Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/XufVjfbIX_8/
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Friday, December 14, 2012
Your Turn: Show Us Your Cute 2012 Baby!
Courtesy Tide Did you welcome a little addition to your family this year like Nick Lachey? If so, we want to see the cutie! It’s time to brag about those dimples, smiles, crazy hair and tiny little feet — all the things that make babies so special. Share your best baby photo of the year [...]
Texan carves pentagram into son's back on "holy day" of 12-12-12-police
FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man told authorities he carved a pentagram into the back of his 6-year-old son "because it is a holy day" in reference to the numerical date of 12-12-12, police said.
Brent Troy Bartel, 39, of the Fort Worth suburb of Richland Hills, was in jail Wednesday on a $500,000 bond, charged with aggravated assault of a family member with a deadly weapon.
Police officers responded to an emergency dispatch call shortly after midnight from a man who said, "I shed some innocent blood," according to an audio recording of the emergency 911 call, released by police.
When questioned by the dispatcher, the man said, "I inscribed a pentagram on my son."
When the dispatcher asked why, the man responded, "because it is a holy day," according to the recording. He then hung up.
Moments later, police received a call from the boy's mother at a neighbor's house, said Officer Sheena Parsons, Richland Hills police spokeswoman. The mother could be heard on that recording crying and asking for help.
Police arrived at the Bartel home and found the boy shirtless and shivering, with a large pentagram carved on his back. Officers also found a box cutter at the house, which is believed to have been used in the attack, police said.
The boy was taken to a Fort Worth hospital for treatment. His injuries were "not life threatening," Parsons said. Police and Child Protective Services were investigating the attack.
Wednesday was 12-12-12 - a date some considered significant because such a match of day, month and year will not occur again in this century.
The pentagram is a five-pointed star sometimes associated with Satanism.
(Reporting by Marice Richter; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Christopher Wilson)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texan-carves-pentagram-sons-back-holy-day-12-231749156.html
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Fundamentals of Flood Insurance ? Insurance License Express Blog
Floods, earthquakes, and other acts of nature can be so catastrophic that it is difficult for a normal private insurer to cover these perils without risking its own financial security. This means that homeowners cannot obtain insurance against catastrophic perils such as floods through standard homeowners or dwelling insurance policies.
However, the federal government stepped in several decades ago to help ensure that homeowners can obtain protection against the havoc that can be wreaked by floods. This led to the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968. NFIP is a government program that acts as an insurer and is managed by the Federal Insurance Administration (FIA), which is itself a branch of the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA).
In the past several months, Hurricane Sandy helped illustrate just how devastating hurricanes can be; even though there were few casualties, an extensive amount of property damage was levied by Hurricane Sandy and the resulting floods it caused. Whether you were directly affected by these floods or are just curious about flood insurance, this should serve as a helpful guide to understand some of the basics of this type of coverage.
WHAT DOES FLOOD INSURANCE COVER?
Almost any building fixed to a permanent site that has walls and a roof and is situated above-ground is eligible to be covered by flood insurance, and a flood insurance policy covers buildings and their contents.
However, flood insurance pays for direct losses to buildings and contents caused by events which meet the definition of a ?flood.? It does not cover indirect losses, such as additional living expenses.
For the purposes of flood insurance claims, a ?flood? is defined as any of the following:
??An overflow of inland or tidal waters.
??Unusual and rapid accumulation of runoff and surface water from any source, such as a storm sewer.
??Mudslides caused by water.
??Collapse due to erosion of the ground by water.
Flood insurance can also be obtained by commercial property owners, which covers damage to buildings and their contents, as well as the costs of debris removal and flood prevention measures. However, business income and extra expense coverages, which are normally components of commercial insurance policies, are specifically excluded from flood coverage.
HOW DOES ONE OBTAIN FLOOD INSURANCE?
Rather than people applying individually for flood insurance, entire communities apply for coverage with the NFIP on behalf of everyone living in that area. Once eligibility is confirmed for the community, its individual members can then purchase regular flood coverage (more on that in a bit).
Before a policy goes into effect, the individual wishing to own a flood insurance policy must complete an application, remit full payment for the policy, and allow for a 30-day waiting period. This waiting period prevents consumers from suddenly deciding to purchase a policy when a flood warning is issued.
However, this waiting period is waived in the following situations:
??The insured is making a first-time flood insurance purchase in connection with a loan.
??The previous owner of a property carried the coverage, and the new owner wishes to continue it.
??A community is entering the program for the first time, in which case coverage begins at 12:01 a.m. the day following the application mailing date.
In addition, individuals can obtain emergency flood coverage if forced to wait for their community to be confirmed for regular coverage. An emergency policy goes into effect the day after an application is submitted, and it remains in force until NFIP finalizes rates and coverage for the community.
Emergency flood coverage is limited to $35,000 per building, and $10,000 for contents contained in these buildings. After the FIA sets rates and finalizes a program, additional coverage may be purchased by community members, subject to the increased limits of $250,000 per building and $100,000 for building contents.
HOW DO I KNOW IF I NEED FLOOD INSURANCE?
Communities can apply to participate in the NFIP voluntarily, but they might also be required to participate by the NFIP if located in a flood-prone area.
While coverage might be mandated by the NFIP, it does not have to be purchased directly from this program.? A cooperative effort between the insurance industry and FEMA led to the creation of the write your own program (WYO) in 1983. Under the WYO program, insurance providers have been authorized to write and sell flood insurance policies themselves, while still enjoying certain financial protections from the federal government.
Private insurers who issue WYO policies are permitted to retain a fixed amount of money earned from premiums to cover administration costs, but the rest must go toward paying claims. If the insurer?s losses exceed the amount of money earned in premiums, the FIA steps in to pay the difference. If the insurer?s premiums exceed losses, however, the insurer must turn over the excess income earned to the FIA.
If coverage is not mandated for your community by NFIP, community leaders and insurance brokers can help you decide whether or not to take advantage of flood insurance.
Find out How to Get Your Insurance License here.
About The Author: Nathan Rothwell serves as the lead instructor and subject matter for Insurance License Express, a division of Express Schools, LLC. Since 1996, Express Schools has offered online insurance licensing courses and online real estate courses, as well as online real estate exam prep and insurance license exam prep.
Tags: dwelling, flood, Homeowners, Insurance, perils, Policies, program, sandy
Source: http://www.insurancelicenseexpress.com/blog/index.php/fundamentals-of-flood-insurance/
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Artists complete concert for Sandy relief
NEW YORK (AP) ? Musicians were so anxious to help out residents of the New York region hit by Superstorm Sandy, they almost didn't let their concert at Madison Square Garden end.
The final notes of Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" brought the star-filled show to an end at 1:19 a.m. Thursday, nearly six hours after Bruce Springsteen opened it.
Paul McCartney's set found him playing the role of Kurt Cobain in a Nirvana reunion, performing a new song with that band's former members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
Through television, live streams, the radio and theater simulcasts, an estimated 2 billion people around the world were given the chance to experience it live. Heavy on classic rock royalty, it also featured the Rolling Stones, the Who, Roger Waters and Eric Clapton.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/artists-complete-concert-sandy-relief-063556902.html
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Thursday, December 13, 2012
Far from the Shire, a real Hobbit house in Pa. country
CHESTER COUNTY, Pa. (AP) ? Worlds away from the Shire, a stone cottage tucked into the Pennsylvania countryside would make Bilbo Baggins feel like he was back home with his Hobbit friends in Middle-earth.
Nestled in a part of Chester County dotted with picturesque barns and rolling fields surprisingly close to Philadelphia, this Hobbit house belongs to a lifelong fan of author J.R.R. Tolkien who wanted a worthy ? and private ? repository for the rare books and Tolkien-inspired memorabilia he has collected in 30 years of travel in the U.S. and abroad.
The 600-square foot building is a short walk from his main house, on a flat stone path and through an English-style garden.
"We wanted a single structure, a relaxing place that was diminutive in scale, for the owner to come and hang out and just be in solitude with his collection," said architect Peter Archer, speaking on the owner's behalf.
Hundreds of houses inspired by Tolkien's books have been built in the U.S. and abroad. But Archer said, "This isn't something that you can recreate on a suburban cul-de-sac; it was made for this specific location and it wouldn't work anywhere else."
Archer worked with a team of craftsmen to create the fantastical abode. They used stones taken from a long-collapsed section of an 18th-century low wall running through the center of the 16-acre property. Built up against a stone retaining wall of the same vintage, the Hobbit house looks like an original feature of the property.
"We weren't going to do a Hollywood interpretation. We wanted it to be timeless," Archer said. "It was built in 2004 but looking at it, you could think it was from 1904, or 1604."
The 54-inch diameter Spanish cedar door ? naturally with a knob right in the center just as Tolkien described ? opens with a single hand-forged iron hinge. Several craftsmen said they couldn't hang the 150-pound door on one hinge but a Maryland blacksmith "succeeded on the first try," Archer said.
A Delaware cabinet-maker built the mahogany windows, including the large arched "butterfly window" ? its Art Nouveau-ish flourishes inspired by Tolkien's own drawings. The name comes from the window's appearance when open, with the two halves pushed outward from a center hinge. The roof is covered with clay tiles handmade in France.
Inside the small dwelling are curved arches and rafters of Douglas fir, a fireplace finished in stucco and accented with thin slices of clay tile, and plenty of shelves and ledges for the owner's library and displays of Hobbit figurines, Gandalf's staff, hooded capes, chess sets, chalices ? and of course, The One Ring. The rustic structure cleverly hides its thoroughly modern heating, cooling, electrical and security systems.
And while a country drive to see the cottage after catching the newly released Peter Jackson film "The Hobbit," might be a nice outing, don't expect to find it.
Concerned that his rural tranquility could turn into an unwanted tourist attraction, the owner has taken steps to ensure it remains under the radar. He does not want the location of the site revealed, and used a pseudonym the rare time he gave an interview, on-camera last year.
Archer, who declined to divulge what it cost to build the Hobbit house, said his team is currently working on a similar project in Tasmania.
___
Online:
Hobbit house: http://bit.ly/QVenU0
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/far-shire-hobbit-house-pa-country-225634144.html
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23andMe wants to change the face of health care - Fortune Finance ...
"This investment is transformative in that it will help us create a data platform that can be easily searched and used by researchers all over the world," Wojcicki tells FORTUNE.
With the financing in place, 23andMe has dropped the price of a personal genetics test to $99 from $299; and executives hope the move will push the company's user base to 1 million customers in 2013, up from 180,000. This would give the six-year-old company one of the world's largest private databases of genetic information.
23andMe makes it easy for users to learn about their inherited health traits and genetic links to certain diseases. Just mail the company your saliva sample, and receive your results a few weeks later.
MORE:?Alexandra Lebenthal: The new queen of Wall Street
Just as easily, 23andMe is able to study, store, and distribute this trove of data. While a user can opt to keep all of her information private, approximately 90% of 23andMe customers allow their results to be used in research conducted by the company and its partners, like pharmaceutical companies. 23andMe never shares individual level data without specific consent; rather the company aggregates and strips it of identifying information before it is used.
Pharma companies believe that genetic data could be instrumental in creating better, more targeted treatments for diseases. Amgen recently bought DeCode, a company that explores the link between genes and diseases, for $415 million. Genentech is working with 23andMe to learn if genetic factors influence a person's response to the cancer drug Avastin.
"By having 1 million individual users you can get to a scale where researchers are running data queries through 23andMe, where drug studies leverage our data, and where individuals can more easily be connected to studies that could benefit them," Wojcicki says.
If 23andMe can amass the largest, richest database of genetic information, it could theoretically attract more researchers and more users who want to find specialized medical treatments.
The more users that come to 23andMe, the better, more accurate, and more useful the company's database will be. And the more likely it is that researchers will want to search the 23andMe database for information. This is not unlike how Google (GOOG) became a search engine powerhouse. It was an early mover with a superior algorithm. The more users came, the better the search results. This attracted more users, prompted more searches, and generated more accurate, useful results.
MORE:?Wal-Mart CEO: Shoppers weighed down by fiscal cliff
When 23andMe began offering services in late 2007 (a year after it was launched), it didn't have the feel of a company that could change the face of drug making. The service was costly -- then closer to $1,000 for a test -- and news stories tended to focus on so-called "spit parties," where tony urbanites submitted their saliva samples while indulging in canapes and cocktails. The service seemed like just another strange, pre-financial crisis indulgence for the very wealthy.
But with this latest round of funding and the potential for a vast user base, 23andMe is on the verge of becoming an influential force in the way we look at health care and medicine. Wojcicki uses the word disrupt a lot; and she has some big, audacious hopes for her company, which is not yet profitable.
"We've always had a vision and mission to introduce a new type of health care model that is focused on prevention and consumer-driven research," she says. "If you have lots of individuals thinking of prevention, who know information that could have a meaningful impact on their lives, it changes the model for drug research and health care."
Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/12/23andme-wants-to-change-the-face-of-health-care/
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Friday, December 7, 2012
How Jim DeMint Changed the Senate
Sen. Jim DeMint at he Family Research Council Action Values Voter Summit in September in Washington, DC.
Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/GettyImages.
For quite some time, in quiet tones, the friends of Jim DeMint had been expecting him to leave the Senate and take over the Heritage Foundation. On Thursday morning, when DeMint said he?d be quitting the Senate four years early, the believers were gleeful. ?I?d secretly wished for it,? said one staffer from the conservative think tank. ?I always thought he was going to head Heritage,? said an alumnus of DeMint?s Senate staff.
At 11 a.m., outgoing Heritage President and CEO Ed Feulner introduced DeMint to most of the think tank?s staff. They packed the Allison Auditorium, the seventh-floor venue that has a clear view of the nearby Capitol, and they gave the new guy a standing O. ?I feel like I just walked in the front door of my own house,? said DeMint. ?Leaving the Senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation is a big promotion.?
Senators don?t typically talk like that until they?ve lost re-election. Heritage, like D.C.?s other think tanks, is peopled by ?fellows? who lost their last elections and want to keep respectable toeholds in the city. DeMint will probably sextuple his salary by moving out of the Senate, ?but he?s giving up the ability to introduce bills, filibuster Democratic legislation, put holds on nominations, and humiliate presidential nominees on C-Span 2.
Why did DeMint want to quit, and why did Heritage welcome him so warmly? DeMint-ism was never about legislating. It was about blocking legislation and unwinding current laws. DeMint figured out, correctly, that he could do more good playing the outside game as his acolytes in the Senate played the inside game. Heritage agreed. The Tea Party, as represented by DeMint, has taken over a tea-and-cookies conservative institution and readied it for guerrilla warfare.
DeMint has never known anything else. In 1983, clutching his MBA from Clemson University, DeMint founded a marketing farm. Nine years later, he was approached by Rep. Bob Inglis to work on his campaign for the redrawn 1st congressional district, covering Greenville, Spartanburg, and most of upstate South Carolina. DeMint?s first real political job was message-testing and marketing for a Republican trying to defeat a resilient incumbent Democrat who?d worked for the Peace Corps and Head Start. Inglis won, served three terms, then made way for his marketer, who?d been losing friends and clients because of his campaign work. ?I quickly learned that there is little glamour and a lot of suspicion in politics,? wrote DeMint in his 2009 memoir/manifesto Saving Freedom. He was already 47 years old.
In the House, DeMint quickly figured out two things: who had power, and what he wanted to stop them from doing with that power. He became the freshman class president (in a weak year for the party) and sidled up to the man Republicans thought would be speaker, Bob Livingston. ?I spent the evening [of the class dinner] bending Livingston?s ear about freedom and the policy ideas I believed would inspire all Americans,? wrote DeMint in 2009. ?He seemed really interested.? And then Livingston quit, done in by a sex scandal, and Republicans gave the gavel to the colorless Dennis Hastert.
Slightly discouraged, DeMint took his oath of office. In his memoir, he focused on the text of the oath?references to the Constitution, but not to any sort of legislative goals. ?There is nothing in this oath about representing my district and state or helping the poor and downtrodden,? he would remember. ?There was nothing about responding to the woes of the American people.? He became a reliable ?no? vote, admiring the stances of Ron Paul (?he argued that just about everything Congress did was unconstitutional [and] he was usually right?). He was one of 34 Republicans to oppose No Child Left Behind and one of 25 to oppose Medicare Part D.
DeMint?s colleagues, like Paul Ryan, took the bullet on those George W. Bush initiatives.? They got clout. DeMint?s clout remained nonexistent. It wasn?t until 2004, when he moved up to the Senate, that DeMint found a way to influence the Congress without actually legislating. Bush spent most of 2005 campaigning for Social Security privatization, hoping that Congress would take one of the proposals that had been kicking around and turn it into a bill.
It was a perfect DeMint cause, and he joined it, sponsoring a bill that would have created private ?GROW accounts,? invested in government bonds, funded by surplus FICA taxes. It was a perfect DeMint cause because it was doomed. Beautifully branded?who doesn?t like accounts that grow??it needed pressure on Congress from outside, by a movement ready to fight a decades-long battle for entitlement reform. The movement did not exist.
In the 2006 elections, Republican numbers in the Senate dropped from 55 to 49. In 2008, they dropped to 41. DeMint, like most conservatives, interpreted this as proof that the party needed to move right. ?Americans do prefer a traditional conservative government,? he told South Carolina Republicans after the Obama win. ?They just did not believe Republicans were going to give it to them.? Four days later, in the Senate GOP?s closed-door leadership meetings, DeMint proposed that the party limit members to only six years on the appropriations committee. In his second memoir, The Great American Awakening, DeMint admitted that he lost by a 36-5 margin and ?effectively entered a new phase of my Senate career.?
Like Emily Yoffe's Dear Prudence Column on Facebook:
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4986f2631a89ed36343b7ad21298bf9d
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