, China is moving 350 million people to cities over the next 20 years, so you have to think differently.?
?This is one model,? he said. ?There are others out there. Let?s look at them, take stock, and take it from there.?
Michael Lu, a resident who moved into his new apartment in November, seems to agree.
Outside the lone supermarket in the eco-city, he scanned an eerily quiet cityscape dotted with cranes. ?Of course I?m not satisfied with the current state of the eco-city,? Mr. Lu said. ?But I?m hoping that in three or four years, it?ll be very different.?
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To celebrate the release of his new album 'A Moving Picture', Devlin has announced a headline show in London this Spring.
The rapper will play Koko on the 30th April, with tickets on sale at 9am on Friday 15th February.
Following the Top 10 success of recent single 'Rewind', Devlin released his second album 'A Moving Picture' last week. The London rapper established himself as one of the leading lights of the UK grime scene with his 2010 debut album 'Bud, Sweat and Beers' and has confirmed his critical standing with the follow-up and his status as one of the genre's few authentic voices.
'A Moving Picture' includes collaborations with Katy B, Ed Sheeran, Wretch 32, Etta Bond and Chasing Grace.
Devlin Live:
30th April - London, Koko
MORE INFORMATION:
http://officialdevlin.com
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Source: http://hundasdavis.blogspot.com/2013/02/self-help-anger-management-incredible.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? This is what "Forward" looks like. Fast forward, even.
President Barack Obama's campaign slogan is springing to life in a surge of executive directives and agency rule-making that touch many of the affairs of government. They are shaping the cost and quality of health plans, the contents of the school cafeteria, the front lines of future combat, the price of coal. They are the leading edge of Obama's ambition to take on climate change in ways that may be unachievable in legislation.
Altogether, it's a kinetic switch from what could have been the watchword of the Obama administration in the closing, politically hypersensitive months of his first term: pause.
Whatever the merits of any particular commandment from the president or his agencies, the perception of a government expanding its reach and hitting business with job-killing mandates was sure to set off fireworks before November.
Since Obama's re-election, regulations giving force and detail to his health care law have gushed out by the hundreds of pages. To some extent this was inevitable: The law is far-reaching and its most consequential deadlines are fast approaching.
The rules are much more than fine print, however, and they would have thickened the storm over the health care overhaul if placed on the radar in last year's presidential campaign. That, after all, was the season when some Republicans put the over-the-top label "death panel" on a board that could force cuts to service providers if Medicare spending ballooned.
The new health law rules provide leeway for insurers to charge smokers thousands of dollars more for coverage. They impose a $63 per-head fee on insurance plans ? a charge that probably will be passed on to policyholders ? to cushion the cost of covering people with medical problems. There's a new fee for insurance companies for participating in markets that start signing customers in the fall.
In short, sticker shock.
It's clear from the varied inventory of previously bottled-up directives that Obama cares about more than "Obamacare."
"I'm hearing we're going to see a lot of things moving now," Hilda Solis told employees in her last day as labor secretary. At the Labor Department, this could include regulations requiring that the nation's 1.8 million in-home care workers receive minimum-wage and overtime pay.
Tougher limits on soot from smokestacks, diesel trucks and other sources were announced just over a month after the Nov. 6 election. These were foreseen: The administration had tried to stall until the campaign ended but released the proposed rules in June when a judge ordered more haste.
Regulations give teeth and specificity to laws are essential to their functioning even as they create bureaucratic bloat. Congress-skirting executive orders and similar presidential directives are less numerous and generally have less reach than laws. But every president uses them and often tests how far they can go, especially in times of war and other crises.
President Harry Truman signed an executive order in 1952 directing the Commerce Department to take over the steel industry to ensure U.S. troops fighting in Korea were kept supplied with weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court struck it down.
Other significant actions have stood.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an order in February 1942 to relocate more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast to internment camps after Japan's attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base. Decades later, Congress passed legislation apologizing and providing $20,000 to each person who was interned.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush approved a series of executive orders that created an office of homeland security, froze the assets in U.S. banks linked to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, and authorized the military services to call reserve forces to active duty for as long as two years.
Bush's most contentious move came in the form of a military order approving the use of the military tribunals to put accused terrorists on trial faster and in greater secrecy than a regular criminal court.
Obama also has wielded considerable power in secret, upsetting the more liberal wing of his own party. He has carried forward Bush's key anti-terrorism policies and expanded the use of unmanned drone strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan and Yemen.
When a promised immigration overhaul failed in legislation, Obama went part way there simply by ordering that immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children be exempted from deportation and granted work permits if they apply. So, too, the ban on gays serving openly in the military was repealed before the election, followed now by the order lifting the ban on women serving in combat.
Those measures did not prove especially contentious. Indeed, the step on immigration is thought to have helped Obama in the election. It may be a different story as the administration moves more forcefully across a range of policy fronts that sat quiet in much of his first term.
William Howell, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the author of "Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action," isn't surprised to see commandments coming at a rapid clip.
"In an era of polarized parties and a fragmented Congress, the opportunities to legislate are few and far between," Howell said. "So presidents have powerful incentive to go it alone. And they do."
And the political opposition howls.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said that on the gun-control front in particular, Obama is "abusing his power by imposing his policies via executive fiat instead of allowing them to be debated in Congress."
The Republican reaction is to be expected, said John Woolley, co-director of the American Presidency Project at the University of California in Santa Barbara.
"For years there has been a growing concern about unchecked executive power," Woolley said. "It tends to have a partisan content, with contemporary complaints coming from the incumbent president's opponents."
The power isn't limitless, as was demonstrated when Obama issued one of his first executive orders, calling for closing the military prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba and trying suspected terrorists housed there in federal courts instead of by special military tribunals. Congress stepped in to prohibit moving any Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S., effectively blocking Obama's plan to shutter the jail.
Among recent actions:
?Obama issued presidential memoranda on guns in tandem with his legislative effort to expand background checks and ban assault-type weapons and large capacity magazines. The steps include renewing federal gun research despite a law that has been interpreted as barring such research since 1996. Gun control was off the table in the campaign, as it had been for a decade, but the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school in December changed that overnight.
?The Labor Department approved new rules in January that could help save lives at dangerous mines with a pattern of safety violations. The rules were proposed shortly after an explosion killed 29 men at West Virginia's Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, deadliest mining accident in 40 years. The rules had been in limbo ever since because of objections from mine operators.
?The government proposed fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits in almost all food sold in schools, extending federal nutritional controls beyond subsidized lunches to include food sold in school vending machines and a la carte cafeteria lines. The new proposals flow from a 2010 law and are among several sidelined during the campaign.
The law provoked an outcry from conservatives who said the government was empowering itself to squash school bake sales and should not be telling kids what to eat. Updated regulations last year on subsidized school lunches produced a backlash, too, altogether making the government shy of further food regulation until the election passed. The new rules leave school fundraisers clear of federal regulation, alleviating fears of cupcake-crushing edicts at bake sales and the like.
?The Justice Department released an opinion that people with food allergies can be considered to have the rights of disabled people. The finding exposes schools, restaurants and other food-service places to more legal risk if they don't accommodate patrons with food allergies.
?The White House said Obama intends to move forward on rules controlling carbon emissions from power plants as a central part of the effort to restrain climate change, which the president rarely talked about after global-warming legislation failed in his first term. With a major climate bill unlikely to get though a divided Congress, Obama is expected to rely on his executive authority to achieve whatever progress he makes on climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to complete the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from new coal-fired power plants. The agency also probably will press ahead on rules for existing power plants, despite protests from industry and Republicans that such rules would raise electricity prices and kill off coal, the dominant U.S. energy source. Older coal-fired power plants have been shutting across the country because of low natural gas prices and weaker demand for electricity.
?In December, the government proposed long-delayed rules requiring automakers to install event data recorders, or "black boxes," in all new cars and light trucks beginning Sept. 1, 2014. Most new cars are already getting them.
?The EPA proposed rules to update water quality guidelines for beaches and control runoff from logging roads.
As well, a new ozone rule probably will be completed this year, which would mean finally moving forward on a smog-control standard sidelined in 2011.
A regulation directing federal contractors to hire more disabled workers is somewhere in the offing at the Labor Department, as are ones to protect workers from lung-damaging silica and reduce the risk of deadly factory explosions from dust produced in the making of chemicals, plastics and metals.
Rules also are overdue on genetically modified salmon, catfish inspection, the definition of gluten-free in labeling and food import inspection. In one of the most closely watched cases, Obama could decide early this year whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.
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Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Mary Clare Jalonick and Sam Hananel contributed to this report.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-wielding-executive-power-2nd-term-125939108--politics.html
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