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Source: http://politomix.com/foxnews/163451/obama-wraps-post-state-of-union-tour-in-chicago/
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Saturday, February 16, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Tamagotchi celebrates its super sweet 16 with an Android app, Ferrari cake nowhere in sight
In celebration of 16 years of Tamagotchi, Namco Bandai has cooked up a new mobile app based on the brand's original virtual pet. Free to download from Google Play, this piece of '90s nostalgia has been re-imagined with new features like color, improved image resolution and Facebook sharing. Fancy new bells and whistles aside, you'll still need to feed and discipline your digital pet in order for it to thrive. So, if your device is running Android 2.3 or higher and you're ready to clean up some pixelated poop, head on over to the Play Store to download your household's newest edition.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets
Via: Droid-Life
Source: Google Play
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/_VCOykT5T70/
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Renault wipes out auto debt for first time in Nissan tie-up
Renault SA, France's second-largest carmaker, eliminated debt at the auto-manufacturing unit for the first time in its 14-year tie-up with Nissan Motor Co. as it held back on spending and refrained from cutting vehicle prices.
Renault jumped to a two-year high in Paris trading after saying the automotive unit's net cash position was 1.49 billion euros ($2 billion) at the end of 2012 compared with net debt of 299 million euros a year earlier, the first time the figure was positive since the Boulogne-Billancourt-based carmaker set up the alliance with its Japanese partner in 1999.
The French manufacturer, which reported earnings for 2012 that beat analyst estimates, said it's planning on sustaining earnings and cash by adding to its model lineup to take a larger share of a shrinking European car market. Profit was also helped as Renault and Nissan tightened ties last year with Russian carmaker OAO AvtoVAZ.
"It's clearly positive to have a net cash position as it should have a positive impact on refinancing rates which is crucial in the automotive industry," Sascha Gommel, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Commerzbank AG, said Thursday in an e- mail. "In addition, it increases the likelihood of dividends from the core business at some point."
Backed by the revamped Clio subcompact and budget Dacia Logan, the French automaker forecast that its global deliveries will rise this year. It's also targeting positive automotive- division earnings and operational cash flow in 2013. Even with a contraction in Europe of at least 3 percent, the worldwide car and light-truck market will expand 3 percent this year, with growth of as much as 11 percent in India, it said.
The Nissan-Renault alliance is proceeding with creating a small-car platform in India targeting first-time auto buyers, Rachel Konrad, a spokeswoman for the partnership, said today in an e-mail. Gerard Detourbet, who helped lead the Logan's development, will lead the project, she said. The Economic Times reported that investment in the platform will total 20 billion rupees ($371 million) and annual capacity will amount to 300,000 vehicles. Konrad declined to comment on figures.
Renault's worldwide deliveries last year fell 6.3 percent to 2.55 million cars and light vehicles. Sales in Europe tumbled 19 percent, the steepest decline by a large manufacturer in a market that contracted 7.8 percent.
The drop in Europe was "much worse" than Renault expected, Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn told analysts on a conference call. Even so, "we didn't want to go into a price war" in the region, he said at a press conference in Boulogne- Billancourt. The Spanish and Italian auto markets will probably be at 30-year lows in 2013, he said.
The French carmaker is forecasting a weaker first half of 2013 than in the final six months of this year, the CEO said. Russian operations are the most profitable for the company, the CEO said, and he's "bullish" on the market and the partnership with AvtoVAZ.
Nissan, Renault and Milan-based UniCredit SpA are setting up a bank in Russia specializing in auto loans, the three companies said today in a separate statement. The two car manufacturers will have a 60 percent stake in the financing venture, which is set to be operational by the end of this year, and the Italian bank will own the rest.
Renault's automotive operations posted a loss of 25 million euros in 2012 compared with profit of 330 million euros a year earlier. The positive net cash position at the unit was helped by a 924 million-euro gain from the sale of Renault's remaining 6.5 percent holding in Volvo in December, it said. Operational free cash flow at the division was 597 million euros.
The carmaker hopes that eliminating debt at the manufacturing unit will improve credit ratings for the parent company and its RCI Banque financing unit, Chief Financial Officer Dominique Thormann said in an interview. Renault's debt is one step below investment grade at Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.
The carmaker's earnings-recovery strategy includes plans to eliminate 7,500 jobs through 2016 in France, and the company is in talks with labor unions on raising worker productivity. Renault is also trying to broaden its product range by reviving the Alpine sports-car label and developing the Initiale Paris insignia into a full-fledged luxury brand.
Renault is sticking to a "medium-term" target of earnings at 5 percent of sales, though it won't reach that figure this year, Ghosn said.
Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130214/AUTO0104/302140426/1148/rss25
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Choosing the Right Dog For You | Steve Dale's Pet World
One of the big time reasons dogs land at shelters is that people choose the wrong breed, or wrong individual dog to match their lifestyle and their personalities. While most dogs would give their lives for members of their immediate ?families (and love isn't too strong a word to describe the relationship), a pawful spend a lifetime trying ?but are terminally living with people unsuited for them. It's just not a good match. Or families just can't meet a dog's individual needs. For example, an elderly family may not have the ability to take a Labrador Retriever to water for a good swim, or to the park for a good run. And/or that dog may be just too strong for them. Where if that same family had a Yorkshire Terrier, it wouldn't be an issue.
Making the right choice in the first place is?imperative? How do you know what type of dog, or for that matter individual dogs, ?is right for you? Dog trainer Sarah Hodgson offers this hugely fun quiz , "What breed of dog are you?" ?While her quiz has no scientific foundation, it's just for 'entertainment purposes.' Still, if?the?quiz starts people thinking about making the right match, that's a very good thing and will save lives.
Let me offer some examples, I frequently see exasperated owners with Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers. They wonder how these "crazy dogs" can ever be calm therapy dogs or lead the visually impaired without dragging them down the street, much less simply be a suitable pet. With any breed think of what they were?originally?bred to do. These guys were bred to run on hunts, and to keep running and into water to?follow?the downed birds. Some Golden and Lab genetic lines are incredibly energetic (other pet lines not so much), and they may be especially wacky as "teenagers." Still, when properly socialized, these dogs are famously wonderful. Some must love them. For 21 years Labradors top the list of popular dogs in America. But it doesn't mean they're for every family.
If you're live in an apartment, are active but older - and still seek a dog to "assist" your hearing when someone's at the door, a?Yorkshire?Terrier might be one of many great choices.
That's the thing, there are many great choices. The choices aren't always necessarily pure bred dogs, they may be shelter dogs. Shelter workers and adoption counselors, who see the dogs in their care daily, are your best resource for describing an?individual?dogs' personality.
Always adopt or purchase an dog with all family members present. And be honest about your lifestyle, how often you are home (or not home), your willingness to exercise the dog, how you feel about barking, etc. Understand that breed generalities are just that - all dogs are individuals.
Now once you have the dog home, it's important to provide to meet the needs of the newest family member. That means providing appropriate play time, appropriate socialization (particularly for puppies), appropriate attention and the appropriate diet.
As for diet - feed to the dog's age. Puppy food for pups, as an example. Also, these days, you may be more targeted. For example, Royal Canin offers some breed specific foods. For example, for Labradors the kibble is shaped like a donut (to slow down the ravenous vacuum inhaling dogs, so they chew their food), and is high in protein (to meet energy needs) and contains lots of L-Carnitene (to burn fat).
?
Filed under: dogs, pet food
Tags: breed specific diets, choosing the right dog, Dog breeds, Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, Royal Canin, Sarah Hodgson, Steve Dale, Steve Dale archives, What dog breed are you, Yorkshire Terriers
Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2013/02/choosing-the-right-dog-for-you/
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To Win Cheap One Direction Tickets Search Online - ArticlesWide.com
One Direction as a band has made considerable progress since it made its debut single. There are huge expectations from the second album Take Me Home. A group of five talented men have taken the music industry by storm. This British Irish band shows great talent. Hence, as a music lover one will love the idea of watching them perform live. However, for that to materialize one will have to keep an idea of their show scheduling and more importantly get hold of one direction concert tickets on that particular date when the show will be held.
The process is easy. Popular bands such as them perform almost every day. Here two things will have to coincide. Firstly, it must be at an appropriate date when one is free. Secondly, if it is nearby then there is simply nothing like it. Agreed, one can always catch the flight to any destination, however that is bound to be costly. Now the all-important question is where does one get all this information? It is simple and easy. With the advent of internet, one can avail all information sitting in the cozy confines of home. Every piece of information regarding their show timings is there online.
Now is the ticket booking part. Here too gone are the days of standing in long queues. For cheap one direction tickets, net perceptive people can always search online. Here, one will come across minute details to make sure everything is hassle free. Along with the show dates, venue and timing the ticket prices are also mentioned. Thus, booking is hassle free. One can always pay via plastic money. In fact, on instances there may be people who have extra tickets. Some near or dear one has not come due to some problems. On such instances, again one can look at sell those extra tickets online.
This is a band, which has huge fan following. Therefore, if there are some extra tickets one need not panic. They will disappear in quick time. In fact, as a diehard One Direction fan one can always sign up for the latest news regarding them. Here one will be updated regarding their latest releases and their latest concert venues. In this modern busy world, this form of update is helpful. One hardly gets time to surf the net after a hard day of work. Updates are important medium together information about anything a person would like to know. It helps to stay in touch.
For more information on tickets for one direction, check out the info available online; these will help you learn to find the one direction tour
Source: http://www.articleswide.com/article/16549-To_Win_Cheap_One_Direction_Tickets_Search_Online.html
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
Obama, business groups differ on minimum wage plan
President Barack Obama speaks to workers and guests at the Linamar Corporation plant in Arden, N.C., Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013, as he travels after delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
President Barack Obama speaks to workers and guests at the Linamar Corporation plant in Arden, N.C., Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013, as he travels after delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Chart shows states with minimum wages higher than the Federal wage
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama says raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour and tying future increases to inflation will boost the incomes of millions living in poverty and spur job growth by pouring more money into the economy. But business groups are not so sure.
They complain that increasing the federal rate from $7.25 an hour would discourage employers from hiring new workers, hurting the very people Obama aims to help.
Obama pointed out in his State of the Union address Tuesday that 19 states and the District of Columbia already have minimum wages set above the federal rate of $7.25, creating a vast wage disparity across the country.
And 10 of those states make annual cost-of-living adjustments, including Washington state, where workers earn at least $9.19 an hour, the highest minimum in the country.
The plan faces certain hurdles in Congress, as top Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, wasted little time dismissing the proposal.
More than 15 million workers earn the national minimum wage, making about $15,080 a year. That's just below the federal poverty threshold of $15,130 for a family of two.
Selling his plan to a crowd in Asheville, N.C., on Wednesday, Obama said it's time to increase the minimum wage "because if you work full time, you shouldn't be in poverty."
Advocates say a minimum wage increase can lead to even broader economic benefits.
"These are workers who are most likely to spend virtually everything they earn, so it just pumps money back into local economies," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group.
That will trigger spending at small businesses in their communities, stimulating consumer demand and driving economic growth, Owens said.
Economists have long disputed the broader impact of setting a minimum wage. A major 1994 study by labor economists David Card and Alan Krueger found that a rise in New Jersey's minimum wage did not reduce employment levels in the fast-food industry. Krueger now is chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Yet that study has come under fire from other economists, who argue that comparing different states over time shows that raising the minimum wage hurts job growth.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said a higher minimum wage would boost incomes for some poorer workers. But it would also discourage employers from hiring more of them.
"So on net, I am not sure it helps," he said.
William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the increase would hit businesses hard and only hurt low-wage workers by reducing demand for their services.
"The higher the price of anything, the less that will be taken, and this includes labor," Dunkelberg said. "Raising the cost of labor raises the incentive for employers to find ways to use less labor."
The government first set a minimum wage during the Great Depression in 1938. It has been raised 22 times since then ? the last increase went into effect in 2009 ? but the value has eroded over time due to inflation.
Obama's latest plan would raise the hourly minimum to $9 by 2015 and as well as increase the minimum wage for tipped workers, which has not gone up for more than two decades.
As for states that have already set minimum wages above the federal rate, they range from $7.35 in Missouri to the high of $9.19 in Washington. In 10 of those states ? Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington ? the minimum wage is automatically adjusted every year to keep pace with the rising cost of living.
Women represent nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, while black and Hispanic workers represent a higher share of the minimum-wage workforce than whites, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The last federal minimum wage increase was signed into law by President George W. Bush, when it increased from $5.15 to $7.25 in a three-step process between 2007 and 2009.
The last recession began in the middle of that process and took an especially heavy toll on middle-wage positions, which accounted for 60 percent of jobs lost in the crushing downturn. Most of the job growth since the 2010 recovery has been in low-wage jobs. Owens, for one, contends, "There's no compelling case to be made that raising the minimum wage triggered job losses."
Doug Hall, director of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, estimates that raising the minimum wage to $9 would pump $21 billion into the economy and lead to the creation of 120,000 jobs.
But Randel Johnson, vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for labor issues, said the increase would come "on the backs of employers," who would hire fewer people and cut overtime.
"You don't put new burdens on employers when they are trying to recover in a tough recessionary time," he said.
Johnson also warned against tying wage increases to inflation.
"Employer profits are not magically indexed somehow to always go up," Johnson said. "Congress needs to look at the validity of raising the minimum wage in the context of the economic times in which it's being proposed."
That concern is expected to drive Republican opposition in Congress. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who delivered the GOP response to Obama's State of the Union address, said Wednesday that raising the minimum wage is the wrong way to help workers increase wages.
"I don't think a minimum wage works," Rubio said on "CBS This Morning." ''I want people to make more than $9 dollars an hour. The problem is you can't mandate that."
Boehner, the House speaker, told reporters Wednesday: "When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it."
The Obama administration points to companies such as Costco, Wal-Mart and Stride Rite that have supported past minimum wage increases. The White House says higher wages help build a strong workforce and lower turnover, improving profitability over the long run.
___
AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
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Southwest regional warming likely cause of pinyon pine cone decline
Feb. 12, 2013 ? Creeping climate change in the Southwest appears to be having a negative effect on pinyon pine reproduction, a finding with implications for wildlife species sharing the same woodland ecosystems, says a University of Colorado Boulder-led study.
The new study showed that pinyon pine seed cone production declined by an average of about 40 percent at nine study sites in New Mexico and northwestern Oklahoma over the past four decades, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Miranda Redmond, who led the study. The biggest declines in pinyon pine seed cone reproduction were at the higher elevation research sites experiencing more dramatic warming relative to lower elevations, said Redmond of CU's ecology and evolutionary biology department.
"We are finding significant declines in pinyon pine cone production at many of our study sites," said Redmond. "The biggest declines in cone production we measured were in areas with greater increases in temperatures over the past several decades during the March to October growing season."
Temperature and precipitation were recorded at official long-term weather stations located near each of the nine sites. Overall, average temperatures in the study areas have increased by about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the past four decades, she said.
A paper on the subject by Redmond, Assistant Professor Nichole Barger of CU-Boulder and Frank Forcella of the United States Department of Agriculture in Morris, Minn., appeared in a recent issue of the journal Ecosphere, published by the Ecological Society of America. The new study was funded primarily by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to Redmond.
The cones in which the pinyon seeds are produced are initiated two years prior to seed maturity, and research suggests the environmental stimulus for cone initiation is unseasonably low temperatures during the late summer, said Redmond. Between 1969 and 2009, unseasonably low temperatures in late summer decreased in the study areas, likely inhibiting cone initiation and development.
The study is one of the first to examine the impact of climate change on tree species like pinyon pines that, instead of reproducing annually, shed vast quantities of cones every few years during synchronous, episodic occurrences known as "masting" events. Redmond said such masting in the pinyon pine appears to occur every three to seven years, resulting in massive "bumper crops" of cones covering the ground.
In the new Ecosphere study, the researchers compared two 10-year sequences of time. In addition to showing that total pinyon pine cone production during the 2003-2012 decade had declined from the 1969-1978 decade in the study areas, the team found the production of cones during masting events also declined during that period.
Some scientists believe masting events evolved to produce a big surplus of nut-carrying cones -- far too many for wildlife species to consume in a season -- making it more likely the nuts eventually will sprout into pinyon pine seedlings, she said. Others have suggested masting events occur during favorable climate conditions and/or to increase pollination efficiency. "Right now we really don't know what drives them," Redmond said.
"Across a range of forested ecosystems we are observing widespread mortality events due to stressors such as changing climate, drought, insects and fire," said CU's Barger. "This study provides evidence that increasing air temperatures may be influencing the ability of a common and iconic western U.S. tree, pinyon pine, to reproduce. We would predict that declines in pinyon pine cone production may impact the long-term viability of these tree populations."
Wildlife biologists say pinyon-juniper woodlands are popular with scores of bird and mammal species ranging from black-chinned hummingbirds to black bears. A 2007 study by researchers at the University of Northern Arizona estimated that 150 Clark's Nutcrackers cached roughly 5 million pinyon pine nuts in a single season, benefiting not only the birds themselves but also the pines whose nuts were distributed more widely for possible germination.
For the new study, Redmond revisited nine pinyon pine study sites scattered throughout New Mexico and Oklahoma that had been studied previously in 1978 by Forcella. Both Forcella and Redmond were able to document pinyon pine masting years by counting small, concave blemishes known as "abscission scars" on individual tree branches that appeared after the cones have been dropped, she said.
Since each year in the life of a pinyon pine tree is marked by a "whorl" -- a single circle of branches extending around a tree trunk -- the researchers were able to bracket pinyon pine reproductive activity in the nine study areas for the 1969-1978 decade and 2003-2012 decade, which were then compared.
Pinyon pines take three growing seasons, or about 26 months, to produce mature cones from the time of cone initiation. Low elevation conifers including pinyon pines grow in water-limited environments and have been shown to have higher cone output during cool and/or wet summers, said Redmond. In addition to the climate-warming trend under way in the Southwest, the 2002-03 drought caused significant mortality in pinyon pine forests, Redmond said.
"Miranda's ideas and accompanying results will be of value to ecologists and land managers in the deserts of the Southwest and beyond," said Forcella, now a research agronomist in the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. "The work is evidence that the University of Colorado continues to cultivate a cadre of high-caliber graduate students for which it rightfully can take tremendous pride."
Pinyon nuts, the Southwest's only commercial source of edible pine seeds today, were dietary staples of indigenous Americans going back millennia.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Colorado at Boulder.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Miranda D. Redmond, Frank Forcella, Nichole N. Barger. Declines in pinyon pine cone production associated with regional warming. Ecosphere, 2012; 3 (12): art120 DOI: 10.1890/ES12-00306.1
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/xkBe5mMw2Ko/130212132005.htm
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