Google paves way for Glass ads with 'pay-per-gaze' patent

Aug. 16, 2013

Dive summary:?

• Google took?a step forward in bringing ads to Google Glass with a patent on a process it calls "pay-per-gaze."
• The patent doesn't specifically mention Glass, but it mentions a "gaze tracking system" that requires a "head mounted gaze tracking device" and other descriptors that point to Glass.?
• According to the patent, a user's gaze can be tracked to tell when they view an ad; advertisers would then be charged each time a user "gazed"?at an ad.?

From the article:?

"Individual privacy isn't completely thrown out the window, though. The patent states that 'personal identifying data may be removed from the data and provided to the advertisers as anonymous analytics'?and mentions possible incorporation of an opt-in or opt-out feature."

?

Source: http://www.marketingdive.com/news/google-paves-way-for-glass-ads-with-pay-per-gaze-patent/162028/

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New Jersey governor to sign law easing pot use for sick kids

By Victoria Cavaliere

(Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday acted on new legislation that will make it easier for children and teenagers suffering from serious illnesses to obtain medical marijuana.

Christie agreed to sign the so-called pot-for-tots bill if the New Jersey legislature makes changes, including removing wording that would have reduced the number of required physician recommendations for children.

He also agreed that children should be allowed access to edible forms of marijuana besides lozenges, considered difficult for young patients to use properly, but asked for tighter language in the bill to be sure only minors can get the medication.

Christie agreed with other parts of the bill, including eliminating the three-strain cultivation limit on authorized dispensaries, which would allow growers to develop products tailored for individual patients, including some adults, according to proponents.

Christie, who is running for reelection as New Jersey's governor and widely considered a contender for president in 2016, gave his "conditional" approval to the bill but sent it back to the legislature with the suggested changes.

"I am making commonsense recommendations to this legislation to ensure sick children receive the treatment their parents prefer, while maintaining appropriate safeguards," he said in a statement.

New Jersey is one of 19 states with a medical marijuana program, but the state's rules have made it difficult for young patients to enroll in treatment, according to proponents of the bill.

The legislation has been sitting on Christie's desk for nearly two months and his conditional approval comes two days after he was confronted at a campaign stop by a Scotch Plains father whose 2-year-old suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a potentially deadly form of epilepsy.

Brian Wilson urged Christie in a restaurant full of voters to sign the bill saying, "Don't let my daughter die."

Wilson said the kind of marijuana that helps stop his daughter's seizures currently is grown only in Colorado.

Christie acknowledged that marijuana is a controlled substance under U.S. federal law and "implementing a state controlled program while the drug remains illegal has raised numerous challenges." The administration of President Barack Obama has discouraged federal prosecutors from pursuing people who distribute marijuana for medical purposes under state laws.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Prudence Crowther)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-governor-sign-law-easing-pot-sick-kids-224543877.html

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Kendrick Lamar 'Ain't The King,' Papoose Says On 'Control' Freestyle

Brooklyn MC had previously said he and Kendrick were on the 'same page,' but it doesn't look that way on his new track.
By Rob Markman

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1712476/papoose-kendrick-lamar-control-response.jhtml

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Cartes sworn in as president of Paraguay

ASUNCION: Conservative businessman Horacio Cartes was sworn in as president of Paraguay on Thursday, amid slowly improving relations with South American neighbors damaged by the 2012 ouster of leftist president Fernando Lugo.

As cathedral bells pealed, Cartes prayed for "wisdom, prudence and justice to fulfill my duty to serve the noble Paraguayan people."

Cartes, 57, whose election on April 21 returned to power the Colorado party of the late dictator Alfredo Stroessner, took the oath of office in the gardens of the presidential palace.

He used his inaugural address to pledge a "war on poverty" in a country where 39 percent of the seven-million people are poor.

"If in five years, we haven't substantially reduced poverty, all our work will have been for nothing," he said.

He also reached out to the leaders of neighboring states attending the ceremony, saying his "strong predisposition is to maintain cordial bilateral relations rather than aggravate differences of the moment."

"Our intention is that we become closer. Understanding and cooperation honor us," he said.

Conspicuously absent at Cartes' inauguration was Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, a close leftist ally of Lugo who was pointedly not invited to the ceremony. Also missing were the leaders of Ecuador and Bolivia.

But the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru were there, signalling an end to the international ostracism Paraguay experienced in the wake of the political crisis two years ago.

And Maduro sent Cartes a letter of congratulations, pledging to do everything in his power for a "prompt return" of Paraguay to Mercosur.

Paraguay was suspended from the South American trading bloc in June 2012 after its Congress abruptly impeached and forced out Lugo, who was blamed for the deaths of 17 people in a clash between police and armed peasants.

Mercosur's presidents said in July that the organization would lift the suspension after Cartes' inauguration, but Paraguay has said it will not return to the trading bloc as long as Venezuela holds its rotating presidency.

Cartes met separately on Wednesday with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and Chile's President Sebastian Pinera.

On Thursday after the ceremony he held talks with Uruguay's President Jose Mujica, Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, and Peru's Ollanta Humala.

"We had a good exchange of views," Kirchner said afterwards.

Cartes' designated foreign minister, Eladio Loizaga, has said the new government would pursue relations with Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay bilaterally.

Unasur, a regional security organization that also suspended Paraguay over the Lugo ouster, announced over the weekend that it was lifting the measure in view of the April elections, which it said were held "with total normality and broad citizen participation."

Cartes replaces Federico Franco, a Liberal party leader who has led the country since Lugo's ouster.

Also at the inauguration were Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou and Prince Felipe?of Spain.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/cartes-sworn-in-as/778250.html

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Megafauna Extinction Affects Ecosystems 12,000 Years Later

A researcher describes how his mathematical model based on heat diffusion reveals the critical role played by large animals in dispersing nutrients

By Chris Doughty and The Conversation

MEGA MUCKER: Megafauna such as Glyptodon were muck-spreaders. Image: Flickr/Jan Stefka

Editor's note: The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation UK, an online publication covering the latest research.

By Chris Doughty, University of Oxford

If Earth were like a human body, large animals might be its arteries, moving nutrients from where they?re abundant to where they?re needed. Currently the planet has large regions where life is limited by a lack of key nutrients such as phosphorus. The Eastern Amazon basin, for example, is composed of trees that grow relatively slowly due to limited phosphorus. Likewise, animal life in much of the central Amazon is limited by a shortage of sodium.

As recently as 12,000 years ago, much of the world looked like an African savanna. South America teemed with large animals which overlapped with stone age humans, including several species of elephant-like creatures, giant ground sloths, and armadillo-like creatures the size of a small car.

Skeleton of Megatherium, the giant tree sloth.
Image: Ballista

In South America, most nutrients originate in the Andes mountain range and are washed into the forests through the river system. However, on dry land, these nutrients are in short supply unless they are transported by animals in their bodies and deposited in their dung. While small animals distribute nutrients over small distances, large animals have a much greater range. For instance, big animals have larger home ranges than small animals, they eat more, and they have longer guts. When these large animals became extinct, their habitat lost not only them but the nutrients they moved.

With colleagues, I developed a mathematical model, similar to one used by physicists to calculate the diffusion of heat, to estimate the ability of animals to distribute nutrients. The model is based on the body size of the animal, drawing on existing data of their fossilized remains. From this, we can estimate how much the animals ate, defecated, and the range and distance they travelled.

Our model indicated that large animals are not just important, but disproportionately more important than small animals for spreading nutrients. This model allows us to calculate the ability of animals to distribute nutrients anywhere on the planet at any time, if the animal?s average size and distribution is known. It can also be used to estimate the effects of past extinctions, such as those in the Amazon. And furthermore it can forecast the effects of potential events in the future, for example the effects on soil fertility in Africa if elephants became extinct.

We found mass extinctions of large animals in the Amazon 12,000 years ago switched off this natural nutrient pump by a massive 98%. Vital nutrients such as phosphorus were no longer spread around the region but became concentrated in those areas that bordered the floodplains. Even thousands of years after the extinctions, the Amazon basin has not yet recovered from this step change. Nutrients may continue to decline in the Amazon and other global regions for thousands of years to come.

People add nutrients to the planet by using fertiliser in agriculture. However, while large animals tend to distribute nutrients, we tend to concentrate them. Large animals such as cattle are now fenced and unable to spread nutrients around the way free-ranging creatures once did. So today, certain areas have too many nutrients (areas near agriculture) and other areas too few (natural ecosystems).

On today?s planet, the supply of nutrients in the soil is determined by river deposits or nutrients that are airborne. Yet this analysis suggests that we may be experiencing a peculiar post-extinction phase in the Amazon, and probably many other parts of the world where large animals once played a vital role in fertilizing their landscape. If humans contributed to the mass extinction of big animals 12,000 years ago, then the human impact on the environment at a global scale began even before the dawn of agriculture.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/ScientificAmerican-News/~3/halzBOKTQ_4/article.cfm

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GOP pushes rising stars amid calls for solutions

BOSTON (AP) ? Republican officials are looking to promote a fresh group of diverse rising stars to help resolve their election woes, while frustrated party elders insist that all Republicans must offer more solutions for the nation's most pressing issues.

The calls for change come nine months after a painful 2012 election in which the GOP lost the presidential race and a handful of close Senate contests. A tug of war over the Republican Party's future is on display as conservative activists and party leaders from across the country gather in Boston this week for the Republican National Committee's annual summer meeting.

"We have to get beyond being anti-Obama," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared at the gathering Wednesday, offering a particularly harsh critique of Republican strategy on health care.

Gingrich said congressional Republicans would have "zero answer" for how to replace the president's health care overhaul when asked, despite their having voted repeatedly to repeal the measure.

"We are caught right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we're negative and as long as we're vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don't have to learn anything. And so we don't," Gingrich said. "This is a very deep problem."

While there is little sign of GOP unity on solutions for immigration, health care or a looming budget standoff, RNC officials are launching a program to highlight a new generation of Republican leaders ? largely younger and more ethnically diverse ? to help broaden the party's appeal among women and minorities, groups that overwhelmingly supported President Barack Obama in the last election. The program supplements an ongoing effort to expand Republican outreach among minority communities across the country.

Women voted for Obama by an 11-point margin in 2012, and they have not backed a GOP candidate for president since Ronald Reagan's successful bid for re-election in 1984. Although last year's nominee, Mitt Romney, improved on John McCain's margin of victory among whites in 2008, Romney fared worse than McCain among Hispanic and Asian voters, who make up a growing share of the U.S. population.

The RNC on Thursday was introducing the first four members of its "Rising Stars" program:

?Karin Agness, founder and president of the Network of enlightened Women, or NeW. The Indiana native started the organization for conservative university women in 2004 while at the University of Virginia.

?Scott G. Erickson, a San Jose, Calif., police officer for 15 years and a writer for The Foundry, the blog of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

?Marilinda Garcia, a Hispanic and New Hampshire state representative first elected at 23. Now in her fourth term, she serves on the executive board of the immigration reform group Americans by Choice.

?T.W. Shannon, an African-American and speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The Lawton native is a business consultant and an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation.

The panel will be featured during a discussion Thursday that is expected to be the first of many high-profile appearances designed to help the party shed the image that it is too old and white. Republican officials have long fought that stereotype, but RNC communications director Sean Spicer says this time will be different.

"We have the resources and the bandwidth to be able to actually promote these people," Spicer said. "We just weren't in the position to do that years ago."

Indeed, the committee has crafted plans, backed by new staffing, cash and online tools, to ensure that the fresh faces aren't forgotten after this week's meeting.

Press aides have been assigned to help drive media coverage focused on demographic groups instead of geographic regions: youth, women, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and African-Americans. And the RNC has created an online database for the first time that allows staffers to quickly find fresh faces for media interviews. For example, an RNC spokesman said the tool could quickly locate a female Hispanic mom from New Jersey for a relevant media interview.

Officials hope that promoting new faces will help deliver more votes in next year's midterm elections and beyond, although critics in and out of the party suggest that may not be enough unless the party adopts a more solution-oriented message. Republican leaders have been slow to embrace solutions on issues critical to minority voters, particularly immigration.

House Republicans are resisting a comprehensive immigration bill that passed with bipartisan support in the Senate. An RNC report released this spring concluded that the GOP "must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only."

Asked about the party's so-called identity crisis, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said it would take time to resolve.

"I have to focus on the things that I most control," he said, citing effort to add staffers and improve data sharing.

In the meantime, Priebus, too, said his party must focus on solutions.

"We have to be a party that promotes a positive plan for the future," he said, while declining to take a position on a possible Republican-backed government shutdown this fall. "I think we've done it, but I think we've got to do a much better job."

__

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-pushes-rising-stars-amid-calls-solutions-073011633.html

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Ecko Unltd Spray

Looks aren't everything, and a fun design can't make up for a device performing poorly. The Ecko Unltd Spray looks striking, taking Marc Ecko's graffiti aesthetic and turning it into a Bluetooth speaker that looks like a can of spray paint. It's gimmicky, but surprisingly functional and simple to use. Sadly, at $159.99 (direct), it needs to do more than look good and work easily. A speaker needs to sound good, and with a very strange sound profile that leans too bright, the Spray simply doesn't. If you can spend a little more, you can get far superior sound from the less gimmicky-designed Editors' Choice?Bose SoundLink Mini.

Spray Paint Design
The Spray looks like a spray paint can. In fact, despite its all-around metal grille, a casual glance could easily make you think that it is a can of spray paint. It's a 14.6-ounce black cylinder that's 2.6 inches in diameter, with a clear plastic cap that makes it 8.2 inches long (7.8 inches without the cap). While it's a cylinder, the front is clearly shown with a rectangular rubber Ecko Unltd logo on the grille and the view of the speaker's twin drivers behind the grille.

The cap covers a "nozzle" that gives the speaker most of its spray paint aesthetic and serves as the control system. A large metallic sticker on the back of the speaker, just above the micro USB and 3.5mm audio input, offers detailed instructions on how to use the Spray?while giving it even more of a faux-can aesthetic by appearing like a warning label. The clear cap is curved at the top to serve as a stand, letting you place the Spray horizontally. While it's cylindrical, the Spray is meant to be placed with the drivers facing the listener; it's not designed to be omnidirectional like the UE Boom.?

To use the speaker, just take the plastic cap off and press the nozzle down until it turns on. It will automatically go into pairing mode the first time you use it. After that, just hold the nozzle down for several seconds when it's turned off to go into pairing mode. After it's connected, the nozzle serves as a button and twist dial that can adjust volume, shuffle between songs, and accept phone calls. It's a surprisingly clever way to control the speaker while letting it keep its unique look (and distinguish it from other cylindrical speakers, like the Logitech UE Boom). The large nozzle is also easy to learn and use, thanks to its intuitive twist design. It turns left and right and can be pressed like a button, which is all you need to control a Bluetooth speaker.

Performance
The Spray can put out a good amount of sound for its small size, but its sound profile is strange even for a portable speaker. The deep bass is non-existent, and the speaker seems to bring out the higher bass and lower mids to compensate, resulting in bass guitar and synth riffs standing out against a complete lack of actual thump. Mids and high-mids sound overly bright, and treble response gets downright tinny at times. In the opening of The Heavy's "How You Like Me Now," the bass and horns both stood out against the other instruments, with the prominent bass line giving the song a "wobbly" feeling and the already characteristically bright brass almost squealing, while the drums had almost no impact outside of the high attack of the snares.

Bass response at higher volumes becomes atrocious. In our bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Spray distorted the deep synth notes with notable pops and crackling, and the intro to the song sounded particularly buzzy. This is slightly surprising because the bass was barely there to begin with on the speaker; I hoped it would just ignore the bass material entirely, rather than try and reproduce it.

The Ecko Unltd Spray's unique design is quite functional and visually striking, but it's not enough to carry its mediocre audio performance. It can get loud and it sounds decent, but it can't seem to break past "decent" into genuinely "good." We would have liked it a lot more if it cost $100 instead of $160. If you have the wiggle room in your budget, spend the extra $40 and pick up either the Editors' Choice Bose SoundLink II, which offers vastly superior sound quality, or the UE Boom, which offers great sound quality (though not quite as good as the SoundLink II) and a rugged, flexible design.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ninp7-aEFRQ/0,2817,2423166,00.asp

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Talks resume as Israel frees Palestinians, pursues settlements

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators reconvened U.S.-brokered peace talks in Jerusalem on Wednesday amid little fanfare and low expectations, dogged by plans for more Jewish settler homes on occupied land.

An Israeli official, who declined to be named and who was briefed on the talks that were held at an undisclosed Jerusalem location, described them as serious and said the parties agreed to meet again soon.

No details were given on the subject matter of the talks. The parties have agreed to refrain from revealing information in order to raise the chances for success, officials said.

The resumption of negotiations, after a first round in Washington last month that ended a three-year stand-off over Jewish settlement building, followed Palestinian celebrations overnight as Israel released 26 of their jailed brethren.

Optimism was in short supply before the first official meeting in Jerusalem, a holy city at the heart of their conflict, in nearly five years.

"Israel will resort to feints and evasion and put up impossible demands in order to say that these negotiations are fruitless and to continue its policy of stealing land as it has done until this moment," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official tasked by President Mahmoud Abbas to comment on the talks.

Israel has published plans for 3,100 new settler homes in recent days, drawing U.S. and other international concern and deepening Palestinian distrust.

Tzipi Livni, Israel's chief peace negotiator and justice minister, said on her Facebook page before the teams met: "Today, I will continue the important mission I began - to achieve a peace agreement that will keep the country Jewish and democratic and provide security ... for Israel and its citizens."

Israeli cabinet minister Yaakov Peri said a "long and exhausting trek" lay ahead. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has set a goal of nine months for an agreement to be reached.

"Both for the Palestinians and for us, the hourglass is running out. We will not have many more opportunities to resolve this dispute," Peri told Army Radio.

PRISONER RELEASE

In the small hours of Wednesday, Israel freed the 26 Palestinians jailed between 1985 and 2001, many for deadly attacks on Israelis. Their release, coupled with Abbas's dropping of a demand for a settlement freeze before talks could begin, helped to pave the way towards negotiations.

Joyous crowds, fireworks and V-for-Victory signs greeted the former prisoners in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The scenes did little to boost optimism in Israel about prospects for peace.

"I think that today is a sad day to start negotiating about peace with people who accepted murderers as heroes," said Erez Goldman, an Israeli resident of Jerusalem. "I cannot see that anyway these peace negotiations are going anywhere."

Few on either side see swift resolution to longstanding problems such as borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Yet neither Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to attract blame for putting the brakes on U.S. attempts at peace, a product of Kerry's intensive shuttle diplomacy. Negotiations are set to continue every few weeks in venues including Jericho in the occupied West Bank.

Israel says it supports Kerry's nine-month timeline but in the past few days has rattled world powers by announcing its plans to increase its settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas it captured along with the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but wants to keep East Jerusalem and swathes of West Bank settlements, seeing them as a security bulwark and the realization of a Jewish birthright to biblical land. Most world powers deem the settlements illegal.

Nearly 600,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, among 2.5 million Palestinians.

Speaking to reporters in Brazil on Tuesday, Kerry said he had a "very frank and open, direct discussion" in a phone call with Netanyahu.

Kerry appeared to associate the new settlement announcements with internal Israeli politics, saying "there are realities of life in Israel that have to be taken into account here".

Such construction helps to mollify pro-settler factions in Netanyahu's rightist coalition government, one of which, the Jewish Home party, opposes Palestinian statehood and tried unsuccessfully to vote down the prisoner release.

Despite anger from the families of some victims, Israel has promised to free a total of 104 inmates in the next few months. Thousands of Palestinians, many of them convicted on security-related charges, remain in Israeli jails.

"I never expected to see him again. My feelings cannot be described in words. The joy of the whole world is with me," said Adel Mesleh, whose brother Salama Mesleh was jailed in 1993 for killing an Israeli. "I am happy he was freed as a result of negotiations. Negotiations are good."

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Noah Browning, Ali Sawafta and Hamouda Hassan in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; editing by David Stamp, Will Waterman and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/talks-resume-israel-frees-palestinians-pursues-settlements-062239512.html

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Former ?Bachelor? Star Gia Allemand In Critical Condition On Life Support

Gia Allemand, the 29-year-old season 14 “The Bachelor” star, is in critical condition after being rushed to the hospital on Monday night with a mystery illness. Allemand is hospitalized in the ICU at the University Hospital in New Orleans on life support. Gia, who is dating NBA Basketball player Ryan Anderson of the New Orleans ...

Copyright - Stupid Celebrities Gossip 2013. If you see this content on any other website, it has been stolen. Please report.

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/08/former-bachelor-star-gia-allemand-in-critical-condition-on-life-support/

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The Right Way to Eat Breakfast For Weight Loss - Health News and ...

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because of so many reasons. But you need to make sure that you?re doing it right. If you?re trying to maintain or lose weight, here are some things to consider when enjoying your first meal of the day.

Eat it soon: Studies have found that eating breakfast jump-starts your metabolism, and not only that, it can help ensure that you don?t feel so starved later that you make bad eating choices for lunch or dinner. To take advantage of your body?s fat-burning potential, try to eat breakfast soon after waking up.

Go for filling: Stay away from foods that can lead to a midmorning crash. Instead, opt for meals that are full of slow-digesting nutrients to help keep you satisfied throughout the morning; high-fiber, high-protein breakfast options are a good choice for feeling full and energized. And make sure your breakfast doesn?t have too much sugar in it ? here are seven low-sugar, high-protein and fiber breakfast ideas that fit the bill.

Watch out for portions: A big breakfast can help fill you up, but you don?t want to overdo it. Check out our handy chart of what servings sizes should look like, and keep calories in check with this list of the amount of calories in typical breakfasts.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/08/13/the-right-way-to-eat-breakfast-for-weight-loss/

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The Future Of Nigeria Lies In Agriculture | RISE NETWORKS

(By?Skoll World Forum)

?We were not looking at agriculture through the right lens. We were looking at agriculture as a developmental activity, like a social sector in which you manage poor people in rural areas. But agriculture is not a social sector. Agriculture is a business. Seed is a business, fertiliser is a business, storage, value added, logistics and transport ? it is all about business.?

In the 1960s, before it turned to oil, Nigeria was one of the most promising agricultural producers in the world. Between 1962 and 1968, export crops were the country?s main foreign exchange earner. The country was number one globally in palm oil exports, well ahead of Malaysia and Indonesia, and exported 47 percent of all groundnuts, putting it ahead of the US and Argentina.

But its status as an agricultural powerhouse has declined, and steeply. While Nigeria once provided 18 percent of the global production of cocoa, second in the world in the 1960s, that figure is now down to 8 percent. And while the country produces 65 percent of tomatoes in west Africa, it is now the largest importer of tomato paste.

Nigeria?s minister for agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, reels off these statistics with regret as he discusses the country?s deteriorating agriculture sector. ?Nigeria is known for nothing else than oil, and it is so sad, because we never used to have oil ? all we used to have was agriculture,? he says.

Nigeria?s oil has come at the detriment of the agriculture sector, he claims, ?and that is why we had a rising poverty situation. We were having growth but without robust growth able to impact millions of people because it is not connecting to agriculture.?

That might explain why Nigeria?s economic statistics are so puzzling. While the country has been posting high growth figures, and makes it into Goldman Sachs? ?Next 11? emerging markets group, absolute poverty is rising, with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1.25 a day. The National Bureau of Statistics says 60.9 percent of Nigerians in 2010 were living in absolute poverty, up from 54.7 percent in 2004.

But it is not just oil that has hollowed out the agriculture sector, with knock-on effects on poverty rates. Restrictive trade policies also had an effect, especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tariff increases, a rise in import licenses and duties, and export bans and tariffs ? as well as a centralisation of marketing of agricultural produce through the formation of crop-specific commodity boards ? all created a lumbering, inefficient private sector, as well as opening up many opportunities for corruption. Today, Nigeria has transitioned from being a self-sufficient country in food to being a net importer, spending $11bn on imports of rice, fish and sugar. ?It just makes absolutely no sense to me at all,? says Mr Adesina. ?My job is to change that.?

Not everything is in the minister?s hands, of course. Climate change poses a threat to Nigerian agriculture ? the World Bank recently predicted an up to 30 percent drop in the country?s crop output due to erratic rainfall and higher temperatures. But when it comes to achievable changes, Mr Adesina seems well placed to act on what lies within reach, combining an encyclopaedic knowledge of his country?s agriculture sector with a clear strategic vision.

While ministers? portfolio?s are often fast-changing, giving them limited time to develop expertise in any given sector, Mr Adesina has a strong background as vice president of policy and partnerships at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), and a decade at the Rockefeller Foundation. He was appointed by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as one of 17 global leaders to spearhead the Millennium Development Goals. His energy is palpable, and he looks well positioned to engineer a major turnaround in Nigerian agriculture.

The change needed, he says, requires a shift in mindset. ?We were not looking at agriculture through the right lens. We were looking at agriculture as a developmental activity, like a social sector in which you manage poor people in rural areas. But agriculture is not a social sector. Agriculture is a business. Seed is a business, fertiliser is a business, storage, value added, logistics and transport ? it is all about business.?

He wants to change the sector?s image, putting it at the forefront of national development. ?Agriculture is the future of Nigeria. And agriculture that is modernised, that is productive, that is competitive. We must be a global player,? he says.

Nigeria?s respected finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, speaks positively about Mr Adesina?s reforms to date ? especially in cleaning up the corrupt fertiliser industry. Now, rather than directly participating in the delivery system for fertiliser, the government leaves that to the private sector and only provides the subsidy. This change has tackled 40 years of corruption, and ended it ? Mr Adesina claims ? in 90 days.

Ms Okonjo-Iweala says it has been easier to work with Mr Adesina than previous ministers. ?It is not only about doling out subsidies which do not reach farmers,? she says. ?That was frustrating for me the first time [I was finance minister]. Now he came and cleaned up the fertiliser issues.?

Nigeria is now seeking to add 20m metric tonnes to the domestic food supply by 2015 and to create 3.5 million jobs through agriculture. This requires more sophisticated thinking about the value addition of individual crops ? cassava being but one example. ?We are the largest producer of cassava in the world, at 40m metric tonnes, but I want us to become the largest processor of cassava as well,? Mr Adesina claims. ?We can focus on using cassava for starch, dry cassava chips for export to China, cassava flour to replace some of the wheat flour that we are importing. So we are restructuring the space for the private sector to add value to every single thing.?

Financial linkages

Finance is the critical catalyst to growth, and in Nigeria it has proven hard to link the two. ?You find that only 2 percent of all bank lending in Nigeria goes into agriculture ? a sector that is 40 percent of GDP and 70 percent of employment. The reason was because banks could not find the money trail in the agriculture sector,? Mr Adesina says.

That is beginning to change, with banks starting to look again at the opportunities offered by agriculture ? which in part follows the reforms implemented by Mr Adesina?s administration to root out corruption and improve efficiency. Last year, his ministry developed a facility with the Central Bank of Nigeria ? helped by donor assistance from the UK, German and US development agencies ? called Nirsal, an agribusiness initiative that provides risk management, financing, trading, and strategic solutions.

The $50m facility, which leverages $3.5bn, reduces the risk of agricultural lending by providing credit risk guarantees and brokerage services to buyers and sellers of agricultural commodities, including structured buyer forums. It also, selectively, buys on its own account to bring stability to markets. In addition, Nirsal offers advice designed to connect suppliers with downstream buyers.

This is part of a market-smart initiative, ?rather than a heavy handed intervention in the sector. ?With banks you cannot beg them to lend because they are taking care of their people?s money, so you create the value and they see the value and lend,? he says.

While banks have often had a high perceived risk of lending to agriculture, the terms can be competitive if the sector functions well. Mr Adesina worked directly with the managing directors and chief risk officers of Nigeria?s banks in order to tackle what he saw as a misperception of risk, at least if the sector?s flaws ? including inefficiencies and corruption ? could be cleaned up. ?What we have shown the banks is that agriculture gives as high and competitive a rate of return as other sectors if structured properly. But for banks to lend, we had to fix the agricultural value chain. Now the banks are all exploding on agriculture in Nigeria.?

The percentage of lending by banks to the sector was just 1 percent in 2010 ? now it is 4 percent, with a target of 10 percent. Last year, banks embarked on lending to seed companies for the first time in Nigeria. ?We did an assessment at the end of the season,? recalls Mr Adesina. ?The central bank governor asked the banks how much money did you lose lending to these guys last year? All the banks said zero percent. This year we expect the banks to lend $400m to seed companies alone. The reason their losses are zero is because we have changed the way we structure our agriculture sector.? The best performing stocks in the Nigerian Stock Exchange are now not banks, but agricultural companies.

Crucially, it is institutional reform ? rather than simply heavier public spending ? which can best unleash financing in the sector. ?I do not think that throwing money at anything solves problems. It is all about policy reforms, creating incentives, getting the private sector in there, getting financial markets behind agriculture. Our goal is to become an agriculturally industrialised economy. Nigeria should be like Brazil, as far as I am concerned,? says Mr Adesina.

?Of course you need public financing of critical things like infrastructure, roads, and irrigation facilities ? those are public goods that governments are obviously spending money on. But the greatest way is through the private sector.?

(Source: Forbes)

?

?Opinion pieces of this sort published on RISE Networks are those of the original authors and do not in anyway represent the thoughts, beliefs and ideas of RISE Networks.?

About the Author

RISE NETWORKS

"Nigeria's Leading Private Sector and Donor funded Social Enterprise with deliberate interest in Technology and its relevance to Youth and Education Development across Africa. Our Strategic focus is on vital human capital Development issues and their relationship to economic growth and democratic consolidation." Twitter: @risenetworks || Facebook - RISE GROUP || Google Plus - Rise Networks

Source: http://risenetworks.org/2013/08/12/the-future-of-nigeria-lies-in-agriculture/

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On rooftops, a rival for utilities

energy

Diane Cardwell The New York Times

13 hours ago

Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Panels in the Deer Valley section of Phoenix. Utilities say the subsidies given to solar-minded homeowners are too generous.

For years, power companies have watched warily as solar panels have sprouted across the nation?s rooftops. Now, in almost panicked tones, they are fighting hard to slow the spread.

Alarmed by what they say has become an existential threat to their business, utility companies are moving to roll back government incentives aimed at promoting solar energy and other renewable sources of power. At stake, the companies say, is nothing less than the future of the American electricity industry.

According to the Energy Information Administration, rooftop solar electricity ? the economics of which often depend on government incentives and mandates ? accounts for less than a quarter of 1 percent of the nation?s power generation.

And yet, to hear executives tell it, such power sources could ultimately threaten traditional utilities? ability to maintain the nation?s grid.

?We did not get in front of this disruption,? Clark Gellings, a fellow at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit arm of the industry, said during a panel discussion at the annual utility convention last month. ?It may be too late.?

Advocates of renewable energy ? not least solar industry executives who stand to get rich from the transformation ? say such statements are wildly overblown. For now, they say, the government needs to help make the economics of renewable power work for ordinary Americans. Without incentives, the young industry might wither ? and with it, their own potential profits.

The battle is playing out among energy executives, lawmakers and regulators across the country.

In Arizona, for example, the country?s second-largest solar market, the state?s largest utility is pressuring the Arizona Corporation Commission, which sets utility rates, to reconsider a generous residential credit and impose new fees on customers, months after the agency eliminated a commercial solar incentive. In North Carolina, Duke Energy is pushing to institute a new set of charges for solar customers as well.

Nowhere, though, is the battle more heated than in California, home to the nation?s largest solar market and some of the most aggressive subsidies. The outcome has the potential to set the course for solar and other renewable energies for decades to come.

At the heart of the fight is a credit system called net metering, which pays residential and commercial customers for excess renewable energy they sell back to utilities. Currently, 43 states, the District of Columbia and four territories offer a form of the incentive, according to the Energy Department.

Some keep the credit in line with the wholesale prices that utilities pay large power producers, which can be a few cents a kilowatt-hour. But in California, those payments are among the most generous because they are tied to the daytime retail rates customers pay for electricity, which include utility costs for maintaining the grid.

California?s three major utilities estimate that by the time the subsidy program fills up under its current limits, they could have to make up almost $1.4 billion a year in revenue lost to solar customers, and shift that burden to roughly 7.6 million nonsolar customers ? an extra $185 a year if evenly spread. Some studies cited by solar advocates have shown, though, that the credit system can result in a net savings for the utilities.

Utilities in California have appealed to lawmakers and regulators to reduce the credits and limit the number of people who can participate. It has been an uphill fight.

About a year ago, the utilities pushed regulators to keep the amount of rooftop solar that would qualify for the net metering program at a low level; instead, regulators effectively raised it. Still, the utilities won a concession from the Legislature, which ordered the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a study to determine the costs and benefits of rooftop solar to both customers and the power grid with an eye toward retooling the policy.

Edward Randolph, director of the commission?s energy division, said that the study, due in the fall, was a step toward figuring out how to make the economics work for customers who want to install solar systems as well as for the nonsolar customers and the utilities. The commission wants to ensure, he said, that, ?we aren?t creating a system that 15 years from now has the utility going, ?We don?t have customers anymore but we still have an obligation to provide a distribution system ? how do we do that?? ?

The struggle over the California incentives is only the most recent and visible dust-up as many utilities cling to their established business, and its centralized distribution of energy, until they can figure out a new way to make money. It is a question the Obama administration is grappling with as well as it promotes the integration of more renewable energy into the grid.

Utility executives have watched disruptive technologies cause businesses in other industries to founder ? just as cellphones upended the traditional land-based telephone business, producing many a management shake-up ? and they want to stay ahead of a fundamental shift in the way electricity is bought, sold and delivered.

?I see an opportunity for us to recreate ourselves, just like the telecommunications industry did,? Michael W. Yackira, chief executive of NV Energy, a Nevada utility, and chairman of the industry group the Edison Electric Institute, said at the group?s convention.

The fight in California has become increasingly public, with the two sides releasing reports and counter-reports. A group of fast-growing young companies that install rooftop systems, including SolarCity, Sungevity, Sunrun and Verengo, recently formed their own lobbying group, the Alliance for Solar Choice, to battle efforts to weaken the subsidies and credit systems.

They have good reason. In California, as intended, net metering has proved a strong draw for customers. From 2010 to 2012, the amount of solar installed each year has increased by 160 percent, almost doubling the amount of electricity that rooftop systems can make, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. With federal tax credits and a rebate program for installation costs under the California Solar Initiative phasing out, determining how much to pay customers has become even more critical.

?Net metering right now is the only way for customers to get value for their rooftop solar systems,? said Adam Browning, executive director of the advocacy group Vote Solar.

Mr. Browning and other proponents say that solar customers deserve fair payment not only for the electricity they transmit but for the value that smaller, more dispersed power generators give to utilities. Making more power closer to where it is used, advocates say, can reduce stress on the grid and make it more reliable, as well as save utilities from having to build and maintain more infrastructure and large, centralized generators.

But utility executives say that when solar customers no longer pay for electricity, they also stop paying for the grid, shifting those costs to other customers. Utilities generally make their profits by making investments in infrastructure and designing customer rates to earn that money back with a guaranteed return, set on average at about 10 percent.

?If the costs to maintain the grid are not being borne by some customers, then other customers have to bear a bigger and bigger portion,? said Steve Malnight, a vice president at Pacific Gas and Electric. ?As those costs get shifted, that leads to higher and higher rates for customers who don?t take advantage of solar.?

Utility executives call this a ?death spiral.? As utilities put a heavier burden on fewer customers, it increases the appeal for them to turn their roofs over to solar panels.

A handful of utilities have taken a different approach and are instead getting into the business of developing rooftop systems themselves. Dominion, for example, is running a pilot program in Virginia in which it leases roof space from commercial customers and installs its own panels to study the benefits of a decentralized generation.

Last month, Clean Power Finance, a San Francisco-based start-up that provides financial services and software to the rooftop solar industry, announced that it had backing from Duke Energy and other utilities, including Edison International. And in May, NextEra Energy Resources bought Smart Energy Capital, a commercial solar developer.

But those are exceptions.

?The next six to 12 months are the watershed moment for distributed energy in this country,? said Edward Fenster, a chief executive of Sunrun, adding that if their side prevailed in California and Arizona, it would dissuade utilities with net metering programs elsewhere from undoing them. ?If we don?t succeed, the opposite will be the case and in two years we?ll be fighting 41 of these battles.?

This story was originally published on July 29, 2013 in The New York Times under the headline, "On rooftops, a rival for utilities."

Copyright ? 2013 The New York Times

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663286/s/2f4d8660/sc/31/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Crooftops0Erival0Eutilities0E6C10A784196/story01.htm

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Gifts For Gamers: Fluxx , Fluxx The Board Game, & Other Looney ...

GIFTS FOR GAMERS?-?A weekly column at?Cold's Gold Factory?that focuses on bringing you some of the coolest gifts for gamers of all types. Remember to check back here for ideas for Gamer Birthday Gifts, Stocking Stuffers for Gamers, and Gamer Christmas Ideas.

Fluxx Games From Looney Labs

FLUXX is one of my favorite family friendly table-top card games and I've featured it in an earlier Gifts For Gamers post on my Top 5 Table-Top Card Games. ?Fluxx is an awesome card game because it is super fun, easy to learn, appeals to gamers of all different types, and can be played by the whole family. ?Fluxx is a game of ever changing rules, which keeps the games feeling fresh and makes the entire Fluxx line have a nice replay value for years. ?There is a version of Fluxx made for everyone:

1. Fluxx 4.0
2. Star Fluxx
3. Zombie Fluxx
4. Pirate Fluxx
5. Family Fluxx
6. Monty Python Fluxx
7. Oz Fluxx
8. Cthulhu Fluxx
9. Eco-Fluxx
10. Martian Fluxx

Looney Labs Launches Fluxx the Board Game

And now Looney Labs has just released the first ever FLUXX Board Game, which looks to be a ton of fun too! ?Check out the video below for a preview on the new Fluxx board game.

From the Manufacturer

The board game that's all about change: changing rules, changing goals and now changing tiles. Occupy the right tile spaces to claim the current goal and reveal the next goal. getting you one step closer to victory.

Product Description

It's more strategic than the original card game and delivers everything you'd expect from a name like Fluxx; The Board Game.The ever-shifting landscape is made of tiles that can be rotated or uprooted elsewhere on the table.Ti win, players must position their pieces on places shown on goal cards.Victory requires accomplishing several goals but the exact number needed is subject to change!Rule changes are tracked on a comprehensive new game board.It's a game about change where everything can change - from the rules to the gameboard to the color of your pieces!

Other Fun Games From Looney Labs

Looney Labs creatures a large variety of really fun games. ?I've played a lot of their games and have enjoyed every game of theirs that I've played. ?Andy Looney and his wife are both super cool and friendly people who I met at one of the Origins Conventions. ?Any convention that I've been to I always look for the Looney Labs room to hang out and try out their new games. ?I recommend the same, if you are lucky enough to attend a gaming convention where Looney Labs is attending also.

Here are a few more of their games that you may be interested in checking out.

1. Ice Dice
2. Looney Pyramids
3. Chrononauts
4. Treehouse
5. Are You A Werewolf?

Source: http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/2013/07/gifts-for-gamers-fluxx-board-game-looney-labs.html

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The New York Times' Nick Bilton describes "a day in the life" of his iPhone

Have you ever thought about how often you pick up your iPhone and use it to perform some task or another? That's exactly what Nick Bilton, tech columnist at The New York Times, did for a story published today. Bilton's post follows his iPhone app usage throughout a typical day.

Bilton begins his day with the Walk Up! alarm clock app, then spends the rest of the day grabbing information from a variety of free and paid apps. At the end of the day, he may read a few articles from Instapaper, use the Kindle app to read a book, or use Apple's Remote app to control his Apple TV before going to bed.

It's a fascinating look at one blogger's iPhone app usage throughout a day, and an indication of just how much we've come to depend on our smartphones.

Share

Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2013/07/29/the-new-york-times-nick-bilton-describes-a-day-in-the-life-of/

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India-Pakistan composite dialogue to restart in August

NEW DELHI: The stalled Indo-Pak composite dialogue process is all set to restart in August with Islamabad proposing dates for water secretary level talks ? meant to address the Wullar Barrage issue ? and New Delhi "actively considering it". Pakistan, in fact, has also proposed a meeting between the two foreign secretaries but, as diplomatic sources confirmed, only after talks over water and Sir Creek issues are held.

The dialogue process with Pakistan was thrown off the track by the January ceasefire violations which led to killings of both Indian and Pakistani soldiers. The water talks that were to be held in late January were the first casualty of the impasse that followed. India decided to postpone the talks saying that its water resources secretary was retiring and instead proposed that the dialogue be held in March.

The postponement came days after then Pakistani commerce minister Makhdoom Fahim called off his visit to India. "There are some proposals from Pakistan for the resumption of dialogue and dates are being worked out through diplomatic channels," said an Indian government source.

Pakistan for water talks

Diplomatic sources said Pakistan has sent a list of dates to India for all government-level dialogues which are to be held in Islamabad. Pakistan wants the water talks to be held in the last week of August and Sir Creek in mid-September. It has also said that foreign secretaries could meet in October to take stock of the overall situation. It has suggested that PM Manmohan Singh could visit Pakistan around the same time to further bolster the peace process.

Indian government sources said there is no questioning of not responding favourably to the proposals by Islamabad as India has already agreed to a meeting between PM Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of UNGA in New York late September.

Sharif's special advisor on foreign affairs Sartaz Aziz had proposed in a meeting with foreign minister Salman Khurshid that the two PMs meet in New York to fast track the CBMs and composite dialogue process. Speaking after Aziz, Khurshid had said India was looking forward to meetings between the various joint working groups in July itself.

The list of dates for talks is yet another initiative by Islamabad to put the peace process firmly back on track after the victory of Sharif in the recent general elections. Sharif maintained throughout his election campaign that he wanted to repair ties with India. While he insisted after taking over that Singh keep his long standing promise to visit Pakistan, Sharif accommodated his counterpart's reluctance to go there by proposing that the two meet in New York for the time being.

The Pakistani PM then went ahead and appointed former Pakistan foreign secretary Shaharyar Khan as his special envoy for reviving the track II dialogue process with India.

Source: http://timesofindia.feedsportal.com/c/33039/f/533964/s/2f3e170b/sc/2/l/0Ltimesofindia0Bindiatimes0N0Cindia0CIndia0EPakistan0Ecomposite0Edialogue0Eto0Erestart0Ein0EAugust0Carticleshow0C214136860Bcms/story01.htm

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Starbucks sales in China surge

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Starbucks is selling a lot more coffee in China. According to its latest quarterly report, Starbucks saw a 30% year-over-year jump in revenues from its Asia-Pacific region, lifted by outstanding sales in China.

"The very strong sales volumes prove that the coffee concept can succeed in traditional tea-drinking countries," said R J Hottovy, director of consumer equity research at Morningstar, Inc. "It's resonating very well with [inland] cities."

Starbucks' solid sales growth in the region was driven by the 500 new stores it opened in China last year, and its Chinese expansion plans aren't slowing down.

The Seattle-based coffee giant said it plans to open its thousandth store in China by the end the year. In addition to already being in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the company says its stores will have penetrated lesser-known cities. By 2014, Starbucks said China will surpass Canada to become the second largest market, after the United States.

In the last five years, overall retail coffee sales in China climbed by 10%, beating growth in Hong Kong, Japan and the 3% global average, according to data from research company Euromonitor International.
Starbucks said its marketing strategy in China is similar to that of its Western markets. It continues to focus on its core food and beverage products while also offering other locally oriented choices.

"The demographics they are targeting are younger and more affluent groups," Hottovy said.
Starbucks opened its first store in Taipei in 1998, followed by its first mainland China store in Beijing in 1999. But the coffee shop market is beginning to heat up. "Increasing competition will be the most pressing issue as more Western coffee brands enter the Chinese market," he said.

In 2012, an average Chinese person consumed about two cups of coffee per year. That's a far cry from the global average of 134 cups a year, according to Euromonitor. Coffee has less than 1% of the Chinese hot-drink market share. By contrast, tea makes up 54% of the market.

"It's still too early to say that coffee is going to replace tea, or that the Chinese flavor profile is changing," said Dana LaMendola, analyst of hot drinks at Euromonitor.

? & ? 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Source: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/world/starbucks-sales-in-china-surge

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Welwyn Garden City pub fun day to raise money for cancer patients

The Hollybush, Hollybush Lane (Google)

By Helen Wright, Reporter Friday, July 26, 2013
5:38 PM

A PUB fun day to raise money for two ladies suffering from cancer will take place in Welwyn Garden City tomorrow (Saturday).

To send a link to this page to a friend, you must be logged in.

The event will take place at the Hollybush Pub in Hollybush Lane and has been organised by Donna Dudley, Dionne Appleyard and Becca Singleton.

There will be a bouncy castle, face painting, bingo, children?s karaoke competition and loads more to keep everyone of all ages entertained.

In the evening there will be a raffle with prizes which have been donated by local shops ands businesses.

The money will then be donated to Lily Appleyard and Julie Dudley who are fighting the illness.

Donna said: ?We just wanted to raise some money to make things a bit easier for them.

?They can?t work at the moment so even if we could just raise enough so they can just have a nice day out that would be great.?

The fun day starts at noon, to find out more information call 01707 371582.

Source: http://www.herts24.co.uk/welwyn_garden_city_pub_fun_day_to_raise_money_for_cancer_patients_1_2302052

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New inductees to enter Baseball Hall of Fame

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. ? One created baseball?s foremost dynasty, one transformed the role of the men in blue, and one notched the first hit in the first professional game.

That?s the impressive legacy of baseball pioneers Jacob Ruppert, Hank O?Day and James ?Deacon? White, who are finally about to receive the recognition they deserve ? induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The three men represent the Class of 2013 and they?ve all been dead for more than 70 years, making Sunday?s festivities something out of the ordinary. For only the second time in 42 years, baseball writers failed to elect anyone to the Hall of Fame, sending a firm signal that stars of the Steroids Era ? including Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens, who didn?t even come close in their first year of eligibility ? will be judged in a different light.

?When December rolled around and the ballots were out for completion, it started to dawn on us that there was a better-than-likely chance that the writers might not come to a 75 per cent vote on anyone this year,? said Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson. ?Disappointed? Yes, because we feel there are candidates on the ballot who certainly deserved consideration. But surprised? No.?

Approval on 75 per cent of returned ballots is needed for induction, and with pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and slugger Frank Thomas eligible for the first time next year, Bonds, Sosa and Clemens figure to be on the outside looking in for a long while.

?I believe that this past year was an aberration ? the first real ballot with some uncertainty among how the voters feel about some of the candidates on it,? Idelson said. ?But looking forward, we don?t believe that this is the norm.?

One thing remains constant ? the awards for those who have chronicled the game. Longtime Philadelphia Daily News writer Paul Hagen will be honoured with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award and the family of late Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek will be given the Ford C. Frick Award in a ceremony on Saturday at Doubleday Field. Dr. Frank Jobe, whose groundbreaking surgery on pitcher Tommy John has evolved into a game-changing medical procedure, also will be honoured.

The Baseball Writers? Association of America last failed to elect a player in 1971, when former New York Yankees great Yogi Berra fell just short. Back then, the Veterans Committee selected Dave Bancroft, Jake Beckley, Chick Hafey, Harry Hooper, Joe Kelley, Rube Marquard, Satchel Paige and George Weiss.

This time, the 16-member Pre-Integration Era Committee dug deep into the archives to elect an owner, an umpire, and a player who had significant roles in baseball?s earliest decades.

Ruppert, who was born in Manhattan in 1867, went to work for his father in the family brewing business instead of attending college. He also fashioned a military career, rising to the rank of colonel in the National Guard, and served four terms in Congress from 1899-1907 before becoming president of the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Co. upon the death of his father in 1915.

Interested in baseball since he was a kid, Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston purchased the Yankees prior to the 1915 season for $480,000, then proceeded to transform what had been a perennial also-ran in the American League into a powerhouse.

Miller Huggins was hired as manager soon after Ruppert gained control of the franchise, and Ruppert then snared Babe Ruth in a 1919 trade with the Boston Red Sox, a deal that changed the dynamics of the sport. Four years later, Ruppert had Yankee Stadium constructed and ?The House That Ruth Built? became baseball?s mecca. Ruppert also hired general manager Ed Barrow from the Red Sox in 1921, and together they won 10 AL pennants and seven World Series in 18 seasons.

O?Day was born on the rural west side of Chicago in 1859, played ball as a kid with his older brothers, and after completing his education apprenticed as a steamfitter while pitching for several local teams. He turned pro in 1884, but his arm suffered mightily in seven years of action and he retired not long after leading the New York Giants to the National League pennant in 1889 and pitching a complete game to clinch the 19th century precursor to the modern World Series.

During his playing days, O?Day umpired occasionally and was so proficient he was hired in 1895. After working a season in the minor leagues, he joined the National League in 1897 and went on to umpire more than 4,000 games. His greatest contribution to baseball was convincing everyone associated with the game to treat the men in blue with dignity. Despite repeated physical and verbal assaults from players and fans, O?Day maintained his signature code of fairness, often ignoring enormous bribes to favour the home team, and his colleagues eventually adopted his pioneering ways.

White, a barehanded catcher, was one of major league baseball?s earliest stars. In fact, he was the first batter in the first professional game on May 4, 1871, and laced a double. An outstanding hitter, White, who grew up in Caton, N.Y., near Corning, was regarded as the best catcher in baseball before switching to third base late in his nearly 20-year career.

A deeply religious man, White earned the nickname ?Deacon? and was dubbed ?the most admirable superstar of the 1870s? by Bill James in his ?Historical Baseball Extract.? A left-handed batter, White played for the Cleveland Forest Citys, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Reds, Buffalo Bisons, Detroit Wolverines and Pittsburgh Alleghenys. He had a .312 batting average and accumulated 2,067 hits, 270 doubles, 98 triples, 24 home runs and 988 RBIs before retiring in 1890.

White died in 1939 in Aurora, Ill., and six years later Hall of Famer Connie Mack, a teammate of White?s in Buffalo, wrote in a letter that White merited induction.

Now, White?s special day is here, and great grandson Jerry Watkins will speak on his behalf. Dennis McNamara, a great grandnephew of O?Day, will deliver a speech on behalf of the 10th umpire to be enshrined, and Anne Vernon, great grandniece of Ruppert, will speak on behalf of the family.

Forty of the 62 living Hall of Famers are expected back and will be part of something special. Twelve men elected between 1939 and 1945 will be celebrated, and returning Hall of Famers will read the text of those players? plaques in their honour. None of those 12 inductees, which include Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby, experienced a formal induction in Cooperstown.

Hall of Fame weekend is the bread-and-butter moment of the year for local business owners, who count on a substantial influx of fans to help make ends meet. A record crowd of over 70,000 descended on this one-stoplight village six years ago for the induction ceremony honouring Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn.

?It was crazy busy,? said Sherrie Kingsley, who with her husband operates The Inn at Cooperstown. ?It was an overwhelming amount of people for our village, but we were expecting it.?

Neither Kingsley nor Idelson is sure what to expect this time around, but they?re not too concerned. The Inn is booked as usual, and Main Street has been bustling.

?Hall of Fame weekend has taken on a life of being a weekend of baseball celebration,? Idelson said. ?Is it about the inductees first and foremost? Of course. It is a celebration of them. But it?s also the biggest baseball reunion there is on the baseball calendar.

?No, our numbers we don?t believe will be as robust as with the headline names. We still feel that the weekend is going to be successful.?

Honorees to be feted on Saturday:

PAUL HAGEN: Born in East Aurora, N.Y. ? to be given the J.G. Taylor Spink Award presented by the Baseball Writers? Association of America for meritorious contributions to baseball writing. ? attended Ohio University and began his writing career in 1974 working in San Bernardino, Calif., where he covered the Los Angeles Dodgers for three years. ? also worked in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for a decade covering the Texas Rangers for the Dallas Times-Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ? worked for 25 years in Philadelphia covering the Phillies for the Philadelphia Daily News. ? currently works for MLB.com, as a national reporter focusing on the Phillies.

TOM CHEEK: Born June 13, 1939 in Pensacola, Fla. and died Oct. 9, 2005 in Oldsmar, Fla. after battling brain cancer. ? to be honoured with the 2013 Ford C. Frick Award presented annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame for excellence in baseball broadcasting. ? Toronto Blue Jays radio play-by-play man who called the team?s first 4,306 regular-season and 41 playoff games from 1977-2004 before missing a game due to illness and the death of his father. ? on Aug. 29, 2004 was honoured by the Blue Jays with his induction into the Level of Excellence, the club?s highest award for individual achievement. Cheek became just the seventh inductee and only the second member of non-uniformed personnel so honoured. ? served in the U.S. Air Force and after his discharge attended the Cambridge School of Broadcasting in Boston for two years. ? began his radio career in Plattsburgh, N.Y. as disc jockey for WEAV in 1962. ? moved to Burlington, Vt. and began calling baseball, basketball, football, and hockey for the University of Vermont. ? served as a guest announcer for the Montreal Expos from 1974-76. ? best known for his call of the Joe Carter home run in Game 6 that clinched the 1993 World Series: ?Touch ?em all Joe, you?ll never hit a bigger home run in your life.?

Honorees to be feted on Sunday:

JACOB RUPPERT JR.: born in New York City on Aug. 5, 1867 and died Jan. 13, 1939. ? became a National Guard colonel and served four terms in Congress from 1899-1907. ? started in the family brewing business and became president of the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Co. with the death of his father in 1915. ? teamed with Tillinghast Huston to purchase the New York Yankees prior to the 1915 season. ? brought in future Hall of Famers Miller Huggins as manager and Ed Barrow as general manager and purchased the contract of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox prior to the 1920 season to quickly turn an also-ran team into the game?s most prominent franchise. ? built Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923. ? while he was the Yankees owner, the Bronx Bombers won 10 American League pennants and seven World Series. ? became the 33rd executive elected to the Hall of Fame, receiving 15 of 16 votes (93.8 per cent) from the Pre-Integration Era Committee.

JAMES LAURIE ?DEACON? WHITE: Born Dec. 7, 1847 in Caton, N.Y. and died July 7, 1939 in Aurora, Ill. ? was a brilliant bare-handed catcher during the earliest days of professional baseball. ? played in the first professional league, the National Association, which debuted in 1871, and was the first batter in the first professional game on May 4, 1871 and hit a double. ? also played for Chicago in the National League?s inaugural year of 1876 ? regarded as the best catcher in baseball before switching to third base late in his nearly 20-year career. ? played for the Cleveland Forest Citys, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Reds, Buffalo Bisons, Detroit Wolverines and Pittsburgh Alleghenys. ? despite league schedules that often were limited to 70 or 80 games, batted .312 for his career, accumulating 2,067 hits, 270 doubles, 98 triples, 24 home runs and 988 RBIs before retiring in 1890. ? won two batting titles and three RBI crowns. ? didn?t drink, smoke or gamble, earning the nickname ?Deacon.? ? was dubbed ?the most admirable superstar of the 1870s? by Bill James in his ?Historical Baseball Extract.? ? received 14 of 16 votes (87.5 per cent) from the Pre-Integration Era Committee.

HENRY ?HANK? O?DAY: Born July 8, 1859, in Chicago and died July 2, 1935, in Chicago. ? played ball as a kid with his older brothers and pitched for several local teams while apprenticing as a steamfitter. ? turned pro in 1884 and fashioned a 73-100 record in seven years, also playing the outfield. ? led the New York Giants to the National League pennant in 1889 and pitched a complete game to clinch the 19th century precursor to the modern World Series. ? was hired as an umpire in 1895 and joined the NL staff two years later. .. umpired more than 4,000 games, including 10 World Series. ? called the first modern World Series in 1903. ? was the ruling umpire in the famous Cubs vs. Giants game on Sept. 23, 1908 when Chicago?s Johnny Evers tagged out New York?s Fred Merkle following what appeared to be the game-winning hit by the Giants. O?Day ruled that because Merkle had not touched second base that the force out ended the game, which was ruled a tie when the fans overran the field. The Cubs later won a re-played version of the game and captured the National League pennant. ? convinced everyone associated with the game to treat umpires with dignity. ? managed the Reds in 1912 and the Cubs in 1914 and returned to umpiring after he was replaced in both cities. ? retired in 1927 and became the NL?s special scout of umpires and players. ? the 10th umpire to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/sports/1144688-new-inductees-to-enter-baseball-hall-of-fame

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Ayurveda &/O Ashwsgandha anyone? - Health, Fitness, and Sports

I am researching safer, legal alternatives to the chemical drugs that doctors prefer to prescribe for anxiety/stress, etc.

I am in the process of modifying my physical activity and exercise. I am studying EFT(emotional freedom technique). and I have found some basic information on Ayurveda, and the herb Ashwsgandha. anyone used this? any success?

thank you.
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Android and google calendar. now I never miss an appointment. If only they could help me to remember to change to appropriate attire. Its embarrassing on a subway to realize your pajama fly has unsnapped and your bunny slippers are missing an ear.

Source: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt236247.html

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