How to Ruin Your Reputation in Human Resources | Personal ...

Human Resources (HR) is a field that I love. I chose to pursue a career path in HR because I found the function to be the intersection between being able to help people and growing a business, two things that I am passionate about.

But HR doesn?t always have a good reputation.? When I tell people I?m in HR, I?m greeted by story after story of ineffectual, mistrustful, and useless HR people.? It?s always disturbing to me to hear these HR horror stories about HR people ruining the reputation of my chosen field.

If you?d like to ruin your reputation in HR, follow these easy steps:

Be old school.? The field has changed maybe more than any other business function over the last few decades.? You can ruin your reputation by embracing the ways of the old ?personnel department?, focusing on files and paperwork and forgetting about being an advocate for employees and management.

Act like a ?Hall Monitor?.? Put on your HR police badge and start roaming the halls looking for evil doers. Discipline people for coming in late, taking a lunch that went a little too long, and checking their Facebook page.? Two demerits for them!

Ignore the business.? Hey, you?re in HR ? you don?t need to know anything about how the business runs, the customers, the market, or other business functions like Finance and IT.? You just stay in your office processing payroll and filing your I-9s.

Be a corporate spy. ?Watch your employees like a hawk and report to management on every move they make.? Don?t ever try to coach an employee through an issue ? just go and tattle on them to their boss.This will go a long way in ensuring that you never have positive relationships with employees.

Plug your ears. ?Don?t listen to people.? Just toe the corporate line and show no empathy to employees.? They?re just employees ? it doesn?t matter what they have to say, right?

Keep your mouth shut.?You weren?t hired to advise management as to how to have effective relationships with people, motivate their workforce, and improve their performance.? Never speak up to senior leadership about what you think is right.

Stay in your office all day. Never socialize with employees.? Show no interest in their careers, development, or comfort in the office.

And the list goes on?what other advice do you have for HR professionals on how they can ruin their reputation?? I?m sure you have an HR horror story?let?s hear it!

Author:

Mike Spinale?is a corporate Human Resources leader at a healthcare information technology company located outside of Boston, Massachusetts and is an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University. He has over eight years of experience in HR and management including career counseling, recruitment, staffing, employment branding, and talent management.? Mike has dedicated his HR career to modern views on the field ? HR is not about the personnel files ? it?s about bringing on the best talent, ensuring they?re in the right seat, and keeping them motivated and growing in their careers. In addition, Mike is the author of the?CareerSpin?blog where he offers advice and opinion on job search, personal & employment branding, recruiting, and HR. Mike is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Babson College. He is also a board member of the Metro-North Regional Employment Board, a board which sets workforce development policy for Boston?s Metro-North region, and an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Northeast Human Resources Association.

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Catholic Church's Nature Means It Will be Out of Touch Sometimes

Dolan on This Week

During an interview for "This Week," Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that the Catholic Church's very nature means it will be - from time to time - out of touch with the concerns of its followers.

"Sometimes by nature, the Church has got to be out of touch with concerns, because we're always supposed to be thinking of the beyond, the eternal, the changeless," Dolan said. "Our major challenge is to continue in a credible way to present the eternal concerns to people in a timeless attractive way. And sometimes there is a disconnect - between what they're going through and what Jesus and his Church is teaching. And that's a challenge for us."

Dolan was responding to a question from Stephanopoulos about a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, which found that 60 percent of Catholics "describe the church as 'out of touch' with the views of Catholics in America."

As much of the country celebrates the Christian holiday of Easter, Stephanopoulos asked Dolan about the rise of people with no religious affiliation and if the church can bring people back toward God.

"What I'm afraid is that that's afflicting society in general. That's afflicting families. That's afflicting - communities. People want privacy. People crave isolation. We're hearing parents say that they can't even get their kids to talk anymore," he said. "They're - they're tweeting one another. So, this - kinda this craving of individualism, being alone, be - aloofness, that's afflicting all of culture, all of society. We're feeling it in the Church, too, because we're not about 'me.' We're about 'us.' We're about the 'our.' We say 'Our Father.' But society is saying, 'It's me, myself and I.'"

Stephanopoulos also asked Dolan what the Catholic Church can say to gays and lesbians, who feel unwelcomed by the Church, which does not support same-sex marriage.

"Well, the first thing I'd say to them is, 'I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God's image and likeness. And - and we - we want your happiness. But - and you're entitled to friendship.' But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that - especially when it comes to sexual love - that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally," Dolan said. "We got to be - we got to do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven't been too good at that. We try our darndest to make sure we're not an anti-anybody."

Dolan also addressed the new reality of having both a newly elected pope and also a former pope living at the same time. Stephanopoulos asked him about a recent photo of the two men together and if it was unsettling to see two Popes side-by-side.

"I think it was unsettling to a lot of us, because we're just not used to having two - two popes, even though one of them is retired. But I don't think it was unsettling to him. They almost tried to out-class each other in showing deference to one another. And that's not bad," Dolan said.

Finally, Dolan praised Nelson Mandela - who was hospitalized this week with a lung infection - and said he was praying for him.

"I'm praying with and for him. I had the honor of meeting him once. And what the word that comes to mind when you speak of a giant like Nelson Mandela is reconciliation. And that's a good thing to remember about Easter," Dolan said.

"We say that Jesus came to reconcile the world. He wanted to embrace the world and bring them to his Father. And the world took those hands and put them on a cross, because they don't like being reconciled. Nelson Mandela was one of those who could take his hands and embrace a nation. The world is in his debt, because he taught us the power of reconciliation and forgiveness," he said.

Like "This Week" on Facebook here . You can also follow the show on Twitter here .

Go here to find out when "This Week" is on in your area.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cardinal-timothy-dolan-catholic-churchs-105607541.html

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The Earth-Shattering DDoS That Wasn't, Bill Gates' Condom Challenge, Photoshop Jedi, And More

While there may not have actually been a Internet-threatening DDoS this week, there's plenty more to catch up on. We've got soda-stealin' tips, two flavors of photoshop magic, the reason you'll wind up with a smart watch, Bill Gates' condom plans, and all the people who suddenly owe Google $1,500. Check it all out below. More »

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AT&T apparently has an 'exclusive' on 64GB HTC One

Still no word on pricing for AT&T's HTC One, though

Oh, how we loathe the word "exclusive." For those of us on the editorial side, it's become a bit of a joke. But when a U.S. carrier uses it, it means someone else is probably getting the short end of the stick. In this case, it's anyone not AT&T, which is boasting in a promo video that it's got the "exclusive" on a 64-gigabyte version of the HTC One. (For what it's worth: The storage sizes aren't what's new here -- AT&T announced all that back in February. It's the "exclusive" part that's new.)

That means if you were hoping for the larger storage options on T-Mobile or Sprint, you might not get it, at least not at first. That said, the vast majority of "normal users" (chances are if you're reading this that isn't you) will never come close to hitting that 32GB limit. So, there's that. If you're holding out for a Verizon variant of the HTC One, we'd be willing to bet that 64GB might still be on the table, though. That's up to Big Red, though.

Meanwhile, we still don't have pricing or availability. So in the meantime, be sure to check out our full HTC One review, and swing by the ever-exciting HTC One forums!

And check out AT&T's promo video after the break if that's your thing.

Source: Youtube; via Droid-Life

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

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Marriage debate revives questions about high court role as social change-maker

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

Underneath all the arcane legal fencing in this week?s Supreme Court oral arguments on marriage lies a basic question: Why should the justices take on the job of redefining marriage laws for the nation?

Is it the best venue for making decisions that could fundamentally change social institutions such as marriage? Is it the courts, in the person of unelected life-tenured justices? Or is it the democratic process in the states and in Congress?

The Supreme Court appeared ready to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act during Wednesday's oral arguments but it was a different story for Prop. 8 with Justices signaling that they may take a narrow approach to avoid setting a national precedent on the issue of same-sex marriage. California Attorney General Kamala Harris discusses.

At least some elected officials, including President Barack Obama and many Democratic members of Congress are saying to the high court: ?You decide this.?

Even some Democratic members of Congress, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?defining marriage as ?a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,? told the high court in their amicus brief that they?d made a big mistake in 1996 -- and now they want the justices to fix it.

But at least some of the justices are pushing back and saying to the politicians: ?Why don?t you decide this??

Justice Samuel Alito said to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli?on Tuesday as Verrilli?was urging the court to strike down California's traditional marriage definition: ?You want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet??

Alito said that he and his fellow justices ?do not have the ability to see the future,? implying that they shouldn?t be the lawmakers for American society.

This week North Dakota became the latest state to challenge Roe v. Wade ? moving to ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy. On the heels of Arkansas and other states chipping away at abortion access, those caught up in the debate think abortion could soon be headed back to the Supreme Court. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards discusses.

The court does have experience in overriding decisions made by the people and their elected representatives and spurring fundamental social change ? for example, the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ordered an end to racial segregation in public schools in 1954 and the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized most abortions nationwide.

Whether the court wants the job of social change-maker on marriage remains to be seen.

It may hinge on Justice Anthony Kennedy?s view of Section 3 of DOMA. If Kennedy and his colleagues strike down Section 3, then, as Verrilli said, it is ?difficult? to see how laws in the 38 states that define marriage almost exactly as Section 3 does would survive court challenges.

Both Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending California?s traditional marriage law before the court on Tuesday, and Paul Clement on Wednesday defending section 3 of DOMA, pleaded with the justices to let the democratic process work.

?Persuasion,? Clement said in his closing argument. ?That's what the democratic process requires. You have to persuade somebody you're right? That's going on across the country. Colorado, the state that brought you Amendment 2 (which essentially banned gay rights in the state in 1992), has just recognized civil unions. Maine, that was pointed to in the record in this case as being evidence of the persistence of discrimination because they voted down a statewide (same-sex) referendum, the next election cycle it came out the other way.?

Clement implied that the political momentum is all in the direction of gay and lesbian rights.

But he omitted mention of North Carolina, which last May became the thirtieth state in the union to amend its constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages. Three out of five North Carolina voters voted for the amendment.

Chief Justice Roberts also seemed to making a case for the court staying out of the fray, implying that gays and lesbians are powerful enough to get politicians? attention.

In an allusion to recent same-sex marriage endorsements by politicians such as Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Roberts told lawyer Roberta Kaplan -- representing Edith Windsor, who is seeking to have DOMA overturned -- that ?political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case.?

He told Kaplan that ?the political force and effectiveness of people representing, supporting your side of the case? had led to laws being changed in nine states to allow same-sex couples to marry.

He asked ?You don't doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different states is politically powerful, do you??

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

George Washington University students and hundreds of others rally outside the Supreme Court during oral arguments in a case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) March 27, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Kaplan disagreed. Her argument and the Obama administration?s rests partly on a contention that gays and lesbians are a politically powerless minority.

In his brief, Verrilli?wrote that ?the final consideration is whether gays and lesbian people are ?a minority or politically powerless.? They are both.? If gays are powerless and are what the courts call ?a suspect class,? then?it is easier to strike down laws that affect them under Supreme Court precedents.

Evidence that gays and lesbians aren?t powerless is that politicians such as Hagan, who is up for re-election next year in a state that just banned same-sex marriages, are now not shy about joining the same-sex marriage cause.

But to say it?s no longer too politically risky for Hagan in North Carolina to endorse the right of same-sex couples to marry is not the same as saying there are now the votes in North Carolina to rescind the marriage law which voters enacted just last year.

Putting national polls aside for the moment, it may be useful to look at the pattern of voting in states where real, flesh-and-blood voters have recently voted on marriage.

Maryland voters last November approved a referendum that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry. The vote was 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent ? this is in a state that Obama carried with 62 percent.

The pattern reflected the long-standing urban/rural split in politics; urban and suburban counties such as Montgomery County, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., approved the measure. Two-thirds of Montgomery County voters voted for it.

But in rural counties such as Harford County, the measure was defeated. It was also narrowly defeated in predominantly African-American Prince George?s County in the Washington suburbs.?

The pattern in the state of Washington, where voters last November approved a measure legalizing same-sex marriage, was the same. In suburban Snohomish County, 53 percent of voters voted for legal recognition of same-sex marriages; just across the mountains in rural Chelan County, 57 percent of voters rejected same-sex marriages.

Many of the 38 states that have traditional marriage laws have conservative electorates that more closely resemble rural counties' electorates than urban ones.?It may be, as Clement argued, that momentum will eventually move people in those 38 states to OK same-sex marriages, or it may be that Kennedy and his colleagues won?t wait, and will decide the question for them.

Related:

Supreme Court likely to advance gay marriage but stop short of broad ruling

Shifts on same-sex marriage come from surprising groups

Obama on rights of gay couples: 'It is time for the justices to examine this issue'

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:54 AM EDT

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New EPA gas rules to cost one to nine cents a gallon

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Reducing sulfur in gasoline and tightening emissions standards on cars beginning in 2017, as the Obama administration is proposing, would come with costs as well as rewards. The cost at the pump for cleaner air across the country could be less than a penny or as high as 9 cents a gallon, depending on who is providing the estimate.

An oil industry study says the proposed rule being unveiled Friday by the administration could increase gasoline prices by 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates an increase of less than a penny and an additional $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025.

The EPA is quick to add that the change aimed at cleaning up gasoline and automobile emissions would yield billions of dollars in health benefits by 2030 by slashing smog- and soot-forming pollution. Still, the oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats have pressed the EPA to delay the rule, citing higher costs.

Environmentalists hailed the proposal as potentially the most significant in President Barack Obama's second term.

The so-called Tier 3 standards would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, by expanding across the country a standard already in place in California. For states, the regulation would make it easier to comply with health-based standards for the main ingredient in smog and soot. For automakers, the regulation allows them to sell the same autos in all 50 states.

The Obama administration already has moved to clean up motor vehicles by adopting rules that will double fuel efficiency and putting in place the first standards to reduce the pollution from cars and trucks blamed for global warming.

"We know of no other air pollution control strategy that can achieve such substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Becker said the rule would reduce pollution equal to taking 33 million cars off the road.

But the head of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, said in an interview Thursday that the refiners' group was still unclear on the motives behind the agency's regulation, since refining companies already have spent $10 billion to reduce sulfur by 90 percent. The additional cuts, while smaller, will cost just as much, Drevna said, and the energy needed for the additional refining actually could increase carbon pollution by 1 percent to 2 percent.

"I haven't seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn't said it would cost only a penny or two more," Drevna said.

A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that lowering the sulfur in gasoline would add 6 cents to 9 cents a gallon to refiners' manufacturing costs, an increase that likely would be passed on to consumers at the pump. The EPA estimate of less than 1 cent is also an additional manufacturing cost and likely to be passed on.

A senior administration official said Thursday that only 16 of 111 refineries would need to invest in major equipment to meet the new standards, which could be final by the end of this year. Of the remaining refineries, 29 already are meeting the standards because they are selling cleaner fuel in California or other countries, and 66 would have to make modifications.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rule was still undergoing White House budget office review.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-taking-aim-auto-emissions-sulfur-gas-071021486--finance.html

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Root Fungus Stores a Surprising Amount of the Carbon Sequestered in Soil

Falling leaves and branches are important, but roots and their fungi win out

By Mark Fischetti

Boreal forest in Lake Uddjaure, Sweden. Image: courtesy of Karina Clemmensen

A forest floor can store lots of atmospheric carbon, helping to limit global warming that results from carbon dioxide emissions. Most of that storage, scientists have thought, is found in tree leaves and branches that absorb carbon, eventually fall to the ground and slowly decay into soil. A new study in Sweden, however, indicates that 50 to 70 percent of the carbon bound in soil is actually from tree roots and the fungi that grow on them.

This surprising insight comes from Karina Clemmensen at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and colleagues who studied boreal forests on 30 islands in northern Swedish lakes. The forests were consumed by different numbers of fires over the past 5,000 years, providing a broad mix of soil compositions on different forest floors. The comparison revealed that the amount of carbon stored in soil was linked to mycorrhizal fungi that grow along tree-root systems and help to keep them healthy.

?These fungi live in symbiosis with plant roots and transport carbon from plant photosynthesis directly into the soil,? Clemmensen wrote in response to e-mail questions. ?The prevailing dogma had been that aboveground plant litter (dead needles and wood) is the principal source of carbon storage in boreal forest soils,? she explained. But her results show that ?a large proportion of the carbon stored in boreal forests instead enters the soil from beneath, via roots and their associated mycorrhizal fungi.?

Boreal forest soils are a major sink, holding 16 percent of all carbon sequestered in soils worldwide, according to a paper by Clemmensen?s team published March 29 in Science. The most immediate implication of the finding is that climate models should be revised to take into account the role that the fungi play. Revised models, Clemmensen wrote, would give more precise predictions of how forest management practices (such as thinning of trees) and environmental changes could influence carbon storage.

More research is also needed to determine if more older trees (so-called old-growth forests) worldwide would mean increased storage. As trees age, they allocate less carbon to root fungi, yet residues from old, dead fungi hang on to carbon more tightly than do dead needles and wood in the soil. Other studies, however, suggest that mycorrhizal fungi decompose organic matter in the soil, thereby releasing carbon. How these factors interact to form stable soil ?is a very interesting and intriguing question that we do not yet have the answer to,? Clemmensen wrote. What is clear is that mycorrhizal fungi are much more important to carbon sequestration than anyone had realized.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=1ce2ebff1e0b582a08177a147f9d8546

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Johnny Depp to do live 'Lone Ranger' online Q&A

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Johnny Depp will answer fans' questions about "The Lone Ranger" in a live online session.

Disney announced Thursday that Depp and co-star Armie Hammer will discuss the anticipated adventure film on April 17 after showing 20 minutes of exclusive footage to about 400 fans at a Las Vegas theater.

Director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer also will participate in the session, which is to stream live on Yahoo Movies and Livestream.

Fans outside of Las Vegas can submit questions for "The Lone Ranger" team through Twitter and watch the film's trailer online. The extended footage, though, is just for those in Las Vegas.

The promotion coincides with the annual CinemaCon convention, where Disney is expected to offer a similar presentation for theater owners. "The Lone Ranger" releases July 3.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/johnny-depp-live-lone-ranger-online-q-094810388.html

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BofA markets chief was bank's highest paid executive in '12

By Rick Rothacker

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's co-chief operating officer, Tom Montag, was once again the bank's highest paid executive in 2012, making $14.5 million in a year in which the bank showed signs of healing.

Montag's compensation, which included a $5.46 million bonus and $8.19 million in stock, increased 21 percent to eclipse the $12 million awarded to Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, according to a filing the bank made on Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bank of America's executives were handed bigger pay packages in 2012 as the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets made progress in recovering from the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Its shares climbed more than 100 percent in 2012, while the bank padded its capital holdings and made strides in resolving mortgage-related litigation.

In his annual letter to shareholders, which was posted on the bank's website on Thursday, Moynihan struck an optimistic tone, saying the company had been "transformed" by a stronger balance sheet and a focus on core customers.

The letter also signaled Moynihan's plans for rewarding shareholders by buying back more stock. Earlier this month, the bank passed the Federal Reserve's annual stress test and won permission to repurchase $5 billion of its own shares.

"We are well-positioned to return excess capital to our shareholders and we believe that buying back common shares is the best way to continue to drive value for our shareholders," Moynihan wrote.

As part of this year's stress test, the bank did not request an increase in its quarterly dividend, which has been stuck at a penny per share since the financial crisis.

Moynihan, whose compensation was disclosed last month, was the bank's second-highest-paid executive after his total rose more than 70 percent to $12 million thanks to a higher stock grant of $11.1 million. He did not receive a cash bonus.

Montag, who runs global banking and markets businesses, has made more money than the CEO since joining Bank of America through its 2009 acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. In 2012, he also earned more than the CEOs at JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley .

Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson made $11 million, followed by co-Chief Operating Officer David Darnell ($9.5 million) and general counsel Gary Lynch ($7 million), according to the filing.

For 2013, the bank is increasing Moynihan's salary by 58 percent to $1.5 million and upping the base pay for Montag and Darnell by 18 percent to $1 million.

BOARD SHAKE-UP

Thursday's proxy filing also disclosed that five of the bank's 18 directors will not stand for election at this spring's shareholder meeting as part of a board shuffle that began last summer.

Three directors who were at or near the retirement age of 72 - Virgis Colbert, Donald Powell and Charles Rossotti - are departing, joining two other directors - Robert Scully and Mukesh Ambani - who had previously announced they were leaving.

The exits are the latest reshaping of the bank's board, which will shrink to 13 members.

In 2009, federal regulators pressed the bank to add directors with more financial expertise after the company required multiple bailouts during the financial crisis. Of those six board members, only former Federal Reserve Governor Susan Bies and former DuPont

CEO Chad Holliday remain.

In anticipation of retirements, the bank has added six new board members since August, all of whom will stand for election at the May 8 shareholder meeting. Four of the new directors were found through a search firm and two others were identified by Holliday, the board's chairman, according to the filing.

(Reporting by Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, N.C.; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bofa-markets-chief-banks-highest-paid-executive-12-180240240--sector.html

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Space station shifts its orbit to make speedy crew rendezvous possible

Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

A police helicopter flies next to the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft as it is transported to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 26. The Soyuz will carry NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy along with Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin to the International Space Station.

By James Oberg, NBC News Space Analyst

For more than 30 years, Russian spaceships have taken two days to dock with their target ??but on Thursday, the travel time for a Soyuz capsule carrying three spacefliers to the International Space Station is being trimmed to six hours.

Has the Soyuz suddenly become speedier? Not really.

The Soyuz itself won't fly any faster when it's sent into space at 4:43 p.m. ET from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It won't have any fundamentally new or improved guidance and navigation system. "All the systems of the vehicle are the same, but the work is more intense," Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, the Soyuz's commander, said last week during a news briefing. "There are no new systems or modes in the vehicle, but the coordination work of the crew should be better."

This faster flight plan is possible only because someone else is doing the real work. The space station itself has shifted its position to be nearer to the Soyuz when that spacecraft goes into orbit. It is quite literally moving itself right in front of the speeding Soyuz.

---

The rapid rendezvous procedure has already been tested twice with robotic supply flights, but this is the first time it's been used with a crewed spacecraft. If it works, the crew should be docking with the station at 10:31 p.m. ET Thursday, taking the fastest ride to an orbital destination since NASA's Skylab missions, 40 years ago.

Hunter and hunted
Chasing down a target in the trackless void of space is not as simple as merely catching sight of it and thrusting towards it. The inflexible rules of orbital mechanics ??motion along orbital paths ? demand precise timing of critical course changes on the part of the vehicle that's doing the chasing.

For any space rendezvous, the first critical time is the moment when the chaser?s launch pad passes below the target?s circular orbit. If the chaser is launched during this moment and heads in a direction parallel to the target's orbital course, it winds up more or less in the same orbital plane as the target. That's the "planar window" for a launch.

But there's another critical timing requirement, having to do with how far ahead the target is when the chaser enters orbit. The target could be at any point in the circular path it follows around Earth, but it's important to choose the right point for launching the chaser.

Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft is transported from its assembly hangar to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on March 26.

The numbers give you an idea of the scale of the problem: The space station travels in a circular orbit that averages around 224 miles (360 kilometers) in altitude, and the chaser spacecraft are usually launched into initial orbits averaging around 143 miles (230 kilometers). That lower orbit is faster, both because gravity is slightly stronger there, and because the radius is smaller, which makes each circuit shorter.

For that difference in average altitude, a typical chaser spacecraft will catch up with the station at a rate of 560 mph (900 kilometers per hour). So if the chaser starts out 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) behind the station in its orbit, it will take about 10 hours to overtake the station. If it?s 16,800 miles (27,000 kilometers) behind, it would take 30 hours. And it might be even farther.

Flexibility is key
If you have a long period of time available for making your rendezvous ? say, one or two days???you have more flexibility for launch opportunities, even if your chaser spacecraft starts out lagging far behind the station. Mission designers prefer to pick launch days on which the lag falls within a certain range. If it?s relatively far away, the chaser stays lower and faster for a longer period, to make up the lag. If the target is not so far away, the crew flies their ship higher sooner, to slow down the approach rate and arrive at the target at the same desired time.

The fast-rendezvous scenario, in contrast, has very little flexibility. The Soyuz has only a few hours to vary its altitude in order to accommodate a range of possible target distances. The range of acceptable distances between the chaser spacecraft and the space station is known as the "phase window." For a fast rendezvous, the phase window shrinks from what's typically about half of each orbit to as little as 5 percent of each orbit.

There are only a few launch opportunities when the precise time of the planar window also falls within the narrow slot of the phase window. That makes it harder to select an appropriate launch date for a fast rendezvous.

The job was easier back in the '60s, for the early rendezvous missions conducted by NASA and the Soviets. That's because those missions involved launching the target satellite first, and then launching the chaser no more than a few hours later. In such cases, the lag distance for the chaser's launch could be customized to fit the short range for a quick docking.

These days, the only way to approximate that required narrow slot in the sky is to have the International Space Station do an engine burn. This can push the station ahead or behind in its orbit, so that it happens to be at the proper distance at precisely the time when the Soyuz is launched.

That critical orbital maneuver took place a week ago: On March 21, a Progress cargo craft attached to the station fired its thrusters for 11 minutes and 13 seconds, pushing its orbital altitude from 253.5 to 255 miles (408 to 410.5 kilometers). It's just a mile and a half, but it's enough to ensure that the station will be in the right place, assuming that the Soyuz launches at the right time.

For all the virtuosity of the cosmonauts in their steering, the factor that makes the briefer trip at all possible is the target generously maneuvering itself right into the chaser?s sights. And for every quick rendezvous in the future, by Russian or American or other orbital vehicles, the same elaborate target line-up will be required.

More about orbital hookups:

---

NBC News space analyst James Oberg spent 22 years at NASA Mission Control, where he carried the title of Rendezvous Guidance and Procedures Officer?? RGPO, pronounced "Arr-Jeep-O." In that capacity he sat in the center of Mission Control's front row, down in the legendary "trench" of space maneuvering specialists.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2a126327/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C270C17491180A0Espace0Estation0Eshifts0Eits0Eorbit0Eto0Emake0Espeedy0Ecrew0Erendezvous0Epossible0Dlite/story01.htm

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Ungoogleable? Google tells Sweden 'ogooglebar' can't be a word.

Google asks Swedish Language Council to remove 'ogooglebar'?? or ungoogleable, in English ? from its list of new 2012 words.?

By Matthew Shaer / March 26, 2013

Is ungoogleable a word? Google isn't so sure. Here, a homepage doodle from 2010.

Screen grab

Enlarge

Late last year, the Swedish Language Council published a report of words that had entered the Swedish lexicon in 2012. Among them was?ogooglebar ??ungoogleable, in English. This did not please Google. In fact,?according to the Council (you'll need to enable Google Translate, unless you speak Swedish), Google promptly wrote representatives for the organization, and asked them to remove the word.?

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The Council duly fired back ? "we decide together which words should be and how they are defined, used and spelled," reads a defiant post on the Council website ? and the ensuring furor has made Ungoogleable Gate front page news even in the US. So what's Google's problem? Well, to put it simply, Google is worried that if everyone starts using the word "google" as a lower-case verb or noun, it will dilute the name.?

As?John C. Dvorak of PC World suggests today, an analogue here is Kleenex, which is a brand name, but which is often used to describe all tissue. (Other examples: Band-Aid or Xerox.) In fact, a few years ago, Kleenex embarked on its own campaign to make sure Kleenex is referred to correctly in the media. In an advertisement that still appears ? in a slightly different form ? in the Columbia Journalism Review, Kleenex requested that the product always be identified as a trademarked entity.?

"You don?t need a Social Security number to get your identity stolen," the ad pleaded. "When you spend nearly a century building a name that people know and trust, the last thing you want is people calling any old tissue a Kleenex? Tissue. Simply put, ?Kleenex? is a brand name and should always be followed by an ? and the word ?Tissue.? Please help us keep our identity, ours."

It's worth noting that Google did in fact succeed in getting the Swedish Language Council to remove?ogooglebar from its list. And far be it from us to tell Google how to spend its energy. But surely this is a losing battle in the long term ? google (lower case, not upper case) and its various iterations are?already a popular slang term in dozens of languages, including English. It's going to be pretty difficult to reverse that trend.

But back to John C. Dvorak:?"When a new usage appears in the public domain, own it and make it brand associative," he?writes?in his PC World post.?"This could all be done through a small advertising campaign with a tagline like 'When I tell you to Google something, you use Google, of course!' After that, the word goes into the lexicon and only refers to using Google, not doing a generic search. Problem solved."?

For?more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ZQozRKvU-oo/Ungoogleable-Google-tells-Sweden-ogooglebar-can-t-be-a-word

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Simulations uncover obstacle to harnessing laser-driven fusion: Under realistic conditions, hollow cones fail to guide energetic electrons to fuel

Mar. 26, 2013 ? A once-promising approach for using next-generation, ultra-intense lasers to help deliver commercially viable fusion energy has been brought into serious question by new experimental results and first-of-a-kind simulations of laser-plasma interaction.

Researchers at The Ohio State University are evaluating a two-stage process in which a pellet of fusion fuel is first crushed by lasers on all sides, shrinking the pellet to dozens of times its original size, followed by an ultra-intense burst of laser light to ignite a chain reaction. This two-stage approach is called Fast Ignition, and there are a few variants on the theme.

In a recent paper, the Ohio State research group considered the long-discussed possibility of using a hollow cone to maintain a channel for the ultra-intense "ignitor pulse" to focus laser energy on the compressed pellet core. Drawing on both experimental results from studies at the Titan Laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and massively-parallel computer simulations of the laser-target interaction performed at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) in Columbus, Ohio, the research team found compelling evidence that the cone-guided approach to Fast Ignition has a serious flaw.

"In the history of fusion research, two-steps-forward and one-step-back stories are a common theme," said Chris Orban, Ph.D., a researcher of the High Energy Density Physics research group at Ohio State and the lead theorist on the project. "But sometimes progress is about seeing what's not going to work, just as much as it is looking forward to the next big idea."

Since the ultra-intense pulse delivers energy to the fuel through relativistic electrons accelerated by the laser interaction, the Ohio State study focused on the coupling of the laser light to electrons and the propagation of those electrons through the cone target. Rather than investigating how the interaction would work on a high-demand, high-cost facility like the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is also based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one of the largest scientific operations in the world, the researchers considered experiments just across from NIF at the Titan laser, which is much smaller and easily accessible.

These images from their simulations highlight the trajectories of randomly-selected electrons for a thin cone (left) and thick cone (right), each attached to a copper wire. Background colors show the strength of the electric fields pointing away from the cone and wire. For thin cones, the electric fields act to guide energetic electrons forward into the wire while for thick cones -- a more realistic case -- these fields are too distant to be effective. An animation of the simulation is available online at: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~orban/cone_wire_final5mJ_4_5ps.avi.

Despite its size and despite having lower total energy, for a brief moment the Titan laser is many thousands of times more intense than NIF, which makes it a decent stand-in as a second-stage ignitor pulse. The OSU-led experimental team focused the Titan pulse on hollow cone targets attached at the tip to copper wires and observed the burst of X-ray photons coming from the copper as a measure of the laser energy to relativistic electron conversion efficiency.

The X-ray signal was much lower from the hollow cones with thicker cone walls. "This was strong evidence to the experimental team that the typical approach to cone-guided Fast Ignition wouldn't work, since thicker cones should be more realistic than thin cones," said Orban. "This is because electrons are free to move around in a dense plasma, much like they do in a normal metal, so the thicker cone target is like a thin cone embedded in a dense plasma."

These intuitions were tested in simulations performed at OSC. Whereas earlier efforts to simulate the laser-target interaction were forced to simplify or shrink the target size in order to make the calculations more feasible, Orban used the LSP code to perform the first-ever, full-scale 2D Particle-In-Cell simulations of the entire laser-target interaction using fully realistic laser fields.

These simulations also included a sophisticated model for the pre-heating of the target from stray laser light ahead of the ultra-intense pulse developed by collaborators at the Flash Center for Computational Science at the University of Chicago.

"We were delighted to help Chris use the FLASH code to provide realistic initial conditions for his Particle-In-Cell simulations," said Don Lamb, director of the Flash Center. "This is an outstanding example of how two groups can collaborate to achieve a scientific result that neither could have achieved alone."

To conduct the simulations, the Ohio State researchers accessed OSC's flagship Oakley Cluster supercomputer system. The HP-built system features 8,300+ Intel Xeon cores and 128 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Oakley can achieve 88 teraflops, tech-speak for performing 88 trillion calculations per second, or, with acceleration from the NVIDIA GPUs, a total peak performance of 154 teraflops.

"The simulations pointed to the electric fields building up on the edge of the cone as the key to everything," said Orban. "The thicker the cone is, the further away the cone edge is from the laser, and as a result fewer energetic electrons are deflected forward, which is the crucial issue in making cone-guided Fast Ignition a viable approach."

With both the experiment and the simulations telling the same story, the evidence is compelling that the cone-guided route to Fast Ignition is an unlikely one. While other studies have come to similar conclusions, the group was the first to identify the plasma surrounding the cone as a severe hindrance. Thankfully, there are still many other ideas for successfully igniting the fusion pellet with current or soon-to-be-constructed laser facilities. Any future efforts to spark fusion reactions with these lasers using a two-stage fast-ignition approach must be mindful to consider the neutralizing effect of the free electrons in the dense plasma.

"We could not have completed this project without the Oakley Cluster," Orban noted. "It was the perfect combination of speed and RAM and availability for us. And thanks to the profiling I was able to do, the compute time for our production runs went from two weeks in November 2011 to three or four days as of February 2012."

"Energy and the environment is one of the primary focus areas of the center, and this research fits perfectly into that domain," said Brian Guilfoos, the client and technology support manager for OSC. "Many of our systems were designed and software packages selected to best support the type of computing required by investigators working in fields related to our focus areas."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio Supercomputer Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. K. U. Akli, C. Orban, D. Schumacher, M. Storm, M. Fatenejad, D. Lamb, R. R. Freeman. Coupling of high-intensity laser light to fast electrons in cone-guided fast ignition. Physical Review E, 2012; 86 (6) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.86.065402

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/2LmJkrdgNbo/130326162340.htm

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Syrian opposition opens first embassy, says world lets it down

By Yara Bayoumy and Regan Doherty

DOHA (Reuters) - A Syrian opposition bloc recognized by the Arab League as the sole representative for Syria opened its first embassy in Qatar on Wednesday in a diplomatic blow to President Bashar al-Assad.

But opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, who took Syria's seat at an Arab summit in Doha on Tuesday, used the ribbon-cutting ceremony to voice his frustration with world powers for failing to do more to help in the two-year-old struggle to topple Assad.

"There is an international willingness for the revolution not to triumph," he told reporters at the embassy, which was festooned with balloons in the red, green, white and black of Syria's national flag.

Alkhatib, a Sunni Muslim cleric who resigned this week as leader of the Syrian National Coalition, but who is staying on as a caretaker, also alluded to internal differences plaguing the opposition umbrella group formed in Qatar in November.

"The only way to victory is unity," he declared.

Damascus raged against summit host Qatar for helping the opposition into Syria's seat at the League, while Russia and Iran also criticized the move to delegitimize Assad's rule.

Yet although the 22-member Arab bloc lent its support to giving weapons to Syrian rebels, it is unclear how much impact the opposition's diplomatic advances will have inside Syria.

The Cairo-based coalition's control over insurgent groups is tenuous at best. Some of the most militarily effective, such as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, openly reject its authority.

Alkhatib told Reuters in an interview he was surprised by a rebuff from the United States and NATO to his request for Patriot missiles based in Turkey to help protect rebel-held parts of northern Syria from Assad's helicopters and warplanes.

"I'm scared that this will be a message to the Syrian regime telling it 'Do what you want'," he said.

OPPOSITION DISUNITY

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking to students in Moscow via video link from Brussels, again said the Western alliance had no intention of intervening in Syria.

"We believe that we need a political solution in Syria," he said, noting there was no U.N. mandate for NATO action there.

Disunity among Syria's opposition in exile and the armed factions on the ground have long hindered the struggle against Assad and have contributed to Western reluctance to intervene.

Alkhatib has cited the West's failure to do more to help the opposition, as well as the coalition's internal divisions, as reasons for announcing on Sunday that he would quit as leader.

He offered no clarity on his own political future in his interview with Reuters. "I have given my resignation and I have not withdrawn it. But I have to continue my duties until the general committee meets," the former mosque imam said.

The Arab summit's support for Assad's foes may prove more symbolic than practical, but Syria vented its wrath at Qatar for its pro-opposition actions at the annual gathering.

"The emir of Qatar, the biggest bank for supporting terrorism in the region, began his presidency of the Arab League by hijacking it with tainted oil and money," said state news agency SANA, a mouthpiece for Assad's government.

Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani "committed a flagrant violation of the League's pact by inviting the deformed body, the 'Doha Coalition', to usurp Syria's seat in the League", SANA said, in a scathing reference to the opposition.

Qatar has funded political opposition groups and is believed to be funneling money and weapons to rebels in Syria.

Russia, which gives Damascus military and diplomatic support, scolded the Arab League for taking "another anti-Syria step" by giving Syria's seat to the opposition.

Arab nations are far from united on Syria, with Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon often opposing any action against Assad's rule.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some others have thrown their support behind the mostly Sunni Muslim rebels in Syria, partly to weaken Shi'ite Iran, the main regional ally of Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is distantly derived from Shi'ite Islam.

Iran, which has sent advisers, money and weapons to help Assad stay in power, also lambasted the Arab League for allowing a foe of Assad to take Syria's seat at the summit, calling this "a pattern of dangerous behavior".

Iran views Assad as a pillar of an "axis of resistance" against Israel and a bulwark against Sunni militants in Syria, a country which for three decades has been the main conduit for Iranian arms supplies to Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement.

(Additional reporting by William Maclean in Doha, Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Marcus George in Dubai and Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-opposition-opens-first-embassy-says-world-lets-135557453.html

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Stocks slide, following European markets lower

NEW YORK (AP) ? Worries about Europe rattled the stock market Wednesday, a day after the Dow Jones industrial average had its biggest gain in three weeks.

Investors are watching to see if Cyprus can restore confidence in its banking system. They are also keeping an eye on Italy, where political parties are struggling to form a new government.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 63 points, or 0.4 percent, at 14,494 an hour after the opening bell Wednesday. The decline erased the Dow's gain for the week. The index had rallied 111 points Tuesday on better U.S. housing news.

Cyprus is working out details for how to reopen its banks after a nearly two-week shutdown. An international bailout agreement calls for large deposits to be used to help pay for the rescue of its banking system.

In Italy, center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani failed to get support from the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement to form a new government. Political gridlock in Italy has been a major concern for investors following inconclusive results of elections in late February. Investors worry that the country won't follow through with unpopular budget cuts, potentially undermining confidence in the euro.

European markets fell. Benchmark indexes were down 1.2 percent in Germany and 1.4 percent in France. Italy's main stock index slumped 1.2 percent.

The worries hit Europe's bond markets especially hard. Borrowing rates for Italy and Spain shot higher, which means investors' confidence in the financial stability of those countries is weakening. Rates for more stable European countries like Germany and France fell as investors bought their bonds.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dropped to 1.85 percent. That's a sharp fall from 1.91 percent late Tuesday and suggests investors are moving money into ultra-safe assets.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down seven points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,556. The Nasdaq composite was down 18 points, 0.6 percent, at 3,234.

The declines were broad. All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index fell, led by banks and industrial companies. The groups with the smallest losses were utilities and health care, which investors tend to buy when they're feeling risk-averse.

The S&P 500 closed within two points of its all-time high of 1,565 on Tuesday, helped by rising home prices and orders for manufactured goods. The stock index hit that peak on Oct. 9, 2007, before the Great Recession and a financial crisis roiled financial markets.

Cliffs Natural Resources, an iron ore mining company, plunged 13 percent, the biggest loss in the S&P. The stock fell $2.78 to $18.65.

Science Applications International Corp. jumped 4 percent after the security and communications technology provider reported a fourth-quarter profit that was better than analysts were expecting. SAIC also announced a special dividend of $1 per share. The stock rose 65 cents to $13.47.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-slide-following-european-markets-lower-134649261--finance.html

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Choose The Right Online Marketing Strategy Using ... - We Want CSG

You likely don?t know everything that can be learned about Web marketing. Every day new information emerges on how to effectively market over the internet, and it is always best that when you do have a company that relies on this type of marketing to always keep up to date with the latest trends. This article will give you a few quick tips for improving your affiliate marketing efforts.

Offer a free, branded promotional item in venues that promote such items. If you?re offering an e-book for free, give it to sites that list free e-books. There are many sites that offer free items that you can submit.

TIP! You should know a good bit about the products or services available on your site. This is important because not only will you gain credibility by providing a vast amount of correct and pertinent information, but it is extremely easy to lose credibility if people can see through your attempts to dishonestly claim to be an expert.

If you are interested in having more visitors to your site, it is vital that you rank higher and employ SEO tactics. This is very essential if you are a online business that markets the same thing as a lot of different sites, they will also use the description the manufacturer uses. When you have unique and original product descriptions, your site will stand out in the search engines and lead you to higher rankings.

Luck is not enough for your web marketing venture, rather you should always work hard. You do not see large, successful businesses that got where they are by luck alone. Was Coke lucky when their soda became a hit? Not really! They did a superb job of marketing their product.

For more effective marketing, try mentioning guarantees in your promotional content. Although the term ?guaranteed? is dependent on how good the company is, people like hearing that they aren?t taking risks if they choose to buy your product. Consumers often feel safer parting with their hard-earned money when they know there is a guarantee.

TIP! You should keep an eye on your competitor?s strategies and learn from both their successes and failures. If they look like they are a site that you would purchase product from, then they might be a very good role model for you.

Technology moves fast, and if your company wants to keep up, you are going to have to take advantage of all the technology available for marketing success. If you or your company falls behind the curve, your potential customers will catch on and begin to doubt your abilities. Impress your clients by proving that you are up-to-date with technology and software.

There is a lot of information available concerning Web marketing. What is great is Internet marketing isn?t a topic that needs an insane amount of attention to become successful in. Small useful hints will give you success to help you learn more and give you valuable experience in success. You can make quick improvements in the way you market your business online. Open your eyes and you will consistently improve your Affiliate marketing skills.

Source: http://www.wewantcsg.org/choose-the-right-online-marketing-strategy-using-these-ideas

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Victoria Stilwell Tells Steve Dale She's Positive e-Collars are ...

By Steve Dale, today at 9:32 am

On Steve Dale's Pet World on WGN Radio, listen HERE to dog trainer Victoria Stilwell from Animal Planet's It's Me or the Dog. I asked her about actress Eva Mendes fancying a shock or electronic collar. "It's one thing about putting one around your hand to try to test them, it's another thing to put it around your neck," she says. Mendes explained to David Letterman that she went ahead and gave the collar a try.

"If you use one (an e-collar) ?long enough, you could change the electrical energy in the brain," Stilwell adds. ?Never one to mince worlds, Stilwell says these collars are abusive and have no place in her world. Why is this equipment abusive to even suggest to use on children and acceptable for dogs, she wonders.

In her new book "Train Your Dog Positively," Stilwell writes about how to help dogs with a long ?list of behavioral issues, including separation anxiety. She even suggests playing background music to help calm anxious dogs. Ever one to help, I offered various types of music. Hear which one Victoria chooses.
Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

Filed under: dog training, dogs

Tags: dog training, dog walking, e collar, electronic dog collars, It's Me or the Dog, leash training, separation anxiety, Steve Dale archives, Steve Dale's Pet World, Through a Dog's Ear, Training Your Dog Positively, Victoria Stilwell

Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2013/03/victoria-stilwell-tells-steve-dale-shes-positive-e-collars-are-abusive/

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Pa. groundhog's handler taking blame for forecast

FILE - This Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 file photo shows Groundhog Club Co-handler Ron Ploucha holding the weather predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, after the club said Phil did not see his shadow and there will be an early spring during the Groundhog Day ceremony in Punxsutawney, Pa. Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, told The Associated Press on Monday, March 25, 2013 that the animal rightly predicted six more weeks of winter last month, but he mistakenly announced an early spring because he failed to correctly interpret Phil's "groundhog-ese." (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

FILE - This Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 file photo shows Groundhog Club Co-handler Ron Ploucha holding the weather predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, after the club said Phil did not see his shadow and there will be an early spring during the Groundhog Day ceremony in Punxsutawney, Pa. Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, told The Associated Press on Monday, March 25, 2013 that the animal rightly predicted six more weeks of winter last month, but he mistakenly announced an early spring because he failed to correctly interpret Phil's "groundhog-ese." (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

PITTSBURGH (AP) ? An Ohio prosecutor who light-heartedly filed a criminal indictment against the famous Pennsylvania groundhog who fraudulently "predicted" an early spring said he may consider a pardon now that the animal's handler is taking the blame.

Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, told The Associated Press on Monday that the animal rightly predicted six more weeks of winter last month, but he mistakenly announced an early spring because he failed to correctly interpret Phil's "groundhog-ese."

"I'm the guy that did it; I'll be the fall guy. It's not Phil's fault," Deeley said.

Butler County, Ohio, prosecutor Mike Gmoser told the AP that he's reconsidering the charges in light of the new evidence and may issue a full pardon.

"Frankly, he is a cute little rascal, a cute little thing," Gmoser said. "And if somebody is willing to step up to the plate and take the rap, I'm willing to listen."

The Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, a borough about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, attracts worldwide attention each year. But the attention stretched well beyond Feb. 2 when Gmoser last week issued an indictment as winter-like weather continued across much of the nation even as spring began.

"Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design cause the people to believe that spring would come early," Gmoser's indictment said. The penalty? Death, Smoser said, tongue firmly in cheek.

Deeley said this is the second year in a row he's misinterpreted Phil's forecast. "Remember, last year at this time it was 80 degrees and Phil had predicted six more weeks of winter," Deeley said.

Under normal circumstances, Deeley's interpretation of the forecast is infallible, as long as he clings to the gnarly, magical "Arcadian" cane while the rodent whispers the forecast into his ear. Deeley still doesn't know what went wrong, but he said the borough is nonetheless pleased to still be in the news more than six weeks later ? although there's more snow on the ground, and local schools were closed Monday.

"We couldn't have generated this much publicity with a $10,000 ad campaign," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-03-25-Groundhog's%20Fallible%20Forecast/id-21922d68fe704c6ab34492ab9b936a59

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Pencils Down: Will a Testing Revolt Challenge School Closings ...

As the battle lines over one of the largest school shutdowns in U.S. history are drawn, Rebecca Burns reports on the role played by high-stakes standardized testing.

Members of the group Parents 4 Teachers hold a banner outside City Hall on Friday, March 22. (Photo: Sarah Jane Rhee/Chicago Indymedia, Creative Commons)

?

Originally published at In These Times.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials announced on Thursday that they are preparing to close 61 schools this year, mostly in majority black and Latino neighborhoods. The battle lines over one of the largest school shutdowns in U.S. history are drawn?and one of the key factors that determines where they fall, Chicago school activists emphasize, is the data from high stakes standardized tests. As Chicago teachers and school activists ramp up their efforts to stop closings, a campaign of student testing opt-outs could be one of the tactics they employ against corporate-backed education reforms.

Before this year, there was little precedent for such a move. But the question of teacher and student resistance to standardized testing has taken center stage following a successful testing boycott in Seattle. In January, teachers at Seattle?s Garfield High School lit a spark in the tinderbox of teacher frustration when they announced that they would refuse to administer the district-mandated Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test. Soon, the revolt spread to five other schools in the city. National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel has called the Seattle boycott ?a defining moment? for the teaching profession. Though Seattle?s superintendent threatened in February to suspend the boycotting teachers for 10 days without pay, they?ve thus far escaped disciplinary action by the school district, likely due to an outpouring of support nationwide. Now, Seattle teachers are gearing up to boycott the next round of the MAP in April?and taking nationwide the message that educators, students and parents must unite to beat back high-stakes testing.

That message found easy resonance this week in Chicago, where striking teachers with signs proclaiming ?Testing =/ Learning? filled the streets last fall. At a community forum on Tuesday night, visiting Garfield High history teacher Jesse Hagopian and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis together made the case that standardized testing is a key element of the assault on public education.

?What?s the purpose of standardized testing? It?s to rank and sort our children,? Lewis told the crowd. Test scores are used to rank Chicago schools academically, and those designated ?high performing? are exempt from closure. The CTU contends that high-stakes testing amplifies racial disparities in education. ?Standardized testing grew out of the American tradition of using quantitative attempts to measure ?intelligence? as a pretext for racist and exclusionary policies,? it asserts in a recently-released position paper.

The union argues that time spent on testing preparation interferes with classroom learning, but Chicago teachers are particularly rankled by MAP because it factors heavily into their performance evaluations. MAP, a computerized test given multiple times a year by more than 5,000 school districts to track student growth in reading and math, is used widely in ?value-added? models of evaluation meant to measure teacher impact on student improvement. Teachers in Seattle and Chicago alike call this method ?pseudo-scientific;? tests like the MAP don?t follow classroom curriculum, but can nevertheless be used to punish teachers. A 2010 study from the U.S. Department of Education examining error rates in the use of student test score gains to evaluate teachers concluded: ?More than 90 percent of the variation in student gain scores is due to the variation in student-level factors that are not under control of the teachers.?

In February, the CTU announced that it had ?launched a campaign in support of local and nationwide efforts? to eliminate non-state-mandated tests such as the MAP. More Than a Score, a new coalition of teachers and parent groups that co-sponsored Tuesday?s forum, says it has gathered thousands of signatures on a petition against high stakes testing since February. The group is calling on the Chicago Board of Education to disclose the cost and purpose of each of the 22 tests currently administered in the school district. It?s also pushing for the elimination of standardized testing for children from pre-school through second grade. The Chicago Reader?s Ben Joravsky noted last year that Chicago kindergarteners now spend up to a third of their school year taking tests, a situation that More Than a Score intends to highlight by staging a ?play-in? with young students at the Board of Education on March 30.

Though dissent over standardized testing has been brewing across the country among teachers and some superintendents, this year appears to be the first time that educators have openly refused to follow testing edicts, the Christian Science Monitor reported in January. Jesse Hagopian, who traveled to Chicago to share lessons from the testing boycott, noted that Garfield High has a ?tradition of struggle? that has propelled teachers to take action. (Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael spoke there in the 1960s, a legacy that has left an impact on the black student union that Hagopian advises.) But Garfield also faces the same challenges as other schools, he emphasized, and the testing boycott there started out small before it began to spread.

Earlier this year, Hagopian, who is also a teachers union representative, got a call from a teacher who was considering not administering MAP. A few faculty members began holding meetings on the idea, and realized that one teacher?s stand wouldn?t be enough. ?Courageous as that would be, they could target one teacher,? he said. ?But soon we realized every teacher in the school already thought this test was a waste of time.?

After Garfield High teachers announced their boycott, the school?s Parent Teacher Association voted to support them, undercutting claims that teachers were acting contrary to students? best interests. Next, following deadlocked talks with teachers, Seattle Superintendent Jose Banda announced that the MAP test would continue as planned, given by school administrators. ?That was when the students stood up and started to fight for themselves,? said Hagopian. Students have the right to opt out of MAP with parent permission, and less than one-fourth of the ninth graders who were scheduled to take the test at Garfield High did so, according to the Seattle Times.

Could Chicago schools be next to join the boycott? ?I think you take baby steps towards these things,? parent Julie Fain, who has helped spearhead petition-gathering at schools with More Than a Score, told In These Times. But as the battle to keep neighborhood schools open heats up, she noted, ?We want to remind people that the closings depend on test scores.?

Student and parent anti-testing efforts, which Hagopian credits as key in bolstering Seattle teachers? rebellion, are already picking up in Chicago. Earlier this month, a group of students at Gage Park High School staged a boycott of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), another optional test, to protest two recent incidences of alleged sexual assault at the school. Gage Park High senior Lesley Leon said that school administrators have continued pressuring students to take high-stakes tests, on which they are unable to focus, rather than opening a dialogue on student safety. Young Chicago Authors, a youth writers? workshop, is planning meetings this month to help proliferate student test boycotts.

Daisy Mass, an eighth grader in Chicago Public Schools who opted out of the MAP test after attending meetings on school closings with her mother, believes that more students would opt out of testing if they knew they had the right to. ?Everyone would jump at the chance not to take this test,? she told In These Times, ?It doesn?t factor into your grade, so there?s no incentive to do well, but it?s still stressful and makes you feel awful.?

Garfield teachers have also met with education justice advocates in Portland, where students last month launched their own opt-out campaign. Curbing the use of high-stakes testing is likely to prove an uphill battle, however: Standardized testing was estimated to be a $2.7 billion industry in 2009. In Seattle, former superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson acquired the MAP test for $4 million while she sat on the board of the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), which sells the MAP. A 2011 state audit determined that not disclosing this information represented an ethics violation, but the school system has continued use of the test.

Still, Hagopian is hopeful that the fight to ?Scrap the MAP? can lead to a broader struggle against ?norm-reference testing? that disadvantages minority and special education students. ?These tests do measure something,? he said. ?What they measure is your zip code and how many books you have in your house.? Seattle teachers have formed a citywide committee of boycotting schools, he told In These Times, and hope ultimately to pressure the school district to cancel its contract with the NWEA, which must be renewed this year.

The possibilities for building broader solidarity around this issue are many, be believes: ?Garfield can be the first step in a process where students, teachers and parents unite to insist that our kids are more than a score.?

Rebecca Burns is Assistant Editor at In These Times and a research assistant for a project examining violence against humanitarian aid workers.

Tagged as: Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chicago public schools, Chicago teachers, Chicago Teachers Union, CPS, karen lewis, protests, school closings, schools, students, teachers

Source: http://occupiedchicagotribune.org/2013/03/pencils-down-will-a-testing-revolt-challenge-school-closings/

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