May 20th, 2013

Venezuela says taking steps to restore U.S. diplomatic ties

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s recent designation of an acting head of its diplomatic mission in the United States shows the OPEC nation’s desire to restore full diplomatic relations, the foreign minister said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Disputes between Caracas and Washington were common during the 14-year-rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, leaving both nations without ambassadors in each other’s capitals.

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua suggested in a televised interview that the move to name government ally Calixto Ortega as charge d’affaires in Washington could be a prelude to restoring ambassadors.

“This is a message for U.S. politicians so they understand Venezuela’s desire to normalize relations … via the designation of the highest diplomatic authorities,” he said. “Why? Because the United States remains our top trade partner.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has in recent months said he wants better ties with Washington as long as the relationship is respectful. But he has also accused the United States of seeking to destabilize the country.

Last month, he slammed the United States for “vulgar” meddling after the State Department said it had not decided if it would recognize his presidency and supported opposition calls for a vote recount after the April 14 election.

He won that vote, triggered by Chavez’s death, by 1.5 percentage points. The opposition refused to accept the results and is challenging the election in the country’s top court.

In 2008, Chavez expelled U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy from Caracas in a dispute over what the late president called Washington’s involvement in violent protests in Bolivia.

In 2010, he blocked Washington’s nomination of diplomat Larry Palmer as ambassador in protest of Palmer’s comments that there were “clear ties” between members of Chavez’s government and leftist Colombian rebels.

The State Department responded by revoking the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador.

(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-says-taking-steps-restore-u-diplomatic-ties-030042649.html

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March 20th, 2013

Were chemical weapons used in Syria?

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. ambassador to Syria said Wednesday the Obama administration has no evidence to support President Bashar Assad‘s claims that U.S.-backed rebels used chemical weapons in northern Syria, but is looking carefully at the conflicting reports.

“So far we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday,” Robert Ford told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He later added that the administration was extremely concerned and trying to verify reports that such weapons were used in the Aleppo province and the Damascus suburbs.

The administration on Tuesday disputed Assad’s claim, and a U.S. official said there was no evidence that either Assad’s forces or the opposition had used chemical weapons in an attack.

President Barack Obama has declared the use, deployment or transfer of the weapons to be his “red line” for possible military intervention in the Arab country. Ford said Wednesday that an increasingly besieged Assad regime might be tempted to use its stockpile of chemical weapons, the largest in the region.

Hours before Ford’s testimony, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said he feared a “stain on our national credibility” if the United States determines Assad is using chemical weapons to remain in power but fails to intervene.

The Michigan Republican said there was a “high probability” that a chemical agent was deployed Tuesday in northern Syria.

Rogers told “CBS This Morning” the U.S. knows “there has been some forensic evidence that at least small quantities” of chemical weapons may have been used. Rogers also said the United States had “lost the faith” of the opposition forces, adding, “This is the time to act. Don’t wait until we have 5,000 dead.”

In his testimony, Ford described an untenable situation as the Syrian civil war grinds on into its third year. The United Nations has estimated 70,000 have been killed, more than 1 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries and 2.5 million have been displaced internally.

The Syrian people “face a new level of ruthlessness from the Assad regime, which is raining Scud missiles down on residential neighborhoods, destroying hospitals and schools, and sending its thugs rampaging through the streets to terrorize their fellow citizens. The carnage is appalling,” Ford said.

He insisted that the ideal outcome is a “negotiated political transition” to the crisis without Assad.

Ford said the military balance is turning against the Assad regime, which has lost some critical strategic locations such as the borders with Turkey and Iraq. The ambassador also said there has been heavy fighting in Damascus “right up close to where the president lives.”

Ford was pressed repeatedly about what military action the United States might take but declined to speculate at the public hearing. Lawmakers uneasy with military involvement ? or even the prospect of arming the opposition ? reflected a war weariness after more than a decade of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ford underscored that Obama has said there will be consequences if chemical weapons were used and said he was certain that there have been discussions within the administration about possible steps.

“I do want to underline how seriously we take the reports,” he said.

Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who noted the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this week, repeatedly tried to get Ford to elaborate for Congress and the American people about what could happen next in Syria if chemical weapons were used.

Ford declined. Perry, alluding to Iraq, said, “We don’t want the current administration making the mistake of past administrations.”

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ambassador-no-evidence-chemical-syria-144508422–politics.html

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March 20th, 2013

The First Days of the Iraq War, as Seen Through National Journal Correspondents

Back then, our national fears came color-coded.

It was the week of March 18, 2003, and again the national terror alert system had been upgraded from yellow to orange. Since its inception shortly after 9/11, the national threat meter had been bouncing back and forth between the two colors, often for reasons that often avoided a clear rule. But this time, the upgrade made sense. We had just invaded Iraq.

?The alert system’s lack of nuance has some state and local officials questioning its utility,? Siobhan Gorman, a National Journal reporter, wrote on the development. Many would come to make a similar criticism of the Bush administration?s evaluation of the Iraqi threat.

National Journal, like the rest of the media, was trying to make sense of the fog of war. While the press is now criticized for not acting as a strong watchdog during this time (by not thoroughly vetting the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction), journalists were getting a sense of how this invasion would, for better or for worse, define the decade and the Bush presidency.

Reading through these 10-year-old articles now, it is clear there were no simple answers to the farthest-reaching questions.

If Saddam Falls, What?s Next?

?Dictators don’t fall softly,? wrote Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. and Corine Hegland, in the March 22, 2003, National Journal, sensing the potential for protracted war.

    Who will rule Iraq after Saddam? The bitter debate usually focuses on who is to be on top?will it be a U.S. military administrator, a civilian, or an international figure linked to the United Nations?

Freedberg and Hegland wrote the outcome of the war would depend on the restabilization of the country, the details of which were not clear at the time. ?Many outside experts fear that the plan to win the peace is far less advanced than the plan to win the war,? they wrote.

Is the Right Story Being Told?

Conversations in the lead-up to a war are one thing. Invasion shifts the whole frame.

?[The] coverage of the war story has been anything but stupid. In fact, it’s been remarkably subtle and sophisticated, a highly complex story offered up in all its complexity,? William Powers, a media columnist, wrote on March 23. ?For the American media, this could be one spectacularly bright moment.?

He elaborates,

    You think I’m dreaming? Think back on the prewar debate, and name a single point of view that didn’t get its due. The war is all about overcoming an evil tyrant. It’s all about oil and American imperialism. It’s all about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. It’s all about Israel. It’s all about George Bush‘s strange messianic certainty, and Tony Blair’s. And so on. These arguments and many others are out there in profusion, and have been for months.

The very next week, on March 29, he changed his mind. As the discussion of the war turned to actual war, things got murky.

?If war is hell, wading through all this wartime journalism is fast becoming a kind of purgatory,? he wrote. ?The most surprising media truth to emerge in the last week is that having 600-plus reporters cover a war from inside deployed military units, plus untold hundreds running around the region on their own tether, doesn’t necessarily clear up the fog of war back home. It can actually make the story harder to follow.?

How Quick Will the Military Operation Be?

And yet we tried to tell the story of the boots on the ground. Our own James Kitfield spent time with the troops on the first day of the campaign, tracking the military?s mission from Kuwait to Baghdad. What he found was a military that had gambled on a quick and forceful ?shock and awe? ground offensive. It was a modern day blitzkrieg, but the plan wasn?t stable.

    From the plan’s very inception, the emphasis on rapid movement, and the difficulty of the variable terrain between Kuwait and Baghdad, presented unique challenges. U.S. maneuver forces would be moving and fighting not only over the flat brown expanses of the vast Iraqi desert, but through the fertile and lush Euphrates River valley. To take the fight quickly into Baghdad?a city of more than 5 million that dwarfs in size and population either Stalingrad or Berlin during World War II?these forces would need to seize key bridges and make multiple river crossings with the help of combat engineers. The logistics train supplying critical fuel, ammunition, and food to front-line forces would stretch hundreds of miles….

    Just days before the war began, U.S. commanders had also seriously considered changing the battle plan to allow for a strategic pause at the key southern crossroads city of An Nasiriya. Such a pause would give U.S. forces time to accept the expected surrender of the 11th Division of the regular Iraqi army that defends that city, and give Republican Guard forces near Baghdad an opportunity to capitulate as well. The plan was dropped at the last minute.

What About the Iraqis?

Other writers were thinking through the long-term consequences, especially regarding Iraqis. Although they had certainly suffered under Saddam, would war with the United States make them much safer?

?What Desert Storm revealed was that bombs, no matter how advanced, are neither smart nor stupid,? Carl M. Cannon?wrote on March 15. He continued,

    Even when ordnance is directed with the most advanced guidance systems and operated by highly skilled pilots, gunners, and spotters obsessed with preventing calamity, it still sometimes rains upon the innocent….

    One reason the Pentagon has “embedded” 500 American journalists with U.S. military units is to be able to rush these reporters to places where the Iraqi government has claimed large civilian casualties, so they can make their own assessments….

    Six decades after the fact, much of the world has forgotten the atrocities Japan committed in World War II. But no one has forgotten Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The estimates aren?t perfect, but at least 130,000 is a conservative guess for the number of dead Iraqis over the last decade. That?s around the same number of people who died in Hiroshima (estimated to be around 135,000; albeit that happened near instantaneously). Nearly 5,000 coalition troops died. It cost the United States $1.7 trillion, and that number could climb to 6 trillion.

What Are the Political Consequences?

That March would come to define the decade. As Charlie Cook surmised at the time, it would also come to define the legacy of President Bush, who was still falling out of the public opinion ?halo? that surrounded him after the attacks on 9/11. ?President Bush is walking a precarious political tightrope?attempting to balance his ambitious foreign policy goals on the one side, and a myriad of economic and domestic challenges on the other,? he wrote. ?As Bush does his balancing act, his public-opinion poll numbers are continuing to deteriorate.?

At the time, it was hard to imagine a war that would span a decade, a thought reflected in public opinion polling.

?What do Americans expect now in Iraq? According to Gallup, the public expects 100 to 300 U.S. casualties,? William Schneider wrote on March 29. ?That would be about the same casualty rate as for the Persian Gulf War. Is that an unreasonable expectation??

The answer to that question is an undeniable yes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-days-iraq-war-seen-national-journal-correspondents-160859221–politics.html

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March 12th, 2013

Local Business Internet Marketing And SEO | Getting The Most …

Local business internet marketing and SEO go hand in hand, you need to know them both. While many think that these two are one in the same, actually they are not.

local seo

Search engine optimization is a strategy with the whole that is internet marketing and, it is a vital part of it.

Here we will go over some of the basic internet marketing strategies with an emphasis on local SEO practices. Pay attention, this could help your rankings and traffic online.

Like two peas in a pod, SEO and internet marketing as a whole is something everyone should learn, even if you outsource the work.

Search engine optimization is really the only ?tricky? part of the game here, the rest is just marketing.

Why is SEO so tricky? Because it requires close particular attention to detail, forget one or two things and your presence online will be affected.

Now internet marketing is more of an ongoing practice of using SEO strategies on multiple platforms. Both of these practices however, do work in unison and cannot work without each other.

So let?s look at dome of the internet marketing practices first, then at the SEO side of the ?force?.

Internet Marketing Platforms You Should Be Using

Here is a simple list:

  • Blogging
  • Content creation
  • Video marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Forum marketing

Blogging and content creation for the local business owner can be a very effective way to generate traffic that sticks. Here the focus, like most practices, is truly focused on informing and educating people about your business, products and or, services.

Video marketing is not only a great way to personally build your brand and the trust to go with it online, but it is a great way to build brand awareness faster.

Social media, need I say more? Of course. Social media for the local business owner is more than Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. Local citations through Yelp, Angie?s List and even local forums and other websites and blogs are extremely important for sharing your business online.

Forums, local blogs and city wide search sites are extremely important. This is a great way to start building awareness about your business too.

Local internet marketing is all about connecting yourself to several platforms online and using what we will talk about now to make it findable, search engine optimization.

Local SEO, How It Is Done?

Local search engine optimization can be outsourced or DIY ( do it yourself ). Either way you decide to go you will need the basic understanding of how it works.

Often enough it works out, but there are complaints and issues with SEO companies online just like any other product or service. And fortunately for you, knowledge is power here when it comes to contract time and having to pay for it, this will guarantee your chances of not being taken advantage of.

Meta information, Meta Tags, Title Tags and usage of keywords all have a place. Not only is this important throughout your website or blog as a whole, but throughout the individual pieces of content and pages created.

Link building inside and out is another important part of the puzzle. Of course this part of the puzzle, like keywords 3 years ago, but it is not the whole puzzle today. However it does need attention, especially through social media platforms.

Link backs from citations and social media profiles and feeds are more important today than high PR sites, especially for the local business owner. Learning how to engage with not only your content but others is as important as the content itself today.

Keyword and keyword research, as well as researching your competition, is still important as well.

Getting the most out of your presence online locally takes some very basic knowledge of SEO, but this is not brain busting you have to be Einstein to accomplish.

However, you should know that it is time consuming and outsourcing is a good idea, just make sure that you have some basic knowledge of internet marketing and SEO, this way when it comes to hiring you will know what to look for and, what to avoid.

Source: http://davidboozer.com/local-business-internet-marketing-and-seo-getting-the-most-online-locally/

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March 11th, 2013

Jenelle Evans: Out of Rehab Again, Convinced She’s All Good This Time

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/jenelle-evans-out-of-rehab-again-convinced-shes-all-good-this-ti/

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March 10th, 2013

Inside the Rand Paul Filibuster

Eleven days before he spent nearly 13 hours filibustering on the Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul floated his idea to block the president?s pick for CIA director to one of Sen. Mitch McConnell?s top political strategists over a Saturday night dinner of lasagna and red wine at his home in Bowling Green, Ky.

The adviser, Jesse Benton, occupies a unique place in Kentucky politics as bridge between McConnell, the old-school minority leader, and Paul, the insurgent tea-party firebrand. Benton ran Paul?s 2010 Senate campaign and is married to Paul?s niece. And since September, he has been advising McConnell as he seeks reelection in 2014.

After the dinner, Benton reached out to McConnell?s office, detailing Paul?s plans and his hopes for support. An important line of communications had been opened.

It helped ensure that well before Paul took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to declare, ?I will speak until I can no longer speak,? he had lined up the tacit approval of the GOP leadership. For a politician who earned his stripes as a political outsider, Paul?s filibuster performance and planning demonstrated his aptitude at the inside D.C. game.

After half a day of speaking on the floor, Paul?s filibuster had captured Washington?s imagination and spurred a renewed conversation about American drone policy. The GOP establishment was suddenly coalescing around the libertarian-leaning junior senator, a man whose foreign policy views are often labeled as out-of-step with the party. By midnight, Republican senators were lining up like planes circling Reagan Washington National Airport for a chance to sound their support on the Senate floor.

?I admire his fortitude,? Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chamber?s No. 2 Republican, proclaimed at one point.

The outpouring was organic and unexpected. Paul has said he would have worn more comfortable shoes if he knew he?d be standing and speaking for so long.

But the day wasn?t entirely unplanned. Paul, often accused of being a lone wolf on Capitol Hill, had laid some of the groundwork to win over the GOP establishment. McConnell and Co. knew the filibuster was coming, even if they did not know when precisely or what exactly it would look like.

Paul had personally informed some Republican senators that he planned to mount the talking filibuster the day before over lunch, said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of the GOP leadership. ?The day before, he said that he was going to start talking until he couldn?t talk anymore,? Barrasso said. McConnell, meanwhile, put out the word to the conference that he was supportive of Paul?s efforts.

Still, Paul spoke solo on the Senate floor for more than three hours Wednesday before any of his colleagues joined in support. The first was Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, another tea-party darling from the class of 2010. The National Republican Senatorial Committee soon showed camaraderie by posting supportive messages on Twitter and an e-mail pitch urging donors to ?#StandwithRand.? Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, also went down to the floor.

As afternoon turned to evening, a group of GOP senators crossed town for dinner with President Obama at the Jefferson Hotel. Paul stuck to the floor, demanding answers to the legal limits of America?s domestic drone program.

Momentum built on Twitter and in the conservative grassroots. His speechifying was labeled a ?filiblizzard? on C-SPAN, after the snowstorm that had threatened the Capitol all day but never materialized. By late Wednesday, the #StandwithRand hashtag was trending across the globe on Twitter.

?I was having dinner with my wife. I turned on the TV and there was Rand, and it looked like he was all alone,? Barrasso said, ?and I knew I wanted to get over there and help him. And so I got to the floor at about 9 and stayed until it ended.??

He was not the only one. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a potential Paul rival for the presidency in 2016, returned to the floor late in the evening, offering up relief for Paul?s straining voice and words of wisdom from Jay-Z and Wiz Khalifa.

So moved by the debate were freshman Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Tim Scott of South Carolina that they made their maiden floor remarks ? often a carefully choreographed and celebrated occasion ? right there on the spot in the form of a mid-filibuster question.

The outpouring of support climaxed at 11:43 p.m., minutes short of the filibuster?s 12-hour mark. That is when Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, typed out on Twitter: ?Attention all Republican US Senators –>Please go to the floor and help out @SenRandPaul #StandwithRand.?

The establishment had been won over.

?It started as one man?s lonely stand for principle, and as the day went on it grew, first one senator, then another, then another, then another,? said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. ?And it captivated millions of Americans who are understandably frustrated by entrenched politicians in Washington who do not seem to listen to their concerns.?

Paul was still basking in it all still on Thursday. ?It seemed to be kind of spontaneous,? he said. ?A lot of people just started coming to the floor?. That doesn?t happen very often, so we were pretty excited about that.?

The most important senator was still yet to arrive.

Paul and McConnell have developed something of a politically symbiotic relationship. McConnell, wary of a challenge from the right in 2014, has carefully cultivated an alliance with Paul. Paul, hoping to advance his agenda in the Senate, has done the same with McConnell. It was a partnership that peaked this week.

Texts and e-mail had continued over the course of the evening between Benton, McConnell?s chief of staff, Josh Holmes, and Paul?s chief of staff, Doug Stafford. At about 10:30 p.m., McConnell was at home toggling between a basketball game and C-SPAN. Soon, McConnell let his staff know that he was on the way to the Capitol.

Around midnight, McConnell heaped praise on the ?tenacity, conviction? and ?extraordinary effort? of his fellow Kentuckian. Just as important, he threw his weight, procedurally, behind the effort, announcing he would support a 60-vote threshold for the nomination until Paul?s questions were answered. At 12:39 a.m., Paul and his swollen bladder called it a night after nearly 13 straight hours on the floor.

?I?ve discovered that there are some limits to filibustering and I?m going to have to go take care of one of those in a few minutes here,? Paul declared.

By Thursday, the White House relented on Paul?s request. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that, yes, the Obama administration definitively rejected the use of drone strikes against non-combatant American citizens on American soil. The new CIA director, John Brennan, was confirmed soon thereafter.

And a new Republican Senate star, Rand Paul, was born.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inside-rand-paul-filibuster-070644347–politics.html

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March 10th, 2013

New Android apps worth downloading: Huffington Post for Android update, Map of the Internet, Temple Run Oz

Keep connected to what’s happening in the world this weekend with the recently updated and redesigned news app Huffington Post for Android, today’s first app worth downloading. We’ve also got Map of the Internet, an app that shows you the lay of the world wide web across the world, and Temple Run Oz, a tie-in title that mixes Temple Run 2 and the movie Oz the Great and Powerful.

Also on Android Apps

Go beyond the parades and legends, and you will find a world of new content about Ireland on Zinio. Check out a more authentic Ireland in this?Guest Post.

Huffington PostWhat?s it about? The newly redesigned Huffington Post for Android brings the news site’s articles, blogs and connectivity straight to your phone or tablet.

What?s cool? Ever If you’re familiar with the web experience of The Huffington Post, you probably have an idea of what to expect from its Android counterpart. The app has been newly optimized for Android tablets and phones to bring you all the news content and blogs you could want in a convenient and easy to navigate form. You can set the app to allow you to read offline without an Internet connection, customize a list of your favorite sections and features, and share what you’re reading on Facebook and Twitter.

Who?s it for? If you’re already a regular HuffPost reader, read it on your Android device.

What?s it like? You might also enjoy The New York Times and USA Today for your news needs.

Map of the InternetWhat?s it about? Map of the Internet shows you all the networks connected together to create what we know as the Internet, on a beautiful minimalist map of Earth.

What?s cool? If you’ve ever wanted to see what the Internet might look like from space if it were somehow lit up, Map of the Internet is your app. The app displays lots of different interconnected networks, service providers and systems to create a huge web, and presents them in 3-D, so you can move the globe around and tap different nodes of the Internet to learn more about them. The app also includes historical information about the Internet that can tell you a little bit about how different parts and elements came to be over time.

Who?s it for? If you’re fascinated by the geographical and historical sides of the Internet, check out Map of the Internet.

What?s it like? You can learn more stuff about the Internet (and other things) from Wikipedia.

Temple Run OzWhat?s it about? Tie-in title Temple Run Oz slightly alters the Temple Run 2 formula with elements from the film Oz the Great and Powerful, to successfully make something that’s familiar but fresh.

What?s cool? Like Temple Run Brave before it, Temple Run Oz brings Imagi’s formula for a behind-the-back 3-D runner and gives it a Disney film spin. While Temple Run Oz feels a lot like Temple Run 2, the game on which it is based, it iterates slightly with elements from the movie to create something new. As you run down the Yellow Brick Road, Temple Run Oz’s pathway twists, rises and drops seemingly even more than what we’re used to in Temple Run 2. Throw in segments that include riding in a hot air balloon, dodging flying monkeys and more, and Temple Run Oz does a solid job of setting itself apart without straying too far from the beaten path.

Who?s it for? Temple Run 2 fans and those excited about the film will find lots to like here.

What?s it like? You should definitely try Temple Run 2, and for another great tie-in game, go with Angry Birds Star Wars.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13285-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-huffington-post-for-android-update-map-of-the-internet-temple-run-oz

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March 9th, 2013

Radar reveals traces of Martian mega-flood

NASA / MOLA / Smithsonian

Mars’ 600-mile Marte Vallis channel system is filled with young lavas that obscure the source of the channels. This map shows Marte Vallis against the background of an elevation map of the planet, based on readings from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

A 3-D reconstruction of structures beneath the surface of Mars shows the 600-mile-wide footprint of a mega-flood that carved deep channels into the planet within the past 500 million years, scientists say.

Since that time, the evidence of the flood in a region known as Marte Vallis has been covered over by fresher lava flows. But a team of researchers pieced together the evidence by analyzing readings from a ground-penetrating radar instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The analysis was laid out Thursday on the journal Science’s website.

“Our findings show that the scale of erosion was previously underestimated, and that channel depth was at least twice that of previous approximations,” lead author Gareth Morgan, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, said in a news release. “The source of the floodwaters suggests?they originated from a deep groundwater reservoir and may have been released by local tectonic or volcanic activity. This work demonstrates the importance of orbital sounding radar in understanding how water has shaped the surface of Mars.”

Over the past decade and a half, missions to Mars have provided ample evidence that the planet was once warmer and wetter than it is today. However, scientists say the most recent outflows of water came in brief, catastrophic bursts rather than as steady streams. The newly published research is consistent with that view.

Morgan and his colleagues used the orbiter’s Italian-built Shallow Radar sounder, or SHARAD, to put Mars’ subsurface geology through the radar equivalent of a CT scan. They found that the boundaries between the layers of fresher lava and the underlying rock traced a network of buried channels. The patterns and depths of those channels were characteristic of the canyons that would be cut by flowing water. Lots of flowing water.

The depth of the main channel was estimated at 226 to 371 feet (69 to 113 meters). “This is comparable with the depth of incision of the largest known megaflood on Earth, the Missoula floods, responsible for carving the Channeled Scabland of the northwestern United States,” the researchers wrote.?

The Missoula floods occurred 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, due to a post-Ice Age warming trend, and discharged dammed-up water at a rate ranging up to 2.6 billion gallons per second. Morgan and his colleagues traced the Martian mega-flood to a radically different type of source: a fracture system in Mars’ Cerberus Fossae region that apparently opened up to release water from miles beneath the Red Planet’s surface. “It was a big crack in the ground, basically,” Morgan told NBC News.

Smithsonian / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sapienza Univ. of Rome / MOLA / USGS

A 3-D visualization shows the buried Marte Vallis channels. Marte Vallis consists of multiple perched channels formed around streamlined islands. These channels feed a deeper and wider main channel. The surface has been elevated and scaled by a factor of 1/100 for clarity. The area covered by this visualization is outlined by dotted lines in the global map above.

NASA / Goddard / Anna Brunner

NASA interns look down on Frenchman Springs Coulee in Washington state’s Channeled Scablands. Researchers say the Martian mega-flood cut channels similar to those created thousands of years ago in the Channeled Scablands.

SHARAD’s depth readings suggest that the channels had to have been cut somewhere between 10 million and 500 million years ago. Morgan said that makes the mega-flood channels “much younger” than the geological features being studied by NASA’s Curiosity rover in a different region of Mars. Curiosity’s science team wants to find out whether Mars had liquid water and the other conditions conducive for life 3 billion years to 4 billion years ago. On the surface, at least, those conditions were long gone by the time the Cerberus Fossae mega-flood washed over Marte Vallis.

More about Mars:

In addition to Morgan, the authors of “3D Reconstruction of the Source and Scale of Buried Young Flood Channels on Mars” include Bruce A. Campbell, Lynn M. Carter, Jeffrey J. Plaut and Roger J. Phillips.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com’s science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by “liking” the log’s?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com’s other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?“The Case for Pluto,”?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/07/17225462-radar-reveals-traces-of-monstrous-martian-flood-millions-of-years-ago?lite

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March 9th, 2013

Computer virus and spyware removal instructions to press one | My …

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Source: http://click-o-fric.com/2013/03/07/computer-virus-and-spyware-removal-instructions-to-press-one/

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March 8th, 2013

Myaamia Project becomes Myaamia Center at Miami University

OXFORD, OH (FOX19) – Miami University is expanding the Myaamia Project by launching the Myaamia Center on the Oxford campus.

The center will carry forward the work of revitalizing Myaamia language and culture that began through the project more than a decade?ago.

The Myaamia Center is a tribally directed research entity with two main purposes. The first is to conduct in-depth research to assist tribal educational initiatives aimed at the preservation of language and culture. This research creates a wide range of educational models and materials for community language and cultural programs.

The second purpose is to expose undergraduate and graduate students at Miami University to tribal efforts in revitalizing their language and culture. Students gain experience through a wide range of activities including visits to tribal headquarters in Oklahoma, direct involvement in research initiatives, class visitations by center staff and access to Miami Tribe language and cultural resources.

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Source: http://butlercounty.fox19.com/news/news/106941-myaamia-project-becomes-myaamia-center-miami-university

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