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Sunday, December 30, 2012
Syracuse Plows West Virginia, 38-14, In Snowy 2012 Pinstripe Bowl (VIDEO/PHOTOS)
NEW YORK ? The weather made passing at the Pinstripe Bowl perilous, so Syracuse sent Prince-Tyson Gulley and Jerome Smith dashing through West Virginia and the snow.
Gulley ran for a career-best 208 yards and had three touchdowns, Smith added 157 yards, and the Orange bid a blustery farewell to the Big East with a 38-14 victory Saturday.
Syracuse (8-5) will enter the Atlantic Coast Conference on a roll after finishing this season with six wins in its last seven games, capped by its second postseason victory at Yankee Stadium in the last three years.
In a bowl played in a baseball stadium, with weather more suited for a playoff game in Green Bay, the team that plays in a dome ended up being better equipped to handle the elements.
"The football Gods brought snow," said Smith, who carried a season-high 30 times. "The football Gods from Syracuse brought us some snow and it changed even West Virginia's game. They had to run a little bit more than they were used to. We ran the ball a little bit more than we're used to and did what we were supposed to do."
Syracuse finished with a season-high 369 yards on the ground and beat its former Big East rival from West Virginia, now playing in the Big 12, for a third straight time.
"They just did a better job than us at the line of scrimmage," Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen said. "To be in a game like this when you've got to rely on your run defense to help you win and you're not able to do it, it's frustrating."
Geno Smith connected with Stedman Bailey for two touchdown passes for West Virginia (7-6), but the Mountaineers' quarterback also was sacked in the end zone in the first half and called for intentional grounding in the end zone in the third quarter to give Syracuse a second safety.
Smith, who was an early Heisman Trophy front-runner as the Mountaineers got off to a 5-0 start this season, was 16 for 26 for 197 yards in the final game of his record-breaking career. The NFL awaits.
Same goes for Ryan Nassib, though Syracuse didn't ask much of its talented senior quarterback. He threw two touchdown passes and an interception. His most impressive feat on this day was surviving being driven into the cold turf by Terence Garvin on a sack in the first half. Nassib missed only one play.
"It's my last game, man, nothing's going to take me out," he said.
Especially against a West Virginia team the Orange felt didn't give them much credit after two straight victories over the Mountaineers.
"It was about us going out there and getting respect," tackle Justin Pugh said. "They didn't give us any respect. We kind of said three strikes you're out. Beat them three straight times, so they really can't say anything now."
Snow fell just about all game, giving most of the field a white dusting. Fans were bundled and players not in the game tried to do the same. It took a while for those potent offenses ? both ranked in the top 25 nationally in yards per game ? to heat up, which seemed appropriate considering the conditions.
"Cold. Cold," said Jerome Smith, a junior from Delaware. "I never got a chance to play in the snow, but it was good."
His running mate from Akron, Ohio, had just a bit more experience playing in wintry weather.
"In pee-wees I played in some (snow) like this but not in high school," said Gulley, who carried 25 times. "It was fun."
A goal-line stand by West Virginia in the second quarter kept Syracuse out of the end zone, but set up the Orange for a scoring run.
Left at the 1, the Mountaineers tried to pass out of their end zone, but Geno Smith was smothered by blitzing linebackers Cameron Lynch and Siriki Diabate to make it 5-0 ? a baseball score, of course.
The Orange followed that up with a 33-yard touchdown run by Gulley to make it 12-0 with 6:07 left in the second.
The Mountaineers responded with their first sustained drive. Bailey took a quick pass, darted and broke tackles, and scooted 32 yards to the end zone to make it 12-7.
The Orange extended the lead to 12 to start the second half when they caught a break ? and a touchdown pass. Nassib's throw was tipped around the goal line, but floated safely into the waiting arms of intended receiver Beckett Wales for a 10-yard score.
West Virginia appeared to answer with a touchdown of its own. Andrew Buie broke free for a 28-yard TD run on fourth-and-2. Not so fast. A holding call on the Mountaineers wiped out the play and sent Holgorsen on to the field screaming at the officials.
It didn't help. Instead of a touchdown, a punt.
Holgorsen had nothing to say about the call and was more disappointed with how his team responded.
"We did a poor job of continuing to play. A poor job of overcoming some things," he said.
Moments later another close call, this time on a fumble by Geno Smith which was reviewed to determine if it was an incomplete pass, went Syracuse's way, and again the Orange capitalized.
On the next play, Gulley broke through the line, bounced to the outside and went 67 yards for a touchdown to make it 26-7 with 6:52 left in the third.
West Virginia wouldn't let Syracuse pull away. Smith found Bailey deep down the sideline, beating one-on-one coverage for a 29-yard score 1:11 later.
Back came the Orange, nine plays, 70 yards, with Gulley taking a swing pass from Nassib 10 yards to make it 33-14.
From there the 60th meeting between these teams, but first in a bowl, was a romp in the snow for Syracuse.
___
Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphdrussoap
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/syracuse-west-virginia-pinstripe-bowl-2012_n_2382371.html
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Saturday, December 29, 2012
Shopping And Product Reviews - cebaln's posterous
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
CP Group denies Thaksin role in Ping An acquisition - The Nation
Home ? business ? CP Group denies Thaksin role in Ping An acquisition
CP Group VS Ping An
The Nation December 26, 2012 1:00 am
"The Charoen Pokphand Group would like to officially clarify as follows: The acquisition of shares were legal - the source of capital is transparent," the group said in a statement yesterday.On December 5, All Gain Trading, Bloom Fortune Group, Business Fortune Holdings and Easy Boom Developments signed an agreement to transfer shares of Ping An Insurance from the seller HSBC Insurance Holdings and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The deal raised eyebrows as it was valued at US$9.4 billion or 73.32 billion Hong Kong dollars (Bt288 billion).
"All four companies are subsidiaries of CP which CP fully owns," CP Group insisted. "Furthermore, this acquisition was conducted with legal capital from the Charoen Pokphand Group and its subsidiaries."
It also said that since the People's Republic of China opened up its economy in 1979, CP had cooperated well with its government. CP was the first foreign entity to invest in China and throughout the years, CP had upheld Beijing's three agricultural-development policies as well as the "Three Benefits Principle" (benefit to the country, benefit to the people and benefit to the company).
In addition, CP said, it had continually reformed agricultural management such as expanding farmland, setting strict standards and modernising agriculture.
It said it was confident in the development of Ping An Insurance and aimed to collaborate with the company to develop every sector in the rural area, in line with the policy of modernising China's agricultural sector.
It was reported by Chinese media this week that Thaksin might have taken part in the acquisition of Ping An Insurance.
Caixin Media's Century Weekly magazine reported, quoting sources, that about a third of the HK$15.2-billion (Bt60-billion) first tranche of the purchase was funded by the Shinawatra family, while the rest came from businessman Xiao Jianhua.
Xiao is the founder of several banking and securities firms and has also invested in some. He is reportedly close to former top Chinese government leaders and securities watchdog officials. Century Weekly said his purchase of the Ping An stake was funded by three commercial banks he has links to.
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Getting into Shapes: From Hyperbolic Geometry to Cube Complexes
A proof announced in March resolved the last of 23 questions about 3D shapes posed in 1982 by mathematician William Thurston, marking the end of an era in the study of "three-manifolds"
Figure 3. When viewed through the lens of hyperbolic geometry, all the fish are the same size. The curves that run along the fishes? spines are hyperbolic straight lines, or "geodesics." Image: Illustration: Douglas Dunham, University of Minnesota Duluth
From Simons Science News (find original story here).
Thirty years ago, the mathematician William Thurston articulated a grand vision: a taxonomy of all possible finite three-dimensional shapes.
Thurston, a Fields medalist who spent much of his career at Princeton and Cornell, had an uncanny ability to imagine the unimaginable: not just the shapes that live inside our ordinary three-dimensional space, but also the far vaster menagerie of shapes that involve such complicated twists and turns that they can only fit into higher-dimensional spaces. Where other mathematicians saw inchoate masses, Thurston saw structure: symmetries, surfaces, relationships between different shapes.
?Many people have an impression, based on years of schooling, that mathematics is an austere and formal subject concerned with complicated and ultimately confusing rules,? he wrote in 2009. ?Good mathematics is quite opposite to this. Mathematics is an art of human understanding. ? Mathematics sings when we feel it in our whole brain.?
At the core of Thurston?s vision was a marriage between two seemingly disparate ways of studying three-dimensional shapes: geometry, the familiar realm of angles, lengths, areas and volumes, and topology, which studies all the properties of a shape that don?t depend on precise geometric measurements ? the properties that remain unchanged if the shape gets stretched and distorted like Silly Putty.
To a topologist, the surface of a frying pan is equivalent to that of a table, a pencil or a soccer ball; the surface of a coffee mug is equivalent to a doughnut surface, or torus. From a topologist?s point of view, the multiplicity of two-dimensional shapes ? that is, surfaces ? essentially boils down to a simple list of categories: sphere-like surfaces, toroidal surfaces, and surfaces like the torus but with more than one hole. (Most of us think of spheres and tori as three-dimensional, but because mathematicians think of them as hollow surfaces, they consider them two-dimensional objects, measured in terms of surface area, not volume.)
Thurston?s key insight was that it is in the union of geometry and topology that three-dimensional shapes, or ?three-manifolds,? can be understood. Just as the topological category of ?two-manifolds? containing the surfaces of a frying pan and a pencil also contains a perfect sphere, Thurston conjectured that many categories of three-manifolds contain one exemplar, a three-manifold whose geometry is so perfect, so uniform, so beautiful that, as Walter Neumann of Columbia University is fond of saying, it ?rings like a bell.? What?s more, Thurston conjectured, shapes that don?t have such an exemplar can be carved up into chunks that do.
In a 1982 paper, Thurston set forth this ?geometrization conjecture? as part of a group of 23 questions about three-manifolds that offered mathematicians a road map toward a thorough understanding of three-dimensional shapes. (His list had 24 questions, but one of them, still unresolved, is more of an intriguing side alley than a main thoroughfare.)
?Thurston had this enormous talent for asking the right questions,? said Vladimir Markovic, a mathematician at the California Institute of Technology. ?Anyone can ask questions, but it?s rare for a question to lead to insight and beauty, the way Thurston?s questions always seemed to do.?
These questions inspired a new generation of mathematicians, dozens of whom chose to pursue their graduate studies under Thurston?s guidance. Thurston?s mathematical ?children? manifest his style, wrote Richard Brown of Johns Hopkins University. ?They seem to see mathematics the way a child views a carnival: full of wonder and joy, fascinated with each new discovery, and simply happy to be a part of the whole scene.?
In the decades after Thurston?s seminal paper appeared, mathematicians followed his road map, motivated less by possible applications than by a realization that three-manifolds occupy a sweet spot in the study of shapes. Two-dimensional shapes are a bit humdrum, easy to visualize and categorize. Four-, five- and higher-dimensional shapes are essentially untamable: the range of possibilities is so enormous that mathematicians have limited their ambitions to understanding specialized subclasses of them. For three-dimensional shapes, by contrast, the structures are mysterious and mind-boggling, but ultimately knowable.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5ce9c9493f34b63896b4bacab71f79b8
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Internet Marketing Advice That Can Make You More Successful | Jim ...
Mistakes Are Costing You! Learn To Stop?Making ALL 189 Of Them!
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Affiliate marketing is quite a fascinating area. Many businesses, both large and small, have benefited greatly from online forms of advertising. While this is exciting, it can also be stressful for the Website marketing beginner. Use these tips to get started with your website.
Technology moves fast, and if your company wants to keep up, you are going to have to take advantage of all the technology available for marketing success. Neglecting to remain current undermines your clients? confidence in your capabilities. If you want to gain respect and see more sales, you need to show visitors that you are up-to-date in your field.
Make sure you are very knowledgeable about the content on your site. This is vital not solely because it gains you credibility about your field, but it also prevents you from appearing dishonest because you don?t know what you?re talking about.
TIP! Solicit feedback whenever possible. This is very important to your business, as your perception of your prices and your site?s appearance might differ from the customer?s opinion.
Offer freebies that are branded with your company and submit those freebies to the websites that advertise those kinds of deals. If it is a free e-book, submit it to websites that offer free e-books. You can find many websites that are happy to list free offers.
Craft your banner ads so that they stand out from the other million banner ads on the web. The more appealing and original your banner ad appears, the more people you?ll have clicking on it.
TIP! Put some banners on your header, make sure they do not look like a banner. If they appear as clickable links, your customers will be more apt to use them.
People focus on website URLs. Make sure your website is easy to remember so that a customer will be able to quickly and easily access it whenever they desire. When you are setting up your company, you should always try to incorporate your brand name or company name. While customers can Google you, make it simpler by having an address they can easily remember and type into their search bars.
Study the most successful techniques that your competitors are using, then expand on them and use them with your website. If your competitors? websites make you want to buy something, analyze the techniques used to make you feel that way.
You possess the skills needed to be successful in online marketing. You don?t need elaborate software or a wild, far-fetched scheme, you only need yourself. You simply need a good strategy and a great work ethic.
TIP! The internet has turned business into an anonymous affair. Small businesses benefit from this the most as they rely on a more personal and relationship based strategy to help sell, and create a lifelong customer base.
Give your customers a reason to visit your website. You don?t need to create an entire encyclopedia, but having a good amount of information that your customers can easily access is important. Add reviews, articles and other content that will let prospective customers know that you are a business that knows your industry.
You can use online tools to determine the efficiency of your marketing approach; one option is to calculate the percentage of site visitors who ultimately end up making a purchase. Most major companies online offer various add-ons and trackers, which allow you to see the comparison of visitors to sales numbers and repeat customers.
A title often commands respect. If you?re a business owner, become CEO. If you are not the owner, you can still adopt an impressive title. When you write articles ensure you have a good title and sign it along with your name.
TIP! Any online business plan and marketing strategy should include a fully secure ordering process. Guarantee the security of your customer?s information so they are not leery of sharing it with you.
You can?t succeed at Website marketing without a great website. Regularly test your site to make sure there are no broken links, missing images, or other problems. If your website proves to be full of mistakes or links that don?t work, then your potential customers will go elsewhere.
Tailor versions of your website to different audiences worldwide. Offer visitors the option of choosing their own language when viewing your site. With a more global approach, you will get a lot of traffic and a lot more customers. If a person can read your website in their preferred language, they will feel more comfortable, and you raise the chance that they will place an order with you.
Advertising is your best avenue to making your online business successful. Advertising can greatly increase the profits of your business. It helps to make new customers that may not have been able to find you otherwise.
TIP! A little sizzle in your website design can be good, but don?t overwhelm your readers with fancy tricks. You only have a few seconds to engage your potential customer and give them a reason to stay on your site.
Marketing online is like other markets in some ways; however, in other ways, it is very different. For example, what if search engines stopped emphasizing title keywords in their ranking systems? If this happens, you will have to adjust your marketing strategy.
Make a simple video where you demonstrate using the products that you are selling. That way the customer is going to see you use the product. Be sure to demonstrate any and all features and benefits that the product has. Upload this video to sites such as Youtube, and put it on your blog.
Marketing over the Internet is something that is filled with multiple strategies and it can be perceived as a gift or a curse. It is a good thing that there is a lot of room for customization, but that means it can be very difficult to make your choices. The following tips will make your journey into Web marketing a success.
TIP! Design an all-inclusive website with an emphasis on fresh, relevant content. Give knowledge to your customers in a short time, so they are informed prior to purchasing a product.
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Source: http://leucabiz.com/blog/internet-marketing-advice-that-can-make-you-more-successful/
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Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Ranchers split over US border security plan
NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) ? When Dan Bell drives through his 35,000-acre cattle ranch, he speaks of the hurdles that the Border Patrol faces in his rolling green hills of oak and mesquite trees ? the hours it takes to drive to some places, the wilderness areas that are generally off-limits to motorized vehicles, the environmental reviews required to extend a dirt road.
John Ladd offers a different take from his 14,000-acre spread: the Border Patrol already has more than enough roads and its beefed-up presence has flooded his land and eroded the soil.
Their differences explain why ranchers are on opposite sides of the fence over a sweeping proposal to waive environmental reviews on federal lands within 100 miles of Mexico and Canada for the sake of border security. The Border Patrol would have a free hand to build roads, camera towers, helicopter pads and living quarters without any of the outside scrutiny that can modify or even derail plans to extend its footprint.
The U.S. House approved the bill authored by Utah Republican Rob Bishop in June. But prospects in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate are extremely slim and chances of President Barack Obama's signature even slimmer. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified in Congress this year that the bill was unnecessary and "bad policy."
Still, an idea that House Republicans kicked around for years has advanced farther in the legislative process than ever before and rekindled discussion over how to balance border security with wildlife protection.
The debate raises some of the same questions that will play out on a larger scale when Congress and the president tackle immigration reform: Is the U.S. border with Mexico secure, considered by some lawmakers to be a litmus test for granting legal residency and citizenship to millions? Has the U.S. reached a point of border security overkill?
Heightened enforcement ? along with a fewer available jobs in the U.S. and an aging population in Mexico ? has brought Border Patrol arrests to 40-year lows.
The U.S. has erected 650 miles of fences and other barriers on the Mexican border, almost all of it after a 2005 law gave the Homeland Security secretary power to waive environmental reviews. The administration of President George W. Bush exercised its waiver authority on hundreds of miles after years of court challenges and environmental reviews delayed construction on a 14-mile stretch in San Diego.
The Border Patrol, which has doubled to more than 21,000 agents since 2004, has also built 12 "forward operating bases" to increase its presence in remote areas. Instead of driving long distances from their stations every shift, agents stay at the camps for several days.
Lots more needs to be done, according to backers of Bishop's bill to rewrite rules on millions of acres of federal land managed by the Interior and Agriculture departments, including more than 800 miles bordering Mexico and 1,000 miles bordering Canada. The bill would waive reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and 14 other laws in dozens of wilderness areas, national forests and national parks.
"It's a paralyzing process now," Bell, 44, said as his GMC truck barreled down a dirt road on a 10-mile stretch of his ranch that borders Mexico. "They wanted to put this road in for a decade, probably even longer. They broke ground on it last year."
Bell, a burly, third-generation rancher who leases his land from the Agriculture Department, acknowledges there are noticeably fewer border crossers since the government built a fence on the eastern part of his ranch, near Nogales. In the ranch's west end, the Border Patrol opened one of its camps in 2005 ? a collection of shipping containers that agents use as a base while alternating 12-hour shifts.
Yet migrants continue crossing in some rugged reaches that are well outside of cellphone range. Bell says waiving environmental reviews within 100 miles of the border may be unnecessary but that a 25-mile zone would help immensely.
"There are areas where the agents can't get to," he said. "By the time they get out of the station and get to these remote areas, then hike another two or three hours just to get close to the border, they have to come back because their day is pretty much eaten up. It's really difficult when there's no access out there."
Ladd, a fourth-generation rancher whose spread near Douglas is in a flatter, more easily traveled area of mesquite-draped hills, thinks the Border Patrol has gone far enough. The agency installed four 80-foot camera towers on his land about six years ago. In 2007, it completed a fence along the 10.5 miles of his ranch that borders Mexico.
Rainfall that runs downhill from Mexico is stopped by debris caught in the mesh fence and an adjoining raised road, Ladd says. The water is diverted to other areas, causing floods and soil erosion on his property.
Ladd, 57, thinks the bill would allow the Border Patrol to "run roughshod" over ranches and farms.
"Be careful what you wish for, they're going to tear it up," Ladd tells other ranchers. "Once they get in, it pretty well turns into a parking lot. It's really hard to get them out."
Ladd says the 37 miles of roads on his ranch are enough for the Border Patrol's needs. "Why do you need new ones?" he asks.
The Interior Department raised concerns in a survey of Arizona's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge last year that found nearly 8,000 miles of off-road vehicle trails, blaming much of it on smuggling and Border Patrol activity. It urged the Border Patrol to rely on tools like radars and cameras, which are less threatening to wildlife.
Critics of the Border Patrol's growth have long called new fences, roads and other infrastructure a threat to Sonoran pronghorn, Mexican grey wolves, jaguars and other border wildlife.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2010 offered fodder for both sides of the debate. It found Border Patrol supervisors generally felt land laws didn't hinder them on the job but that the agency sometimes encountered roadblocks. An unnamed agency took four months to review a Border Patrol request to move a camera tower in Arizona, by which time traffic had moved to another area.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who has led opposition to the bill that has largely split along party lines, calls the effort a disguised step toward repealing environmental laws.
"The border has become a very convenient excuse to go after laws that have been on the books for four or five decades," he said. "You plant your flag on the 100 miles (of border) and then build from there."
Bishop dismisses that criticism as a scare tactic and a "lousy argument."
"Sovereign countries control their borders. Anything that stops us from that is a violation of why we are a nation," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ranchers-split-over-us-border-security-plan-175026635.html
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Monday, December 24, 2012
Cats and song tributes dominate viral videos
By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor
This year, we discovered it was possible to mash up wildly divergent parts of pop culture (Cookie Monster and The Dark Knight), or pretend we were riding horses ("Gangnam Style" tributes) or just watch a cat spin on a turntable. And then we sent those videos around. Everywhere. To everyone.
In case you missed some of the year's great viral videos, we've compiled?a list of our favorites.
(Note: Some of the videos may have adult language, or situations.)
Movies
Darth Vader visits Disneyland, rides teacups
Okay, so it was part of a big ad campaign following Disney?s acquisition of George Lucas? space opera epic -- but that didn?t make the mashup of Lord Vader with the Happiest Place on Earth any less hilarious. Thanks to cheap editing software and a prevailing geek ethic, virals featuring comic book characters/movie franchise heroes (Batman Gets Lost Thanks to Apple Maps) and straight-up Pixar favorites (?Toy Story? toys burn up in family prank on Mom) were among the most popular this year. And let?s not forget the mashups: Prepare for your holiday travel with the Scariest Flights from Films in One Supercut and then calm your nerves by watching 250 Movies in 2 Minutes.
TV
Downton Tabby
Popular TV shows were ripe for parody. PBS?s ?Downton Abbey? offered the most fertile ground for hilarity, from the use of cats (see above) to subbing in a former Will Smith character (The Fresh Prince of ?Downton Abbey?). ?Breaking Bad? also was popular for mixologists, who blended the meth-making characters with a pop tune (Taylor Swift Takes ?Breaking Bad? Turn). Sometimes multiple shows got mashed together, as in Don Draper Eats Brains on ?Walking Dead Mad Men.? And wouldn?t ?Game of Thrones? be even more interesting if, instead of swords, they borrowed from "Star Wars"? (?Game of Thrones? with Lightsabers.)
PBS
Happy Little Trees Grow Again in Bob Ross video
If ?Downton Abbey? held a warm place in many readers? hearts, nostalgia for PBS and Muppet-related programming was white-hot. Gentle painter Bob Ross was able to paint again, while singing, thanks to auto-tune (see video above), a connection was forged between Cookie Monster and Batman (Video Proves Dark Knight is Secretly Cookie Monster), and the Muppets welcomed ?The Voice?s? Cee Lo into their homes (Muppets Join Cee Lo on ?All I Need Is Love? video).?
Music
USA Olympic Swimming Team?s ?Call Me Maybe? Tribute
U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen Go ?Gangnam Style?
A newcomer to the U.S. must think everyone is out there dancing (or galloping) in the streets 24/7, thanks to the flood of ?Gangnam Style? and ?Call Me Maybe? tribute videos. (The original "Gangnam Style" video itself hit 1 billion views on Dec. 21.) Among the most-watched of these videos here at TODAY.com were the Olympic Swimming Team?s tribute to the Carly Rae Jepsen song?and the Naval Academy?s take on ?Gangnam Style.? Ohio University?s band also got into the ?Gangnam? act, as did Hugh Jackman when singer PSY visited the ?Wolverine? set, and clever editors managed to get both Klingons and Bill Nye in on the Korean pop sensation. Even the president got in on it, unwittingly, thanks to auto-tune and some clever editing, as his ?version? of ?Call Me Maybe? proves.
Kids
Autistic child ballerina dances her way into viewers' hearts with viral video
Songs are funny but kids are gold: One of our most popular stories of the entire year came from the video of an autistic child ballerina going through her steps in perfect precision with a pro. Katy Perry also stepped up to the mic with a little girl who had autism and sang with her onstage. And lest anyone think all kids can do is sing, it turns out they can also kick a little butt, as the ?Dragon Baby? video showed in graphic (hey, stuffing is just pouring out of that toy?s wound!) detail.?
Cats and Dogs
Cat Wanders Into Weather Report
Cats don?t care. They just do their thing. And sometimes, when they do, a camera captures their awesome indifference. Another one of the year?s top clicks went to the kitty who wandered onto Univision?s Miami news set as Eduardo Rodriguez read out the weather; the crew just couldn?t stop laughing, but at no time did Rodriguez break a sweat. A cat also delighted readers with its ride on a record player, and to be fair to canines, the much-clicked sight of actor Kevin Bacon diving into a pool with his pet pit bull Lucy was also hugely popular.
So what was your favorite viral video of the past year? What did we miss? Let us know on Facebook!
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Researchers induce, relieve depression symptoms in mice with light
Dec. 12, 2012 ? Among those who suffer from depression, the dual inabilities to experience enjoyment in things once pleasurable and to physically motivate oneself -- to meet challenges, or even to get out of bed in the morning -- have been documented for decades, though it has been mysterious why these very different kinds of symptoms show up together, and also disappear together when depression is successfully treated. It has been suspected that the brain chemical dopamine could be a key player in the illness. And yet, in the long history of the study of depression, no one has been able to clearly tie these key concepts together, until now.
Researchers at Stanford University have successfully induced and relieved depression-like deficiencies in both pleasure and motivation in mice by controlling just a single area of the brain known as the ventral tegmental area. It is the first time that well-defined types of neurons within a specific brain region have been directly tied to the control of myriad symptoms of major depressive illness.
In the paper to be published in Nature on Dec. 12, Stanford bioengineer Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, and a team including postdoctoral scholars Kay Tye, PhD, and Melissa Warden, PhD, and research assistant Julie Mirzabekov have used a technique known as optogenetics to pinpoint a specific brain location that produces multiple depression-like symptoms. The region in question is the ventral tegmental area, or VTA, a source of dopamine and a central player in the brain's internal motivation and reward systems.
"We have for the first time directly tied dopamine neurons in the VTA to controlling and relieving these very different and diverse symptoms," said Deisseroth, the study's senior author and a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. "While depression is a complex disease with still many unknowns, this knowledge may help launch new kinds of investigation into the pathways of depression in the brain, and develop concepts to help people suffering from depression."
Deisseroth's team was able to both induce and relieve multiple depression-like symptoms in laboratory mice by genetically modifying the dopamine neurons in the VTA to be sensitive to light. Using fiber optic cables inserted in rodents' brains, they could then instantaneously produce and inhibit the depression-like symptoms by turning the light on and off. This research technique, developed by Deisseroth at Stanford in 2005, is known as optogenetics.
The team examined mice in a depressed-like, low-motivation state induced by mild stressors whose VTA neurons had been optogenetically modified. "When given light stimulation to the VTA dopamine neurons, these mice showed a robust increase in escape-related behavior. They immediately tried harder to get out of challenging situations -- reversing back to normal levels of effort from the depressed-like state they were in," explained Deisseroth.
Similarly, he said, when offered the choice of sugar water over plain, the mice that had been in a depressed-like state chose the sugar water with much greater frequency when their VTA dopamine neurons were stimulated by illumination. They opted to experience pleasure -- back to normal levels. Finally, and remarkably, Deisseroth noted, optogenetically inhibiting the VTA dopamine neurons instead of stimulating them caused, rather than corrected, both kinds of depression symptoms -- instantaneously and reversibly.
"These results directly implicated a single class of neuron in a single brain region -- ventral tegmental dopamine neurons -- in both producing and relieving very different depression-related symptoms, addressing a mystery in disease pathophysiology," said Deisseroth.
And yet, another key question still remained: What are the VTA dopamine neurons doing to downstream circuits? In other words, how are the depression-related control signals read out? To answer these questions, the researchers next took the work a step further by mapping the effects of dopamine neuron activity in the VTA on the nucleus accumbens, a brain center thought to influence diverse functions of pleasure, and likely the site of action for addictive drugs as well as natural rewards. Seeing a change in the nucleus accumbens would provide information on the mechanism for how VTA dopamine neuron effects are manifested in the brain.
"Indeed, we established that electrophysiological representation of action in the nucleus accumbens is in fact fundamentally altered by VTA dopamine neuron activation. If we activate the VTA dopamine neurons, it influences the nucleus accumbens' encoding of physical, motivated action," emphasized Deisseroth. Together, these results represented a long-sought circuit-level insight into the causes and nature of depression-related behavior.
While the results are significant, Deisseroth, who is also a practicing psychiatrist, cautioned that depression and other mental illnesses are complex, multidimensional and vary from patient to patient. The symptoms of depression are certainly influenced by many neural circuits, he said.
"Nonetheless, the VTA dopamine circuitry we studied is very similar in both rodents and humans. And we have shown that the neurons in this circuit specifically cause, correct and encode diverse symptoms of depression. This is a significant advance in our understanding of the biological underpinnings of depression and related behaviors, with promising implications for future research," said Deisseroth.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University Medical Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- Dipesh Chaudhury, Jessica J. Walsh, Allyson K. Friedman, Barbara Juarez, Stacy M. Ku, Ja Wook Koo, Deveroux Ferguson, Hsing-Chen Tsai, Lisa Pomeranz, Daniel J. Christoffel, Alexander R. Nectow, Mats Ekstrand, Ana Domingos, Michelle S. Mazei-Robison, Ezekiell Mouzon, Mary Kay Lobo, Rachael L. Neve, Jeffrey M. Friedman, Scott J. Russo, Karl Deisseroth, Eric J. Nestler, Ming-Hu Han. Rapid regulation of depression-related behaviours by control of midbrain dopamine neurons. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11713
- Kay M. Tye, Julie J. Mirzabekov, Melissa R. Warden, Emily A. Ferenczi, Hsing-Chen Tsai, Joel Finkelstein, Sung-Yon Kim, Avishek Adhikari, Kimberly R. Thompson, Aaron S. Andalman, Lisa A. Gunaydin, Ilana B. Witten, Karl Deisseroth. Dopamine neurons modulate neural encoding and expression of depression-related behaviour. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11740
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/szTahLwI7Jg/121212134056.htm
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Ghana opposition to contest poll results
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) ? Ghana's opposition party said Tuesday that they plan to contest the results of the recent presidential election, ignoring the appeals of the international community, which fears that a protracted political fight could destabilize one of the only established democracies in the region.
Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, the chairman of the New Patriotic Party, whose candidate lost last Friday's election, said that the party has widespread evidence of fraud. The results published by the election commission handed victory to incumbent President John Dramani Mahama with 50.7 percent of the vote.
"With the abundant evidence we have gathered, the (party) cannot therefore accept the declared results of the election," said Lamptey. "The party has instructed its legal team to file a petition in the supreme court."
The opposition said the widespread technical glitches that occurred with the biometric machines used to identify voters through their fingerprints created an opportunity for the ruling party to rig the vote. Officials were forced to extend voting into a second day in scores of polling stations due to the malfunctioning equipment, but despite the disorder caused by the delay, international observers say the vote was transparent overall.
Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo came in second with 47.7 percent of the vote. He lost the 2008 presidential election by less than 1 percent, making his loss in this month's election ever more painful. Analysts say that this was the last chance for the 68-year-old career politician, the son of a former president of Ghana.
On Monday, the president of the African Union, Yayi Boni, made a point of stopping by Akufo-Addo's house to convince him to concede defeat in the interest of safeguarding Ghana's reputation for peace. Ghana, a nation of 25 million on Africa's western seaboard, remains one of the few established and stable democracies in the region, following the unexpected devolution of the Malian state, which until a coup eight months ago was also considered a model democracy.
The opposition held a rally attended by thousands of people in a roundabout in Accra. Party General-Secretary Kwadwo Owusi-Afriyie said: "We shall continue to protest on this ground until the results are changed."
He added that they had heard that the government plans to arrest party leaders and warned that "we would make the country ungovernable if they dared."
Akufo-Addo told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday that his party has compiled data from polling stations which they are comparing with the published results.
"All of the information we have, the primary data, the results of the polling stations are consistently not tallying with many of the declared results," said Akufo-Addo. "It would seem to be a serious case for saying that something has gone wrong," he said.
International observers from the African Union and the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States, have endorsed the election as free and fair.
"There were hiccups but not such that would grossly undermine the result of the election," said Olusegun Obasanjo, former Nigerian president and head of both observer missions.
Akufo-Addo countered that there were only 2,500 observers in the country for 26,000 polling stations and they could not check all stations for discrepancies.
Observers are concerned that Ghana's status as a model of democracy in West Africa could be compromised if the opposition challenges the results and calls for street protests. Thousands of riot police fanned out across the capital and the country ahead of Tuesday's announcement by the opposition, but despite the heightened security presence, the streets remained calm.
Ghana's former President Jerry John Rawlings said there is a need to look into the opposition's accusations of rigging. "Much as l am happy that President Mahama has won, the complaints that have been made must be taken seriously to make sure that everything is investigated," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ghana-opposition-contest-poll-results-170443529.html
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Thursday, December 6, 2012
Zynga Takes First Step Towards Gambling In Nevada, Says Process Will Take More Than A Year
Zynga has applied for a "preliminary finding of suitability" from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which the first step towards offering real-money gambling games in that state. The news broke in the Wall Street Journal, and Zynga has confirmed it, though it notes that the process will take 12 to 18 months, and says that it sees gambling in the "broader U.S. market" as "further out on the horizon based on legislative developments." Here's the full statement from Chief Revenue officer Barry Cottle:Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2uabQBmORWM/
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Smart Reviews From Stupid Celebrities: ?Zero Dark Thirty? The Hunt Is On
Smart Reviews From Stupid Celebrities: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ The Hunt Is On
O.M.G. What an intense film! My knuckles were white from clinging onto my seat. ?Zero Dark Thirty? took me to a place of darkness. There was a dash of unexpected humor, too, but I?wasn’t?able to muster a smile. I was after all, on a manhunt for the most wanted man in America: Osama Bin Laden. ...
Smart Reviews From Stupid Celebrities: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ The Hunt Is On Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
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Sulentic Becomes CBRE Group CEO | Commercial Property Executive
December 4, 2012 
By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor
Robert Sulentic
CBRE Group Inc.?s new president and CEO, Robert E. Sulentic, is officially on the job. Sulentic moved up the ladder from his previous job as president and stepped into the shoes of former CEO Brett White, who had announced his impending retirement in May 2012. The transition was a seamless one, with White having formally relinquished the role on November 30 and Sulentic having put on the CEO hat on December 1.
Sulentic has been a member of the CBRE family since 2006, when he came aboard as group president with the merging of Trammell Crow Co. and CBRE. He was tasked with overseeing CBRE?s EMEA and Asia Pacific operations and soon after, he became CEO of the Development Services business. His rise at CBRE continued in 2009, when he was named CFO to help guide the company through the real estate market downturn. His most recent title was that of president, a position in which he spearheaded all of CBRE?s business lines and operating segments.
Now Sulentic is the head of the largest commercial real estate services firm, in terms of 2011 revenue. The role of CEO of a major real estate concern is not a new one for Sulentic; he was CEO of Trammell Crow before its acquisition by CBRE.
In addition to becoming CEO, Sulentic has also joined CBRE?s board of directors, where he will continue his interaction with White, who remains a member of what is now an 11-person group.
The changeover at the top marks the biggest step in CBRE?s current succession planning, which, as a CBRE spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive in July, involves all levels of the organization. The summer brought a slew of promotions. Among them, the naming of Calvin Frese as CEO of the company?s Americas business and the tapping of Mike Lafitte to serve as global president of CBRE Services.
?Our Company has many strengths, including our brand, culture, depth of resources and market intelligence, and most of all, our exceptional people,? Sulentic said in a prepared statement.
?
Source: http://www.cpexecutive.com/featuredcontent/sulentic-becomes-cbre-group-ceo/
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Conservative Republicans booted from House budget panel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.
Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan - both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement - are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.
Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year's deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the "fiscal cliff" of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.
Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership "might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.
"This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement," he said.
Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan's budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.
"The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors," Steel said.
Huelskamp said he was given "limited explanation" for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called "vindictive." A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.
Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan's budget plan earlier this year.
While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.
The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.
The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
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Magnitude 5.8 quake rattles Anchorage, Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska on Monday, close to the city of Anchorage, rattling buildings and knocking bric-a-brac from shelves, but no serious damage or injuries were reported.
The tremor, initially reported as a magnitude 5.7, struck at 4:42 p.m. (8:42 p.m. EST) 25 miles west of Anchorage, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake, relatively shallow at a depth of 33.1 miles, was widely felt in Anchorage, according to Guy Urban, a geophysicist for the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.
"Some people in Anchorage said some things fell off the shelves," he told Reuters, adding that the center was unaware of any severe property damage or anyone being hurt.
Quakes of similar strength are fairly common in Alaska, one of the most seismically active parts of the United States.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage. Additional reporting by Sandra Maler in Washington; Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/magnitude-5-8-quake-hits-alaska-close-anchorage-020604134.html
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Costas wishes he had more time to talk
NEW YORK (AP) ? Bob Costas isn't backing down from his halftime comments on gun violence, but he wishes he had more time.
The NBC sportscaster gave interviews Tuesday to Dan Patrick and Lawrence O'Donnell about his Sunday-night halftime commentary following Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher's murder of his girlfriend and subsequent suicide. Both interviews were longer than the commentary itself.
Costas said domestic violence, football, the gun culture and possible substance abuse could have been factors in the tragedy. He said the availability of a gun wasn't the only issue, but he didn't have more time for a nuanced discussion Sunday.
Costas received some criticism for injecting politics into a sporting event.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/costas-wishes-had-more-time-talk-132613407--spt.html
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AUA and ASCO to ?archive? clinical guidance of use of 5-ARIs for ...
Posted on December 3, 2012 by Sitemaster
According to a message to its members issued today by the American Urological Association (AUA), the AUA and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) are archiving their collaborative 2008 guideline entitled Use of 5-alpha Reductase Inhibitors for Prostate Cancer Chemoprevention.
This guideline has now been removed from the ?Clinical Guidance? section of the AUA?s website, but is still available in the ?Archived Guidelines? section. According to the message sent to the AUA members, ?This decision is in response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?s denial of the supplemental New Drug Application for dutasteride for prostate cancer chemoprevention? ? a denial issued by the FDA in late January 2011.
The AUA further recommends to its members that using 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (5-ARIs) like dutasteride and finasteride for prostate cancer prevention ?is not FDA-approved and should be performed with caution.? The message concludes by noting that 5-ARIs ?maintain an FDA-approved indication to treat symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia.?
The ?New? Prostate Cancer InfoLink believes that some urologists and urologist oncologists will continue to prescribe 5-ARIs for the prevention of clinically significant prostate cancer in carefully selected individuals who are at potentially high risk for prostate cancer, despite the fact that the FDA denied a formal approval of dutasteride for use in this indication. The ?archiving? of the joint ASCO/AUA guidance document is probably (as much as anything else) a way for the two organizations to protect themselves legally from possible future accusations that they continue to ?recommend? the use of 5-ARIs for chemoprevention of prostate cancer. We do, after all, live in a highly litigious society.
The evidence regarding the actual effect of 5-ARIs in the prevention of prostate cancer and the risk that this use of ARIs may actually increase risk for high-grade prostate cancer is still debatable and controversial, with strong opinions on either side of the issue.
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Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk
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How to Exclude Holiday Music from Your iTunes Genius Playlists
With the holidays coming around, you might have your iTunes playlist packed full of a ton of holiday music, but that doesn't mean you want those holiday tracks sneaking into the rest of your playlists. Macworld shows off how to keep "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" out of the rest of your mixes.
The first thing you need to do is create a holiday playlist by clicking, File > New > Smart Playlist and creating a playlist with the genre tag, "holiday" (if you've already made a mix of all your holiday music you can skip this step). This creates a holiday playlist. Now, simply hold down the Command key, and click the checkbox next to one of the songs. This will uncheck them all, and disable them from appearing in Genius Playlists in the future so your holiday songs won't creep into your other mixes. Head over to Macworld for the full guide.
How to exclude holiday tracks from genius playlists | Macworld
The Happiness Project | Peanut Butter Fingers
It?s time to discuss The Happiness Project!
We?ll be voting on the PBF December Book Club book later today, but for now it?s time to dive into November?s selection.
This review is a long one, so buckle up!
Brief Summary
The Happiness Project follows author Gretchen Rubin as she dedicates an entire year of her life to improving her happiness. Every month she strives to improve happiness related to a different part of her life (marriage, friendship, money, work, etc.) and implements small changes while documenting her findings. The author references theologians, philosophers, researchers and writers and includes detailed research to back up many of her happiness experiments.
My Review
When The Happiness Project was selected for our November Book Club, I wasn?t overjoyed. The concept intrigued me, but I prefer to climb into bed with a page-turning fiction novel rather than a memoir or self-help book.
Within the first 10 pages of The Happiness Project, I found myself dog-earing pages so I could return and reread passages. I was hooked.
Gretchen Rubin is incredibly self-aware and managed to write about happiness in a way that made it seem attainable. As she focused on clearing the clutter out of her life, I wanted to do the same. When Gretchen vowed to ?be in the moment,? I wanted to focus on enjoying moments as they happen as well.
For me, the best way I can think to properly review this book is to share some of my favorite takeaways. When I think about The Happiness Project, certain passages and quotes jump into my mind. The takeaways that left a lasting impression include:
- Enjoy Now: We often imagine a happier future and tell ourselves things like, ?Once I finish this project, then?? which causes us to focus on anticipated future happiness, rather than the joy we can find in our lives right now. If we can enjoy the present, we don?t need to count on and live for the happiness that is (or isn?t) in our future.
- Address Clutter: For some people household disorder and clutter can have a serious negative impact on overall energy levels. I am one of those people, so Gretchen?s section about clutter, while seemingly simplistic, really appealed to me. Implementing the ?one minute rule? and vowing to tackle tasks that take me less than one minute had a shocking impact on my overall happiness. Our house is less cluttered and my office is more organized which helps me feel much more peaceful.
- ?Be Gretchen?: Several times in The Happiness Project, Gretchen recognizes her personal struggle to ?Be Gretchen? and her desire to find certain things that other people love appealing. Like going to a Knicks game. Eating dinner out at a fancy new restaurant. Drinking. Going to a lecture on international markets. She wanted her interests to appear more valuable, interesting, cultured and adventurous. Rather than wish she enjoyed these other activities, Gretchen realized she needed to embrace the activities she truly does enjoy. I identified with this wholeheartedly as I sometimes feel like my interests aren?t in line with my peers. To me, a quiet night at home can be just as fun as a crazy night out. I really value my alone time and get great joy from reading by myself or working on a craft project. It?s okay to love less glamorous activities and embracing them will only bring you more happiness.
- Give Positive Reviews: ?It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.? The joy exuded from positive people isn?t inexhaustible and requires effort.
- One of the Best Ways to Make Yourself Happy is to Make Other People Happy: And one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself. ?Do good, feel good; feel good, do good.? Cultivating generosity and kindness breeds happiness. Gretchen included this quote from Tolstoy in her book: "Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness." It deeply moved me and weighed on my mind for days. Like I?ve said on the blog before, ?I want to see and be the good in the world.?
- Spend Out: Gretchen discusses her tendency to cling to things, saying she would save things like beautiful stationary rather than use it. But how often did something extraordinary surface that warranted the use of the things she saved? Rarely. I noticed that I tend to do the same thing. I save a new top for a special occasion. I won?t write a blog post on a certain topic one day because I want to ?save it.? But for what!? ?Spend out? and enjoy the good things now.
- Don?t Expect Praise or Appreciation: According to Saint Th?r?se of Lisieux, ?When one loves, one does not calculate.? Don?t think about return. Giving without expectation creates a wealth of love and tenderness.
Blogger Link Up
You can find additional reviews of The Happiness Project on the following blogs:
Discussion Questions
- What were some of your key takeaways from The Happiness Project?
- Did you implement anything Gretchen discusses in The Happiness Project in your own life?
Source: http://www.pbfingers.com/2012/12/04/the-happiness-project/
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