Monday, 30 January 2012

Imperial War Museum Collection ? Inexpensive Car Insurance in ...

Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2012 in iwm

Searching for inexpensive California auto insurance? The important thing to discovering the cheapest California auto insurance prices would be to take advantage of discounts, purchase only the quantity of protection which you require, and also to consistently shop around for California automobile insurance coverage estimates from many various insurance coverage companies a minimum of as soon as every six months. After all, California auto insurance rates change often and its up to you to spend a couple of moments doing some study so you can find a cheap California auto insurance coverage for yourself!

California is one of the biggest states within the entire nation with an approximated 36,457,549 million people and experts only predict that it?ll still develop (it has developed a staggering 7.6% from 2005 to 2006). With so many individuals residing within the state, one are only able to assume that there will be numerous more drivers entering the this Western region from the United states, therefore much more vehicles will probably be around the streets of California in many years to come. Because of this it?s no surprise that rates in California could get to be very expensive when it comes to car insurance coverage, especially in cities like La, San Francisco and San Diego.

It?s important to know however, that potential customers can nonetheless find inexpensive CA car insurance coverage when they shop about and do everything they need to do before choosing a company. One factor relating to this state is the fact that has great variety with regards to inhabitants. People from all over the globe come to California to live and since of this automobile insurance companies need to shape their protection to them.

Before even deciding on the type of protection you would like from the specific automobile insurance business it is essential to understand the state requirements (or state?s minimums) for California. This will allow you to see the minimum protection feasible which you can choose from the particular car insurance coverage business, thus it?ll give you the least expensive price feasible. The state of California dictates that one must be responsible for their very own actions with regards to driving a motorcar and that a person should understand the danger associated with being powering the wheel of a automobile.

The statutory limitations for car Insurance within the state of California are 15/30/5. This means that any individual driving a car in the streets of this state needs to possess a minimum of Bodily Damage of 15,000 for death of injury of anybody person, Bodily Injury or 30,000 for all persons in one accident and Home Harm of $5,000 per accident. This really is distinct as California auto insurance legislation is trying to prevent legal arbitrations towards any driver when is involves automobile accidents.

One factor of be aware is that even though having the minimal coverage will help you with the rates, in case of an accident you will not have complete or collision protection. Also, those individuals that purchased a car and are nonetheless making payments on it, or those of you who leased a car will not be in a position to obtain minimal protection (they are required to have complete and collision protection). Because of this reason, it is important to keep in mind not just how much money you can pay for when purchasing a new automobile, but just how much your insurance will rise if you buy it.

Apart from having the minimum protection that the state of California enforces you will find many other issues a driver must take into account when they desire a cheap California car insurance coverage. One of them would be to try and get a substantial deductible; nevertheless it should be a deductible that they can afford just in case some thing happens.

If you personal a relatively old car and therefore are done generating payments on the car you should be okay having a minimum protection and a substantial deductible (the cheapest car insurance coverage coverage), however if you want to be protected and have a much less out of pocket cost in case something occurs try a reduced deductible. The most typical deductible is the fact that of $500 because it?s not to reduced or as well substantial at the same time, but individuals could even go so far as having a $1000 deductible which might reduce their rates significantly.

Final but not minimum is it important to say the variety of discounts that California automobile insurance companies offer to reduced the prices of potential clients trying to enroll in their plans. These reductions can be the primary thing with regards to inexpensive automobile insurance coverage rates within the state of California.

One factor that may definitely help your price is in the event you have a clean driving file. Since the state of California is a busy one, especially when it comes to visitors, insurance companies will lower your price if you are a great driver and generate defensively. In the event you get a DUI within the state, anticipate to pay much more than ambigu what you would for car insurance.

Another important low cost that just about all insurance businesses give is the fact that of car gear. In the event you have safety functions this kind of as air bags, anti-theft alarms, anti-lock brakes and any other people; then you will probably be good to go when it comes to reductions. Keep in mind that theft is a substantial danger that insurance coverage companies base their rates on, so in the event you try to prevent it with these features, your rate will probably be a lot lower.

Last although not minimum it?s great to discuss other reductions this kind of as good student and certified driver?s certificate. This first 1 if essential simply because while you start your driving profession you will be hit hard with substantial insurance coverage rates merely simply because you wont have expertise and insurance companies are taking a danger by insuring you. If you are a great pupil that makes great grades, you?ll have the ability to get discounts.

Also, if you go and attend a defensive motorists program, most California Auto Insurance Businesses will be able to provide you an enormous discount merely simply because you learned techniques which will help you become a better driver.

It isn?t hard to obtain a inexpensive automobile insurance coverage within the state of California. Although the state has more autos on the roads than ever before before and insurance rates are going up, you are able to steer clear of having to pay lots of money in the event you merely do the issues talked about over.

If you want the most affordable automobile insurance coverage coverage accessible then go ahead and get the minimal specifications, nevertheless you can?t be leasing or generating payments on your car. If you just simply want a price that is not sky rocket substantial, then simply try raising your deductible a little little bit or asking for a few of the many reductions that insurance businesses might give.

Here is some more information:
Buying a new automobile may be an enjoyable and exciting experience. You receive to walk the great deal selecting out the vehicles that match you best. When you find the 1 you want absolutely nothing beats that new car smell. You can?t wait to point out of one?s new car to all your friends and family. Then actuality sets in and also you understand you need to buy automobile insurance coverage for brand new vehicles and you have to spend for tags and revenue tax. This new car will rapidly set you back an additional thousand bucks out of pocket. Luckily, there are ways to avoid wasting on car insurance coverage for new vehicles. Think about the subsequent 4 suggestions to save on your new coverage.

Suggestion One: Select Your car Cautiously

When you are nonetheless around the lot you need to think about buying your insurance. In the event you wish to save cash search for a car which has lots of security functions and it is rated extremely by automobile and driver. Many insurance companies give discounts for security features. Their see is the fact that if you are safe they?re more unlikely to spend out an insurance claim. Make sure you get passenger air bags, anti-lock brakes, and a safety system inside your new automobile.

Tip Two: Evaluate Coverage for a Excellent Deal

The very best method to make sure you?re obtaining the best car insurance for new cars is to complete an online search and comparison. You are able to total a search by your zip code to find local insurance coverage agents. Nevertheless, you?ll discover you will find numerous companies that cover a number of states. Filling out the form is easy. Just make sure you have your driver?s license and VIN quantity for the car. Enter your own information and also you could get immediate quotes from numerous various companies instantly.

Tip Three: Don?t Buy Much more Than You?ll need

Purchasing car insurance coverage is type of like looking for groceries. You can purchase around you want, however you do not always require what you are purchasing. Every state has minimal protection limits. Nevertheless, there are no maximums. When you buy car insurance coverage for new vehicles you need to sit down and choose how much coverage you?ll need.

Do you require $25,000 bucks of medical coverage or $250,000? The difference in between the two amounts is extremely drastic. You policy could even ambigu whenever you add on substantial coverage quantities. It?s your decision to determine if you really need this much protection.

Suggestion Four: Increase Your Deductible Also compare Auto Insurance North Carolina here.

In the event you are purchasing car insurance for new cars you will have to choose how much you want your deductible to be. This is actually the amount you spend from pocket if you get into an accident. Most businesses permit you to choose deductibles from $500 to $1,five hundred.

Elevating your deductible will lower your insurance premium. Nevertheless, you have to make sure you possess the money to spend a $1,five hundred dollar deductible if you get into a wreck. This could be very difficult.

As you can see purchasing automobile insurance for new cars can be a bit tricky. Nevertheless, whenever you know what you?re performing the process is much easier.

Source: http://iwmcollections.org/2012/01/29/inexpensive-car-insurance-in-california-how-you-can-discover-inexpensive-california-auto-insurance-rates/

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How conservatives lost their moral compass (Politico)

Republicans must love to cheer. At their presidential primary debates last year, the audiences boisterously cheered candidates who raised their hands in support of waterboarding; Texas Gov. Rick Perry?s boast about how many prisoners he had sent to the death chamber; Rep. Ron Paul?s declaration that an uninsured 30-year-old man who needs medical care should be left to die; and Herman Cain?s gripe, ?If you don?t have a job and you?re not rich, blame yourself.?

Liberals chalked it up to a new, strange, coldhearted ultraconservatism that makes ?Reservoir Dogs? look like ?Mary Poppins.? But there is something much deeper and scarier here than demagogic campaign appeals to conservative rage ? something even deeper than the new conservative machismo that treats compassion as a weakness.

Continue Reading

What is happening to America is not the rise of a new conservatism. It is the demise of shame.

Conservatives of the past, like conservatives of today, excoriated government efforts to assist the needy. But they were quick to add it was government they hated ? not the needy themselves.

They might have grumbled about taxes and government giveaways and even federal incursions into what they considered state matters, like civil rights. But they didn?t take pride in being merciless or hateful. Indeed, even if they harbored those feelings, the nation?s overwhelming sense of Judeo-Christian moral righteousness forced them to at least talk about concern for the underprivileged. No one wanted to seem mean.

Not any more.

Over the past 40 years, as conservatives have complained, this nation has undergone a moral revolution. It?s just not the one they think. They bemoan greater tolerance for homosexuality; loosened sexual strictures; and overall sexualization of the culture, the coarsened language, provocative dress and a general lack of discipline. But gay rights aside, that is largely aesthetics, not morality.

America?s real moral revolution has been the abandonment of those old Judeo-Christian precepts to which both liberals and conservatives subscribed ? tolerance, compassion and generosity on the one hand and hard work, honesty and fairness on the other.

Conservatives and liberals have different worldviews. But they were bound by these dual moralities ? one of justice, the other of responsibility.

They were also bound by a powerful force that made these operational: shame.

?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories0112_72121_html/44350284/SIG=11mqoa5bl/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72121.html

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Sunday, 29 January 2012

Egyptians move to reclaim streets through graffiti

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 photo, Egyptian women walk past graffiti depicting a military tank on a wall under a bridge in Cairo, Egypt. In May, Mohamed Fahmy, known in the graffiti world as Gazneer, made one of Cairo's largest and longest surviving pieces of street art under a bridge used by taxi drivers to urinate. It was an image of a military tank pointed toward a boy on a bike who, rather than carrying a traditional bread delivery, was carrying the city on his head. It was a symbolic reference to youth who care for the nation and are heading toward a collision with Egypt's military rulers. On his blog, Ganzeer wrote: "Our only hope right now is to destroy the military council using the weapon of art." (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 photo, Egyptian women walk past graffiti depicting a military tank on a wall under a bridge in Cairo, Egypt. In May, Mohamed Fahmy, known in the graffiti world as Gazneer, made one of Cairo's largest and longest surviving pieces of street art under a bridge used by taxi drivers to urinate. It was an image of a military tank pointed toward a boy on a bike who, rather than carrying a traditional bread delivery, was carrying the city on his head. It was a symbolic reference to youth who care for the nation and are heading toward a collision with Egypt's military rulers. On his blog, Ganzeer wrote: "Our only hope right now is to destroy the military council using the weapon of art." (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In this Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 an Egyptian girl, left, posts an art piece made by Sad Panda, unseen, on a wall as flower vendors prepare a bouquet outside their shop in Cairo, Egypt. Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew their authoritarian leader nearly one year ago, but the battle for freedom of expression continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In this Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012 photo, a man walks past graffiti depicting the Egyptian military in Cairo, Egypt. Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew their authoritarian leader nearly one year ago, but the battle for freedom of expression continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In this Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012 photo, a man cleans a side walk as graffiti is shown on the wall with Arabic writing from top left to top right that reads, "the answer and the other answer, we will not forget these dates, the people will still revolt, raise the revolutionary flag, hit Tantawy, the revolution will bring justice, we are for Tahrir, " in Cairo, Egypt. Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew their authoritarian leader nearly one year ago, but the battle for freedom of expression continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In this Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011 photo, two boys look through concrete blocks built by Egyptian military with Arabic writing that reads, "freedom," near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew their authoritarian leader nearly one year ago, but the battle for freedom of expression continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

(AP) ? The conflict between Egypt's ruling military and pro-democracy protesters isn't just on the streets of Cairo, it's on the walls as well, as graffiti artists from each side duel it out with spray paint and stencils.

Earlier this month, supporters of the ruling generals painted over part of the largest and most famous antimilitary graffiti pieces in the capital.

The military's supporters then made a 15-minute video using footage posted by two young men stenciling pro-revolution graffiti and wearing Guy Fawkes masks, the grinning face made famous by the movie "V for Vendetta". In an attempt mock the revolutionary street art, the military supporters declared in their video, "The police, military and people are one hand," and, "The military is a red line."

They posted the video online, calling themselves the "Badr Battalion" and describing themselves as "distinguished Egyptian youth who are against the spies and traitors that burn Egypt."

It was an ironic turnabout, with backers of the authorities picking up the renegade street art medium of revolutionary youth.

During the regime of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt had almost no graffiti on the walls of its cities. But when the uprising against Mubarak's rule erupted a year ago, there was an explosion of the art.

Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew the country's authoritarian leader. The battle continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power.

Since Mubarak's fall on Feb. 11, graffiti is everywhere in Cairo and other cities, proclaiming the goals of the revolution and mocking the regime. Graffiti artists have continued to work, using walls, buildings, bridges and sidewalks as a canvas to denounce the generals who took power after Mubarak as new dictators and to press the revolution's demands.

Usually anti-military graffiti has a short lifetime before it is quickly painted over or defaced with black spray paint. And just as quickly the artists put up more.

The graffito that pro-military supporters painted over had survived remarkably long. Mohamed Fahmy, known by his pseudonym Ganzeer, put it up in May under a bridge. It depicts a military tank with its turret aimed at a boy on his bike who balances on his head one of the wooden racks that are traditionally used to deliver bread ? though instead of bread, he's carrying a city. It was a symbolic reference to revolutionary youth who care for the nation, heading into a collision with the generals.

Quickly after it was partially stenciled over, a new graffiti was up, depicting the country's military leader as a large snake with a bloody corpse coming out of his mouth.

Graffiti has turned into perhaps the most fertile artistic expression of Egypt's uprising, shifting rapidly to keep up with events. Faces of protesters killed or arrested in crackdowns are common subjects ? and as soon as a new one falls, his face is ubiquitous nearly the next day.

The face of Khaled Said, a young man whose beating death at the hands of police officers in 2010 helped fuel the anti-Mubarak uprising, even appeared briefly on the walls of the Interior Ministry, the daunting security headquarters that few would dare even approach in the past.

Other pieces mock members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the council of generals that is now in power, or figures from Mubarak's regime.

When a police officer was captured on an Internet video shooting at the eyes of protesters during clashes, his image immediately dotted walls, urging people to find the "Eye-Sniper."

State television is another frequent target because it has become the mouthpiece for the military's proclamations that protesters are vandals, thugs and part of a plot to throw Egypt into chaos. One graffito shows the word "Occupy" written in the shape of the State TV building. Stickers plastered on walls show the words "Go down to the street" emerging from a television set, a message to the so-called "Couch Party," people who sit and watch the protests on TV.

"It's about a message in the street. It reaches the poor, the rich, the trash collector, the taxi driver," graffiti artist Karim Gouda said. "Most of these people are away from the Internet and the social networking world so it's a way to reach them."

Not everyone is receptive. Gouda said he was accosted by residents as he put up posters depicting a rotting face with the words "open your eyes before it's too late" in the impoverished Cairo district of Sayeda Zeinab. They accused him of trying to create civil strife and of trying to encourage Egypt's Christian minority to take over from the Muslim majority. Such accusations about activists were rife at the time after an October protest by Christians in Cairo, which was crushed by soldiers, killing more than 20.

The residents tore down Gouda's posters and chased him out of the neighborhood.

Under Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, political expression on the streets was repressed by his powerful police forces. Once every five years, parliamentary elections would see the country littered with posters for elections that always favored the ruling party. Billboards advertising a lifestyle that only a privileged few could afford for companies whose owners were often closely affiliated with the regime towered over the sprawling slums of Cairo, a bustling city of some 18 million people.

"It's liberating to see," blogger Soraya Morayef said of the proliferation of street art.

Morayef, who has dedicated her blog Suzeeinthecity to documenting graffiti artists' work, said the street art reflects what happened in the whole country.

"The fear barrier was broken," she said.

___

Soraya Morayef's blog on graffiti: http://suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-29-ML-Egypt-Graffiti/id-1d2064e70e664ed9b906547847adb72c

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Obama to spell out plan to target universities that don't control rising tuition costs (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192202278?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Saturday, 28 January 2012

Jon Gosselin and Ellen Ross: It's Over!


Jon Gosselin and Ellen Ross have split up after nearly two years together.

It's unclear exactly why the ex-husband of Kate Gosselin split with his lady friend, but reports say Ellen's distaste for the media was the final straw.

"Ellen didn't like the media attention and other things that came with the relationship," a source said. "That's one of the main reasons they broke up."

Wait ... we still pay attention to Jon Gosselin? Besides right now? Who knew!

Jon Gosselin and Ellen Ross Picture

According to an insider, the twosome broke up more than a week ago, but it wasn't until Friday that Jon Gosselin confirmed the breakup on Twitter:

"Recently, after much thought and discussion, Ellen and I have decided to end our relationship. It was a mutual decision and we are both happy."

"We will remain best friends. We both plan to move forward and focus on our separate lives. We ask that you please respect our privacy at this time."

So far, no word from Ellen Ross personally, except a denial earlier this week that was debunked when Jon spilled the beans on Twitter. Whoops.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/jon-gosselin-and-ellen-ross-its-over/

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Ashton Kutcher Reacts to Demi Moore Hospitalization with Silence, Random Tweet


Let's be honest: Ashton Kutcher is likely very concerned about Demi Moore.

The actor may have a wondering pecker, but his heart is not made out of coal. Kutcher and Moore were married for six years, after all.

But in light of his ex's hospitalization this week, Ashton has remained silent. He's spent the week in Brazil, attending a fashion show on Sunday in Sao Paulo, and didn't give TMZ a comment last night when approached by a camera outside a nightclub.

Kutcher, Ashton

But Kutcher - or his management team, we suppose - did oddly update his Twitter account this morning, linking to a story about journalists and bloggers that use "drone" cameras and writing:

Citizen journalists take to the sky.

Responded a follower to Ashton's Tweet: Surprised this is where your focus is right now.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/ashton-kutcher-reacts-to-demi-moore-hospitalization-with-silence/

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Saturday, 21 January 2012

Video: Obama pushes tourism

Miracle baby born from single sperm

An Ohio man who made no sperm and his wife, who had few eggs, have become parents thanks to a first-ever Cleveland Clinic case in which a single sperm that was frozen and injected into an egg resulted in pregnancy. Here, Jason and Jennifer Schiraldi pose with Kenley,9 months.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46062924#46062924

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Friday, 20 January 2012

Apple rolls out digital textbook service iBooks 2 (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Apple Inc unveiled a new digital textbook service called iBooks 2 on Thursday, aiming to revitalize the U.S. education market and quicken the adoption of its market-leading iPad.

The consumer electronics giant has been working on digital textbooks with publishers Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Muffin Harcourt, a trio responsible for 90 percent of textbooks sold in the United States.

It Amazon.com Inc and other device makers have made inroads into an estimated $8 billion market for electronic textbooks.

At the event, Apple introduced tools to craft digital textbooks and demonstrated how authors and even teachers can create books for students.

Marketing chief Phil Schiller said it was time to reinvent the textbook, adding that 1.5 million iPads are in use now in education.

"It's hard not to see that the textbook is not always the ideal learning tool," he said.

"It's a bit cumbersome."

IBooks 2 will be available as a free app on the iPad, starting Thursday. High school textbooks will be priced at $14.99 or less, Schiller said.

"You'll see textbooks for every subject for every level," he added.

Other media and technology companies have eyed the U.S. education market as ripe for some sort of upheaval. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp launched an education business two years ago and hired former New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein to lead it.

At an event at New York's Guggenheim Museum, the first since the passing of Apple founder Steve Jobs, Schiller said teachers need help and Apple is trying to figure out how it can do its part.

"In general, education is in the dark ages," he said, adding that education has challenges that are "pretty profound."

According to Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson, Murdoch met with Jobs last year and discussed the possibility of Apple's entrance into a market Jobs estimated at $8 billion a year and believed was ripe for disruption.

(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke and Nicola Leske in New York and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; editing by Mark Porter)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/bs_nm/us_apple_education

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SiriusXM now available on Canadian Sonos systems

 

Sonos sound system with Android app

Sonos, the Android-friendly speaker system, has been able to stream SiriusXM Radio since 2007, but only in limited geographies. Today, Sirius announced that Canadian subscribers can now remotely stream their favourite stations out to the Wi-Fi-enabled sound system. 

You can check out our full review of the Sonos over here, if you were thinking of picking one up. I've spent a bit of time with it myself, and I was definitely impressed, and it works great from your phone. It's really ideal for bigger homes where you want to have consistent music across multiple rooms, since the whole family of products talks to one another wirelessly. Of course, that gets a little pricy for the speakers alone, and then if you want something like Sirius, then you're also paying subscription fees on top of that, but hey - if you love your music, this is one smart way to get it into your home without the hassle of wires. 

Us poor saps in Canada are usually subject to limited content licenses, so it's no surprise to see a delay here, but when it comes to music, there's really not much we don't have access to anymore. So what's the hold-up, Pandora? Slacker and Rdio are doing business up here just fine. 

Head over to Sonos to snag your system, Sirius to start subscribing, and if you're already a part of the sister service, XM Radio, you should be able to plug in to Sonos later on this year. 

read more



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/WnFdMpRmu7s/story01.htm

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Thursday, 19 January 2012

Russia's ex-Finance Minister forecasts eurozone recession: Voice of ...

Russia?s ex Finance Minister and economic analyst Alexei Kudrin has predicted further recession and a worse debt crisis in the eurozone in 2012. He noted that the EU?s third largest economy Italy will be the next troublemaker.

He also doubted the efficiency of? a separate EU ratings agency as the existing ones are efficient enough though they sometimes give a delayed rating or change ratings at the most inappropriate moments.

IF, TASS

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Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/19/64197255.html

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Publisher: Burt Bacharach working on memoir (AP)

NEW YORK ? Burt Bacharach will be handling the words for his next project: a memoir.

The award-winning collaborator on such hits as "I Say a Little Prayer" and "What the World Needs Now" has a deal with HarperCollins for a memoir due in November. The publisher announced Wednesday that his book will be called "Anyone Who Had a Heart," named after one of many songs Bacharach and lyricist Hal David wrote for Dionne Warwick.

According to HarperCollins, Bacharach will open up about professional success and personal troubles. His partnership with David broke up bitterly, and he has been divorced three times, from singer Paula Stewart, actress Angie Dickinson and fellow songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. His daughter, Nikki, committed suicide at age 40.

Bacharach, 83, has won three Academy Awards and eight Grammys. He helped write dozens of top 40 songs, covered by everyone from Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keys and the cast of "Glee." His career spans decades of music history: He was Marlene Dietrich's arranger in the 1950s and `60s and caught on with audiences in recent years through his work with Elvis Costello, Dr. Dre and others and through his cameos in the "Austin Powers" movies.

His book, like so many of his songs, will be a team effort. Robert Greenfield, whose biography of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun came out in 2011, will assist with a story "told in Bacharach's own words."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_en_mu/us_books_bacharach

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Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Ricky Gervais as Golden Globes Host: How'd He Do?

At the start of the 69th Annual Golden Globes, the biggest question of the night was this: How would Ricky Gervais approach his hosting duties this year? After his controversial jokes at last year's ceremony caused a stir among offended celebrities and members of the Hollywood Foreign Press (who'd hired him), would he tone down his provocative comedy at this year’s ceremony? Gervais answered that question with his opening four words: "So, where was I?"

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/ricky-gervais-golden-globes-funniest-jokes/1-a-419279?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aricky-gervais-golden-globes-funniest-jokes-419279

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Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Iraq's Sunni-backed Cabinet ministers suspended (AP)

BAGHDAD ? Iraq's Shiite-dominated Cabinet suspended boycotting Sunni-backed ministers Tuesday, an official said, deepening a sectarian conflict of politics and violence that has raised fears of civil war in Iraq now that U.S. troops are gone.

The Sunni-based Iraqiya bloc started its boycott last month to protest an arrest warrant against the Sunni vice president on terrorism charges. The official, Tareq al-Hashemi, denied the allegations and fled to the autonomous Kurdish area of Iraq, out of reach of authorities in Baghdad ? a move that itself underlines the sectarian divisions in Iraq and the challenge of keeping the country together after the exit of U.S. forces a month ago.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Cabinet decided that the ministers who have failed to attend sessions are no longer "allowed to manage ministries, and all decisions that will be signed by them are invalid." The Iraqiya ministers would be allowed back into the Cabinet if they end their boycott, al-Dabbagh said.

Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun Damluji charged that the suspension is part of the Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to sideline the Sunni-backed alliance and cement his own grip on power. Only one of nine Iraqiya ministers broke with the bloc's boycott and attended Tuesday's Cabinet session, Damluji said.

"It's an escalation by al-Maliki to push Iraqiya away," Damluji said.

The government crisis could intensify sectarian resentments that have remained raw in Iraq, despite years of efforts to overcome them. Minority Sunnis fear the Shiite majority is squeezing them out of any political input, and Shiites suspect Sunnis of links to insurgency and terrorism.

Alongside the government crisis, violence has surged across Iraq since American troops left Dec. 18, raising fears of re-igniting the fighting between Sunni and Shiite militias that raged a few years ago and brought the country to the brink of civil war.

Since the beginning of the year, a string of bombings has left at least 155 people dead. Most of the attacks appeared aimed at Iraq's Shiite majority, suggesting Sunni insurgents are seeking to undermine the Shiite-dominated government and its efforts to protect people from violence without American backup.

On Tuesday, insurgents killed five police officers at a checkpoint in the town of Rutba in the western Anbar province, police and hospital officials said. The police were guarding the highway that links Iraq with neighboring Jordan.

On Saturday, more than 50 Shiite pilgrims were killed in a bombing in southern Iraq, the deadliest attack against the country's Shiite majority in a year.

The government disarray appears to be affecting foreign contractors still in Iraq after the American military withdrawal, including thousands who work for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its development projects around the country.

A U.S.-based trade group that represents foreign contractors in Iraq said more than 100 of its members have faced visa problems or had difficulty moving around the country in the past weeks. Contractors have been held up for hours at Baghdad's airport, and some have been briefly detained, the International Stability Operations Association said in a letter they sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"They don't appear to be malicious acts of the Iraqi government against the contracting community in Iraq," the group's president, Doug Brooks, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It seems to be part of the political infighting and a holdup in the bureaucracy, and we wanted the U.S. to help us push things along," Brooks said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner played down the difficulties. "This appears to be nothing more than Iraqi officials who are certainly operating out of an abundance of caution, given the recent spate of violence in Baghdad and surroundings," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Mazin Yahya contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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Forums: New UI needed, iTunes drag and drop, Apple ID woes

With CES 2012 now over and done with for another year, we’re already focusing on some upcoming Apple events and MacWorld.? Looking for a place to discuss what’s next


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/TV2VAOj7aNA/story01.htm

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UK scientists find 'lost' Darwin fossils (AP)

LONDON ? British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years.

Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.

Using a flashlight to peer into the drawers and hold up a slide, Falcon-Lang saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq."

"It took me a while just to convince myself that it was Darwin's signature on the slide," the paleontologist said, adding he soon realized it was a "quite important and overlooked" specimen.

He described the feeling of seeing that famous signature as "a heart in your mouth situation," saying he wondering "Goodness, what have I discovered!"

Falcon-Lang's find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker ? a botanist and dear friend of Darwin ? and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin's mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker.

The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate's career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution.

Falcon-Lang said the unearthed fossils ? lost for 165 years ? show there is more to learn from a period of history scientists thought they knew well.

"To find a treasure trove of lost Darwin specimens from the Beagle voyage is just extraordinary," Falcon-Lang added. "We can see there's more to learn. There are a lot of very, very significant fossils in there that we didn't know existed."

He said one of the most "bizarre" slides came from Hooker's collection ? a specimen of prototaxites, a 400 million-year-old tree-sized fungi.

Hooker had assembled the collection of slides while briefly working for the British Geological Survey in 1846, according to Royal Holloway, University of London.

The slides ? "stunning works of art," according to Falcon-Lang ? contain bits of fossil wood and plants ground into thin sheets and affixed to glass in order to be studied under microscopes. Some of the slides are half a foot long (15 centimeters), "great big chunks of glass," Falcon-Lang said.

"How these things got overlooked for so long is a bit of a mystery itself," he mused, speculating that perhaps it was because Darwin was not widely known in 1846 so the collection might not have been given "the proper curatorial care."

Royal Holloway, University of London said the fossils were 'lost' because Hooker failed to number them in the formal "specimen register" before setting out on an expedition to the Himalayas. In 1851, the "unregistered" fossils were moved to the Museum of Practical Geology in Piccadilly before being transferred to the South Kensington's Geological Museum in 1935 and then to the British Geological Survey's headquarters near Nottingham 50 years later, the university said.

The discovery was made in April, but it has taken "a long time" to figure out the provenance of the slides and photograph all of them, Falcon-Lang said. The slides have now been photographed and will be made available to the public through a new online museum exhibit opening Tuesday.

Falcon-Lang expects great scientific papers to emerge from the discovery.

"There are some real gems in this collection that are going to contribute to ongoing science."

Dr. John Ludden, executive director of the Geological Survey, called the find a "remarkable" discovery.

"It really makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections," he said.

__________

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

______________________

Online:

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/archives/jdhooker/home.html

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_darwin_fossils

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Monday, 16 January 2012

Taiwan Nationalists have edge in early vote counts (Reuters)

TAIPEI (Reuters) ? Taiwan's incumbent Nationalist president had a tiny edge on Saturday in early vote counts from an election that is being closely monitored by China and the United States as they look for stability in the region at a time of political transition.

The elections had been expected to be tight and television stations showed that with about 1 percent of the vote counted, the Nationalist Party's Ma Ying-jeou, 61, who has fostered warmer ties with China, was very slightly ahead of Tsai Ing-wen of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Voting closed at 4 p.m. (0800 GMT). At one polling station in downtown Taipei, staff opened the beige ballot boxes and took out the pink presidential ballot slips, calling out the name of the chosen candidate and stacking the papers in piles for each candidate.

Full results are due later in the day.

Earlier, voters had queued up in orderly lines islandwide after polls opened at 8 a.m. (0000 GMT). The sky was overcast in the capital but it was relatively balmy, underlining hopes for a high turnout.

"I feel calm and hopeful," said Hwang Shiu-mei, a mother of three who was in line to vote at a booth in a Taipei market.

"I hope we can see a win-win situation with China in the coming four years. We don't want to see a stalemate and hope for a better economy, along with peace and stabilility."

Both main contestants were confident as they cast their vote early.

"I see a little sunshine now," Ma told reporters at his polling station in a Taipei church after a slight drizzle eased.

"I'm very happy, I urge everyone to come out early and vote. This weather should help the voting rate."

Asked if he had a restful night, Ma replied: "I sleep well every night."

Opposition leader Tsai, casting her ballot at a school in a Taipei suburb, said she was mentally prepared to become the first female president of Taiwan.

"I hope we will be able to give you a full explanation after the vote is counted," she said, when pressed for details.

SMOOTH VOTE

Like the run-up to the election, the voting was smooth. Unlike in 1996, when China fired missiles into waters off Taiwan before the island's first direct presidential election, Beijing has learnt to temper any response to avoid antagonizing voters into backing the DPP.

The DPP's independence-leaning stance has long angered Beijing, which deems Taiwan a renegade province and considers U.S. arms sales to the self-ruled island as the top obstacle to improved ties between the United States and China, now the world's two biggest economies.

Tsai has distanced the DPP from the independence stance. But a DPP victory could complicate matters for Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders who will hand power to a younger generation later this year and who don't want to jeopardize their legacy of fostering more stable cross-strait ties.

The United States, which holds presidential elections later this year, will also be keen to take a potential irritant in bilateral ties with China off the table.

In Taiwan, besides the presidential election, the 18 million eligible voters will also choose the island's 113-member parliament, currently dominated by the Nationalists, that will be crucial in expediting or stalling future policies.

Most analysts expect a high turnout given the closeness of the race. Nearly 200,000 Taiwanese have returned from overseas for the poll according to local media reports, cramming flights in a last minute rush to cast ballots.

Ma and Tsai, both former law academics with doctorates from Harvard and the London School of Economics respectively, held a flurry of rallies and motorcades islandwide on Friday, the final day of campaigning, with Ma focusing on the DPP's largely rural stronghold of the south and Tsai aiming north.

A third candidate, former Nationalist party member James Soong who now leads a splinter party, trails far behind in the polls but could cloud the result for the Nationalists by siphoning off some of Ma's support.

Some see the election as a referendum on the economic rapprochement with China shepherded by Ma over the last four years, that may have eased decades of animosity and the threat of outright war but raised fears of an over-reliance on its powerful neighbor.

However on the streets, livelihood issues dominate, especially at a time of global economic uncertainty for export-reliant Taiwan.

"We hope the new president can improve the economy," said Hsu Kuo-hsiung, a 49-year-old car mechanic as he polished a black sedan in his garage in a Taipei suburb.

"This is most important. If there's no stability, the economy will suffer."

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120114/wl_nm/us_taiwan_election

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Was President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray legal? (Washington Bureau)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/186059868?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Sunday, 15 January 2012

Malware Attack Targets U.S. Government Agencies [VIDEO] (Mashable)

[brightcove video="1389085133001" /] Sykipot, malware believed to originate in China, has been used to target smart cards in the Pentagon and other government agencies. According to security researcher AlienVault, a new variant of Sykipot is targeting the cards government employees use to access secure networks and servers.

[More from Mashable: Apple Toys With 3D iPhone Interface [VIDEO]]

"The attackers use a spear phishing campaign to get their targets to open a PDF attachment which then deposits the Sykipot malware onto their machine (the attackers here took advantage of a zero-day exploit in Adobe)," according to AlienVault.

Check out the video above to learn more.

[More from Mashable: How a Professional Pain Point Led to a Disruptive Business Idea [VIDEO]]

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, rubenhi

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/security/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20120113/tc_mashable/malware_attack_targets_us_government_agencies_video

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Santorum backed by social conservative leaders (AP)

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. ? Rick Santorum's quest to emerge as the chief alternative to Mitt Romney received a boost Saturday from a group of evangelical leaders and social conservatives who voted to back his candidacy in a last-ditch effort to stop the GOP front-runner's march to the nomination.

About three-quarters of some 150 pastors and Christian conservative political organizers meeting in Texas sided with Santorum over a home-state favorite, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ? an outcome that illustrated continuing divisions within the ranks of conservatives who make up the base of the GOP.

The gathering also reflected the lingering dissatisfaction with Romney over abortion rights and other issues, and the belief of conservatives that they need to unite behind one contender before the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary if they are to derail the former Massachusetts governor. Romney leads narrowly in polls here after victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"There is a hope and an expectation that this will have an impact on South Carolina," said Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, who attended the Texas meeting.

It's unclear, however, whether conservative voters will heed the advice of these leaders and back Santorum. The candidate reveling in the development nevertheless.

"It's a validator," the former Pennsylvania senator told reporters late Saturday while campaigning along South Carolina's coast. "People who have been out there in the fields laboring for the conservative causes see us as someone who can not only fight for the causes but effectively fight and win."

Still, he acknowledged the divisions illustrated in Texas: "I knew there were strong differences of opinion there, people who have strong support for their candidates."

Indeed, the split-decision and frustration by some who attended the meeting punctuates the fissures that have vexed this powerful bloc of the GOP base throughout the campaign and continue to with a week left before the South Carolina vote. Social conservatives here are an influential force, but divided they would leave an opening for Romney as they did in 2008, when Arizona Sen. John McCain won the state en route to the GOP nomination.

This year, even Santorum's backers concede time may be running out for conservative voters to rally behind their candidate.

"If that consolidation occurs, he will win this primary," South Carolina state Sen. Chip Campsen said as he endorsed Santorum at the campaign office near Charleston. "And there are fewer options as time goes on."

Participants at the Texas meeting said it took several ballots for 75 percent of attendees to agree on Santorum after winnowing down the field from three candidates: Santorum, Gingrich and Perry. They also said that there was some support for Romney.

"Santorum was the preferred candidate by a significant majority," Gary Bauer, the former presidential candidate, said.

"They were all looking for the best Reagan conservative," he said. "It came down to things like, who do you most trust."

But David Lane, a California-based pastor who has set up candidate forums with ministers in Iowa, said he was frustrated with the outcome because he does not believe Santorum has an organization or fundraising capability to allow him to campaign deep into the primary season.

He believes the choice to back Santorum projects political weakness.

"This country is going to hell, and the evangelical voice is meaningless," Lane said.

Santorum downplayed the division, noting that he edged Perry in a group including many Texans, as well as longtime activists who have had long relationships with Gingrich.

"I can't believe it was only 25 percent" who didn't agree, he said, adding that he would not ask any candidates to consider leaving the race in order to consolidate the conservative vote.

The Gingrich campaign tried to downplay the vote, and insisted the former House speaker also had the backing of many in Houston.

"Newt had strong support in the room," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said. "Our job now is to translate the strong showing we had in Texas into votes in South Carolina and Florida."

Even with the backing of many conservative leaders, Santorum faces big challenges.

He surged late in Iowa, lifted by eleventh-hour endorsements by ministers, including some who had once considered asking the once overlooked former senator to quit the race to help conservatives coalesce.

Santorum ended up narrowly losing to Romney in Iowa before faring poorly in New Hampshire. He has aggressively campaigned in South Carolina, visiting almost 30 times and has networks of supporters in almost all of the state's counties. He's had an influx of cash, reportedly raising $3 million this week, but still woefully short of Romney's war chest.

South Carolina's Republican voters are some of the nation's most conservative.

In exit polling from the 2008 Republican presidential contest, 60 percent of the state's primary voters said they were born-again Christians. Romney, whose Mormon faith is not considered a Christian denomination by some in South Carolina, carried just 11 percent of their votes four years ago, fewer than his 15 percent tally nationwide. Mormons consider themselves Christians.

On Saturday, Santorum sought to capitalize on the momentum by making direct appeals to evangelical conservatives, like many of those at the Country Ham House in Greenville. Despite his efforts, concerns persisted about the strength of his candidacy.

"As far as his values and principles, he stands for everything I do," said Brock Stevens, a Greenville Republican who left Santorum's event there ready to support him. "But honestly, I worry about his viability against Obama."

___

Associated Press writers Rachel Zoll, Charles Babington, Julie Pace and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120114/ap_on_el_pr/us_santorum

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Saturday, 14 January 2012

Lads' mags, sexism, and research in psychology: an interview with Dr. Peter Hegarty (part 1).

Back in December, there was a study that appeared in The British Journal of Psychology that got a fair amount of buzz. The paper (Horvath, M.A.H., Hegarty, P., Tyler, S. & Mansfield, S., ? ?Lights on at the end of the party?: Are lads? mags mainstreaming dangerous sexism?? British Journal of Psychology. DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02086.x) looked the influence that magazines aimed at young men (?lads? mags?) might have on how the young people who read them perceive their social reality. Among other things, the researchers found that the subjects in the study found the descriptions of women given by convicted sex offenders and lads? mags are well nigh indistinguishable, and that when a quote was identified as from a lads? mag (no matter what its actual source), subjects were more likely to say that they identified with the view it expressed than if the same quote was identified as coming from a rapist.

I wrote about the details of this research in a post on my other blog.

One of the authors of the study, Dr. Peter Hegarty, is someone I know a little from graduate school (as we were in an anthropology of science seminar together one term). He was gracious enough to agree to an interview about this research, and to answer some of my broader questions (as a physical scientist turned philosopher) about what doing good science looks like to a psychologist. Owing to its length, I?m presenting the interview in two posts, this one and one that will follow it tomorrow.

Janet Stemwedel: Is there something specific that prompted this piece of research ? a particular event, or the Nth repetition of a piece of ?common wisdom? that made it seem like it was time to interrogate it? ?Or is this research best understood as part of a broader project (perhaps of identifying pieces of our social world that shape our beliefs and attitudes)?

Peter Hegarty: We came to this research for different reasons. Miranda [Horvath] had been working more consistently on the role of lads? mags in popular culture than I had been (see Coy & Horvath, 2011). Prompted by another students? interests, I had published a very short piece earlier this year on the question of representations of ?heteroflexible? women in lads? mags (Hegarty & Buechel, 2011). The two studies reported in Horvath, Hegarty, Tyler & Mansfield (2011) were conducted as Suzannah Tyler and Sophie Mansfield?s M.Sc. Dissertations in Forensic Psychology, a course provided jointly by the University of Surrey and Broadmoor Hospital. Miranda and I took the lead on writing up the research after Miranda moved to Middlesex University in 2010.

JS: When this study was reported in the news, as the Twitters were lighting up with discussion about this research, some expressed concern that the point of the research was to identify lads? mags as particularly bad (compared to other types of media), or as actually contributing to rapes. ?Working from the information in the press release (because the research paper wasn?t quite out yet), there seemed to be some unclarity about precisely what inferences were being drawn from the results and (on the basis of what inferences people thought you *might* be drawing) about whether the research included appropriate controls ? for example, quotes about women from The Guardian, or from ordinary-men-who-are-not-rapists. ?Can you set us straight on what the research was trying to find out and on what inferences it does or does not support? ?And, in light of the hypotheses you were actually testing, can you discuss the issue of experimental controls?

PH: Our research was focused on lads? mags ?- rather than other media ?- because content analysis research had shown that those magazines were routinely sexist, operated in an advice-giving mode, and often dismissed their social influence. This is not the case ?- as far as I know ? with regard to The Guardian. So there was a rationale to focus on lads? mags that was not based on prior research. We hoped to test our hypothesis that lads? mags might be normalizing hostile sexism. This idea hung on two matters; is there an overlap in the discourse of lads? mags and something that most people would accept as hostile sexism? Does that content appear more acceptable to young men when it appears to come from a lads? mag? The two studies mapped onto these goals. In one, we found that young women and men couldn?t detect the source of a quote as coming from a convicted rapist?s interview or a lads? mag. In another, young men identified more with quotes that they believed to have come from lads? mags rather than convicted rapists.

JS: While we?re on the subject of controls, it strikes me that good experimental design in psychological research is probably different in some interesting ways from good experimental design in, say, chemistry. ?What are some misconceptions those of us who have more familiarity with the so-called ?hard sciences? have about social science research? ?What kind of experimental rigor can you achieve without abandoning questions about actual humans-in-the-world?

PH: You are right that these sciences might have different ontologies, because psychology is a human science. There are a variety of perspectives on this, with scholars such as Ian Hacking arguing for a separate ontology of the human sciences and more postmodern authors such as Bruno Latour arguing against distinctions between humans and things. Generally, I would be loath do describe differences between the sciences in terms of the metaphor of ?hardness,? because the term is loaded with implicature. First, psychology is a potentially reflexive science about people, conducted by people and is characterized by what the philosopher Ian Hacking calls ?looping effects;? people?s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are themselves influenced by psychological theories about them. Second, measurement in psychology is more often dependent on normalization and relative judgment (as in an IQ test, or a 7-point Likert item on a questionnaire, for example). Third, there is a lot of validity to the Foucaultian argument that the ?psy- disciplines? have often been used in the service of the state, to divide people into categories of ?normal? and ?abnormal? people, so that different people might be treated very differently without offending egalitarian ideologies. Much of clinical psychology and testing takes this form.

Critics of psychology often stop there. By so doing, they overlook the rich tradition within psychology of generating knowledge that troubles forms of normalization, by suggesting that the distinction between the ?normal? and the ?abnormal? is not as firm as common sense suggests. Studies in this tradition might include Evelyn Hooker?s (1957) demonstration ? from that dark era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness ? that there are no differences in the responses of gay and straight men to personality tests. One might also include David Rosenhan?s (1973) study in which ordinary people managed to deceive psychiatrists that they were schizophrenic. A third example might be stereotype threat research (e.g., by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, 1995), which shows that the underperformance of African Americans on some standardized tests reflects not genuine ability, but a situational constraint introduced by testing conditions. Like these studies, we would hope ours would trouble?s people?s sense of what they take for granted about differences between people. In particular we hope that people will reconsider what they think they know about ?extreme? sexism ? that leads to incarceration ? and ?normal? sexism, that is now typical for young men to consume. I would urge academic critics of psychology ? particularly those that focus on its complicity with Foucaultian disciplinary power, and the power of the state more generally ? to develop more critiques that can account for such empirical work.

For the last half a century, ?rigor? in empirical psychology has been organized by the language of validity and reliability of measurement (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). Psychologists also tend to be Popperians, who construct ?falsifiable? theories and use Fischerian inferential statistics to construct experiments that afford the possibility of falsification. However, inferential norms are changing in the discipline for three reasons. First, the rise of neuroscience has lead to a more inductive form of inference in which mapping and localization plays a greater role in scientific explanation. Second, social psychologists are increasingly engaging with structural equation modelling and offering confirmatory models of social processes. Third, there is ?statistical reform? in psychology, away from the ritual of statistical significance testing toward making variability more transparent through the reporting of confidence intervals, effect sizes, and exact significance values. See Spellman (2012) for one very recent discussion of what?s happening within the genre of scientific writing in psychology around retaining rigor and realism in psychological science.

JS: One thing that struck me in reading the paper was that instruments have been developed to measure levels of sexism. ?Are these measures well-accepted within the community of research psychologists? ?(I am guessing that if the public even knew about them, they would be pretty controversial in some quarters ? maybe the very quarters whose denizens would get high scores on these measures!)

We used two well-established measures; the ambivalent sexism inventory and the AMMSA, and one measure of endorsement of lads? mags that we developed ourselves for the study. We describe some of the previous findings of other researchers who have used these scales to examine individual differences in responses to vignettes about sexual violence in the article. We feel more confident of the measure we developed ourselves because it was highly correlated with all other measures of sexism and because it was highly correlated with men?s identification with quotes from rapists and from lads? mags. In other words, we followed the logic of psychologists such as Lee Cronbach, Paul Meehl and Donald Campbell for establishing and developing the ?construct validity? of the empirical scales.

* * * * *

Tomorrow, in the second part of my interview with Peter Hegarty, we discuss the WEIRD-ness of college students as subjects for psychological research, how to go from description to prescription, and what it?s like for scientists to talk about their research with the media in the age of Twitter. Stay tuned!

Bibliography

Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 281-302.

Coy, M., & Horvath, M.A.H. (2011).?Lads mags?, young men?s attitudes towards women and acceptance of myths about sexual aggression. Feminism & Psychology, 21, 144-150.

Foucault, M. (1978). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York, Random House.

Hacking, I. (1995). The looping effects of human kinds. In Dan Sperber, David Premack and Ann James Premack (Eds.), Causal Cognition: A Multi-Disciplinary Debate (pp. 351-383). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Hegarty, P., & Buechel C (2011) ??What Blokes Want Lesbians to be?: On FHM and the socialization of pro-lesbian attitudes among heterosexual-identified men?. Sage Publications Feminism & Psychology, 21, 240-247.

Hooker, E. (1957). The adjustment of the male overt homosexual. Journal of Projective Techniques, 21, 18-31.

Horvath, M.A.H., Hegarty, P., Tyler, S. & Mansfield, S. (2011).?Lights on at the end of the party?: Are Lads Mags? Mainstreaming Dangerous Sexism? British Journal of Psychology. Available from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02086.x/abstract

Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rosenhan, D.L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250-258.

Spellman, B.A. (2012). Introduction to the special section: Data, data everywhere. . . especially in my file drawer. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 58-59.

Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 797-811.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=251a6ea15f710aaecaf99ce241bc2b37

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