May 21, 2013 ? Workaholics tend to live in extremes, with great job satisfaction and creativity on the one hand and high levels of frustration and exhaustion on the other hand. Now, a new Florida State University study offers managers practical ways to help these employees stay healthy and effective on the job.
Wayne Hochwarter, the Jim Moran Professor of Business Administration in Florida State's College of Business, and research associate Daniel Herrera studied more than 400 employees in professional and administrative occupations and found about 60 percent of these workers identified themselves as workaholics who characteristically "feel guilty when taking time off."
These self-identified workaholics reported positive and negative career consequences. For example, workaholics reported they gave more effort compared to other workers, but they also experienced more tension. They were more willing to help others, yet were more likely to view co-workers as feeling entitled.
"We found that there is an optimal level of workaholism for job effectiveness and positive health," Hochwarter said. "However, when in excessively low or high ranges, both the company and the employee are likely to suffer."
Identified workaholics were divided into those who had access to resources, such as personnel, rest, equipment and social support at work, and those who did not.
"We discovered that workaholics really struggle when they feel that they are alone or swimming upstream without a paddle," Hochwarter said.
Workaholics who said they had access to resources reported a:
40 percent higher rate of job satisfaction
33 percent lower rate of burnout
30 percent higher rate of perceived job importance
30 percent lower rate of exclusion from others
25 percent higher rate of career fulfillment
20 percent lower rate of work frustration.
"Given the volatility in today's work environment, the ability to work hard, contribute long hours and demonstrate value is at a premium," Herrera said. "Thus, workaholism will likely remain alive and well for years to come."
But there are ways to guide the efforts of workaholics in positive directions, researchers said.
First, leaders should meet with workaholics to determine what physical and social resources they need and then help increase their accessibility to those resources in fair and reasonable ways, according to the researchers. Managers often assume that workaholics simply want others to get out of their way. In reality, the goal of most workaholics is to contribute to the company, achieve personal success and see how their efforts affect the bottom line -- objectives that are much more likely achieved with resources.
Second, managers need to have more realistic expectations, they said. Workaholics are often the company's most productive employees -- serving as the manager's "go-to" worker when an important project surfaces or a deadline looms. Because of their value, managers have a tendency to run workaholics into the ground, promising a future chance to recharge that often never happens.
"Having realistic expectations that take into account both the work and the person doing the work, is essential," Hochwarter said. The warning signs of burnout are recognizable and, if ignored, they will eventually lead to unwanted outcomes ranging from declining performance to death.
Since 2005 I have been a certified Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine (ABOM) - now a joint venture between the American Society of Bariatric Physicians and the Obesity Society - and in a few more years I'll be faced with the choice of re-certifying, or letting my credentials lapse.
Part of my decision no doubt will be whether or not I feel the ABOM and I are on the same page in regard to science, medicine, ethics, and values when it comes to obesity medicine and I'm not convinced right now that we are.
You see a few months ago the ABOM put out a press release (that's a screenshot up above) highlighting the upcoming appearance of one of their board members on the Dr. Oz show. Her name is Dr. Denise Bruner and she was on Dr. Oz to promote the use of 5-HTP as an appetite suppressant. The ABOM also showcased her upcoming appearance of their Facebook page:
Both the press release and the Facebook update were quickly removed after I pointed out that given the ABOM's ultimate aim to be accepted as a credible medical organization it might be best to not promote 5-HTP supplementation for obesity given that the evidence base on its utility is anything but robust (here's a pubmed search that includes the 25 total citations that mention 5-hydroxytryptophan and obesity whereby the most generous take on the research would be that in the late 1980s and early 1990s two small studies suggested the possibility that 5-HTP supplementation might help ever so slightly with weight management).
But that's not the end of the story. While I was heartened that the ABOM saw fit to rapidly remove their endorsement of a nationally televised promotion of a non-evidence based supplement, I still struggle with Dr. Bruner's ongoing inclusion on the ABOM's board.
I struggle not simply consequent to Dr. Bruner's at best highly preliminary promotion of 5-HTP to literally millions of members of a very trusting public, I struggle because Dr. Bruner is currently a provider of the, "HCG Diet Protocol". Below is a screenshot from her office's website, and because I found it so incredulous that a board member of the ABOM was an HCG diet provider just to be sure I called her office yesterday and confirmed that if I paid Dr. Bruner $200 for an initial consultation, and then an additional $800, that she would inject me with HCG daily for a month.
The evidence base to date on the hCG Diet is clear. It's quackery.
The Obesity Society put out a position piece on the hCG diet last year. In it they state,
"We conclude that the scientific evidence does not support the use of HCG for the treatment of obesity. This position is in agreement with the U.S. FDA. The Obesity Society is committed to advocating the use of therapies for the treatment of obesity that are evidence-based and rejects those that have been shown to be ineffective."
The American Society of Bariatric Physicians also has a position piece affirming their non support of the HCG diet and in a 2011 press release supportive of the FDA's removal of "homeopathic hCG" from the market noted succinctly,
"Obesity is a chronic disease which is best treated by a physician who specializes in weight loss and practices medicine based on sound scientific principles. Unfortunately, hCG does not live up to those standards."
Dr. Bruner's practices, both in what I see as a markedly overhyped promotion of 5-HTP on national television and her use of hCG on her patients, run contrary to my take on what represents evidence-based obesity medicine, and the fact that she sits on the ABOM's board gives me great pause as to the value of that certification. So too does the title of one of the ASBP's upcoming webinars, "Controversies Concerning HCG for Weight Loss". Malpractice isn't controversial, it's malpractice.
Perhaps with this post the ABOM will see fit to consider whether or not Dr. Bruner represents their organization's aims, and moreover, whether or not there should be some mechanism to de-certify physicians whose practices belie the ABOM's standards of practice.
At the end of the day if the ABOM is hoping to be deemed credible it's going to have to choose to stand strongly against quackery and it's going to have to do so without external blowhards like me needing to point that out.
(Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc reported weak quarterly sales on Tuesday and warned that a slew of investments to entice shoppers could squeeze profits in the near term.
The news overshadowed its better-than-expected first-quarter profit and sent shares of the world's largest consumer electronics chain down 4 percent in premarket trading.
Net earnings from continuing operations fell to $97 million, or 29 cents a share, from $169 million, or 49 cents a share a year earlier. Excluding restructuring and other charges but including Europe, it earned 36 cents a share, beating the analysts average estimate of 25 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Under CEO Hubert Joly, who took the helm last autumn, it has been matching rivals' online prices, dedicating more in-store space to faster-growing products such as smartphones and tablets, and investing in employee training and revamping stores.
Joly has also removed layers of management, cut jobs, closed some underperforming stores and decided to shed non-core assets such as its stake in a European joint venture with Carphone Warehouse Group to lower costs.
The results showed that Best Buy might need to cut more costs to be able to compete more effectively with the likes of Wal-Mart Stores and Amazon.com.
Its sales fell 9.6 percent to $9.38 billion. The figure was not comparable to the available analysts' estimate as the company's figure excluded Europe and analysts had included it in their estimate. Sales at stores open at least 14 months fell 1.3 percent.
Best Buy tied the revenue weakness partly to a shift in the timing of Super Bowl-related sales. Football's Super Bowl took place on February 3, when the first quarter began, so pre-game sales of big-screen televisions happened in the fourth quarter.
(This version of the story has been corrected in the penultimate paragraph to say that sales are not comparable to available estimate)
(Reporting By Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)
A factory in Sderot provides mentally-disabled people in Israel with work and a social environment where they can feel accepted.
By Christa Case Bryant,?Staff writer / May 20, 2013
Adults with various intellectual disabilities come to work in small factories such as this one in Sderot, where several workers were stuffing envelopes with advertising magnets on a recent day.
Christa Case Bryant/TCSM
Enlarge
Since moving to Israel, I have periodically found mysterious green envelopes in my mailbox. They include nothing but a flimsy magnet, advertising some business that I had never heard of.
Skip to next paragraph Christa Case Bryant
Jerusalem bureau chief
Christa Case Bryant is The Christian Science Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, providing coverage on Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as regional issues.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Now I have solved the mystery, and gained a new appreciation for the folks behind this marketing front.
While reporting on Sderot?s resilience in the face of persistent rocket fire from nearby Gaza, I discovered a very different example of resilience: a factory full of adults diagnosed with various intellectual disabilities, working steadily away on various projects.?One of them was stuffing those now-familiar green envelopes with flimsy magnets.
Even this, the simplest of jobs, appeared to require some serious concentration from a petite woman working that day. I gained a new appreciation for the periodic presents in my mailbox.
These individuals are paid only a nominal amount for showing up here, since they already receive considerable government stipends ??even though they are doing work for corporations, not the government. In that light, the companies that contract with this factory could perhaps be seen as taking advantage of cheap labor from a disadvantaged population.
But on the other hand, it?s a haven from a society that, according to advocates for individuals labeled?mentally-disabled, is uncomfortable with these individuals.?
?I used to think it was just a sweatshop,? says Miriam Fouks, a young social worker who had heard about such factories before coming to work here. ?But they love being here, it gives them a social life.?
For some, the social life is the only reason they come. One man in particular can never be bothered to repackage Made-in-China menorah candles into Israeli boxes, or help with any of the other projects the 60 or so folks here are involved in.
So Ms. Fouks has just come up with a new job for him: current affairs guy. He loves reading the news, so she assigned him the task of getting up to speed every day and then sharing the highlights with his fellow workers.
Maybe he will enjoy reading about himself and his colleagues in an American newspaper.
AMMAN (Reuters) - About 30 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday.
If confirmed, the Hezbollah toll from Sunday's battles in Qusair near the Lebanese border would highlight a deepening intervention in Syria by the guerrilla group set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon.
The reported Hezbollah losses also reflect the extent to which the Syrian conflict is turning into a proxy war between Shi'ite Iran and U.S.-aligned Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which back Assad's mostly Sunni foes.
Western countries and Russia, an ally of Damascus, back opposing sides in this regional free-for-all which is also sucking in Israel. Three times this year Israeli planes have bombed presumed Iranian arms stocks destined for Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "preparing for every scenario" in Syria and held out the prospect of more Israeli strikes inside Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel getting advanced weapons.
Israel has not confirmed or denied reports by Western and Israeli intelligence sources that its raids targeted Iranian missiles stored near Damascus that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
FOG OF WAR
Syrian opposition sources and state media gave widely differing accounts of Sunday's ferocious clashes in Qusair, long used by rebels as a supply route from the nearby Lebanese border to the provincial capital Homs. Hezbollah has not commented.
The air and tank assault on the strategic town of 30,000 people appeared to be part of a campaign by Assad's forces to consolidate their grip on Damascus and secure links between the capital and government strongholds in the Alawite coastal heartland via the contested central city of Homs.
The government campaign has coincided with efforts by the United States and Russia, despite their differences on Syria, to organize peace talks to end a conflict now in its third year in which more than 80,000 people have been killed.
A total of 100 combatants from both sides were killed in Sunday's offensive, according to opposition sources, including the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Troops have already retaken several villages around Qusair and have attacked increasingly isolated rebel units in Homs.
"If Qusair falls, God forbid, the opposition in Homs city will be in grave danger," said an activist who called himself Abu Jaafar al-Mugharbil.
State news agency SANA said the army had "restored security and stability to most Qusair neighborhoods" and was "chasing the remnants of the terrorists in the northern district".
However, opposition activists said rebels in Qusair, about 10 km (six miles) from the Lebanese border, had pushed back most of the attacking forces to their original positions in the east of the town and to the south on Sunday, destroying at least four Syrian army tanks and five light Hezbollah vehicles.
The Western-backed leadership of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group trying to oversee hundreds of disparate rebel brigades, said the Qusair fighters had thwarted Hezbollah with military operations it dubbed "Walls of Death".
Syrian government restrictions on access for independent media make it hard to verify such videos and accounts.
"NO DIALOGUE WITH TERRORISTS"
The fighting raged as Western nations seek to step up pressure on Assad - Britain and France want the European Union to allow arms deliveries to rebels - while preparing for the peace talks brokered by Russia and the United States next month.
Assad has scorned the idea that the conference expected to convene in Geneva could end a war that is fuelling instability and deepening Sunni-Shi'ite rifts across the Middle East.
"They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin, in reference to Syria's mainly Sunni rebels.
Assad ruled out "dialogue with terrorists", but it was not clear from his remarks whether he would agree to send delegates to a conference that may falter before it starts due to disagreements between its two main sponsors and their allies.
The fractured Syrian opposition is to discuss the proposed peace conference at a meeting due to start in Istanbul on Thursday, during which it will also appoint a new leadership.
Attacks by troops and militias loyal to Assad, who inherited power in Syria from his father in 2000, have put rebels under pressure in several of their strongholds in recent weeks.
Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, has been battling an uprising which began with peaceful protests in March 2011. His violent response eventually prompted rebels to take up arms.
Hezbollah has supported Assad throughout the crisis but for months denied reports it was fighting alongside Assad's troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the Hezbollah casualties on Sunday at 23 dead and more than 70 wounded, while 48 rebel fighters and four civilians were also killed.
Tareq Murei, an activist in Qusair, said six more people were killed on Monday as Syrian army artillery and Hezbollah rocket launchers bombarded rebel-held parts of the town.
Video footage purportedly showed a Syrian tank on fire at a street corner in the town. In another video a warplane was shown flying over the town amid the sound of explosions.
Lebanese security sources said at least 12 Hezbollah fighters were killed in Qusair on Sunday. Seven were to be buried in the Lebanese town of Baalbek and nearby villages on Monday.
(Writing by Dominic Evans,; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Alistair Lyon)
CAIRO (AP) ? Egyptian troops and police mistakenly fired on a Bedouin funeral in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, security officials said, in the opening salvo of a sweep searching for security personnel kidnapped by suspected militants.
The incident illustrated the hazards of the military operations prompted by the kidnapping last week. A heavy handed attempt to free the captives risks bringing a backlash in Sinai, where resentments among the local population against past security crackdowns have fueled the rise of militancy in the volatile peninsula bordering Gaza and Israel.
Faced with anger among the public and within the security forces over the kidnappings, President Mohammed Morsi has said all options are on the table for securing the release of the seven captives and that the presidency is not negotiating with the kidnappers.
Calls for a tough response have been fueled by a video released this week on YouTube showing the captives blindfolded and pleading for Morsi and his defense minister to meet the kidnappers' demands for the release of scores of prisoners from the Sinai, including convicted militants. The captives include six members of the security forces and a military border guard.
But multiple officials have said mediators have been in contact with the kidnappers exploring possibilities for their release. Islamist allies of Morsi ? who have connections to militants in the Sinai ? have urged a negotiated solution.
Since Monday, military and police reinforcements backed by armored vehicles and helicopters have moved into northern Sinai in a show of strength, deploying heavily around the provincial capital, el-Arish. A military official in Cairo said troops are conducting reconnaissance and search operations, but wouldn't say if this is start of operation to rescue captives. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the operations.
Tuesday's incident came while police and military troops backed by helicopters swept through several villages near the border with Israel where officials say they suspect the captives are held.
The forces encountered a funeral convoy of eight pickup trucks and when the vehicles refused orders to stop, the troops thought they were gunmen and opened fire, security officials said.
Some in convoy fired back ? most Bedouin are armed ? prompting clashes, until the mourners fled the scene, leaving behind the body of the man they had intended to bury. The troops thought the man had been killed in the fight, until local tribal leaders explained to security commanders that the convoy was a funeral for a man who had drowned, the officials said.
A senior military officer then apologized for the shooting, said the security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the incident.
Morsi has been consulting with his security team, government officials, political and religious leaders how to resolve the crisis, which highlighted the complex security situation in Sinai.
Sinai's population of Bedouin and local families has long complained of discrimination by authorities and is bitter over repeated security crackdowns during the rule of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. During the 2000s, Islamic militants staged attacks on tourist resorts in the peninsula, prompting a vast sweep of arrests.
Crackdowns have seen frequent reports of torture of Sinai's detainees, and some detainees have been held for years without conclusive trials. Repeated promises to families and tribes of detainees to resolve their cases have gone unfulfilled, fueling resentments.
Extremist groups only increased their activity in Sinai amid the breakdown in law and order since Mubarak's 2011 ouster, with increasing attacks into neighboring Israel.
Morsi faced his first Sinai challenge in August last year, just over a month after taking office, when militants carried out the most brazen attack ever on military troops, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers along the border with Gaza and Israel. Morsi at the time vowed to restore stability, launching a brief military operation that resulted in the closures of some smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza and the arrest of the man believed to be at the heart of the current kidnapping, Ahmed Abu Shita.
Abu Shita was convicted to death in September for involvement in a major attack on a northern Sinai police station in 2011 that left three policemen dead. Thirteen others, including eight in absentia, were also given death sentences in the case.
Those behind the current kidnapping are demanding the release of Abu Shita, along with other Sinai prisoners.
Such strong security buildup is uncommon in Sinai. The 1979 peace deal between Egypt and Israel restored Sinai to Egypt after it was captured by Israel in the 1967 war. But it restricted numbers of troops and types of weapons Egypt could station there. Nothing more than a light weapon was allowed in most of the peninsula, and only police ? not soldiers ? were allowed in the zone directly on the border.
But for the past years, with rising lawlessness in Sinai and increased smuggling activities with Gaza, Israel bent some of the rules.
Major Egyptian military operations there would require Israeli consent under the terms of the peace agreement. Israeli officials declined to comment Tuesday, but in the past have said that security cooperation has remained strong since the new Islamist government took office. The official silence could be a signal of Israeli consent.
_______________
Associated Press Writers Ashraf Sweilam in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Are you watching Dancing with the Stars (ABC, Monday and Tuesday, 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET) this season? It's possible: Over 13 million people still are. But it's more likely that you've moved on. Since 2006, ABC's sparkle-tastic dance competition has lost over half of its audience. TV industry types shook their heads at last fall's "failed" all-star installation, which averaged only 17 million viewers per episode. But even fewer people -- about 4 million less -- are tuning in for the likes of Kellie Pickler and Jacoby Jones (Zendaya and Aly Raisman round out the final four competing tonight). What's gone wrong? And how can ABC fix it? Here are four suggestions.
A leaked memo suggests that Nook Simple Touch e-readers will be getting a software update next week that equips them with a web browser and email client.
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) ? A British lawmaker widely viewed as a rising star in the Labour Party says the United Kingdom should more aggressively forge ties with West Africa's growing economies.
While leading a trade mission to Nigeria and Ghana this week, 34-year-old Chuka Umunna said it is important to counter the perception that the U.K. is a complacent partner with its former colonies.
Umunna has been branded the "British Barack Obama" by some media outlets, but he dismissed the comparison as shallow and made merely because both men are black.
Though he declined to be specific when discussing his own political ambitions, the shadow business secretary said he was eager to help bring the Labour Party back to power in the 2015 elections.
Obama address the IRS scandal at a news conference. (Alex Wong/Getty)
Republican Senators Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell and Rob Portman continued Sunday to press the Obama administration on the Internal Revenue Service scandal that's engulfed the White House.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Paul told Candy Crowley he heard about a "written policy" that encouraged IRS officials to target "those who are critical of the president."
"And when that comes forward, we need to know who wrote the policy and who approved the policy," Paul said.
The Kentucky senator seemed to backtrack when pressed about the existence of yet another controversial document.
"Well, we keep hearing the reports and we have several specifically worded items saying who was being targeted," Paul said. "I don't know if that comes from a policy, but that's what's being reported in the press and reported orally. I haven't seen a policy statement, but I think we need to see that."
Memo or no memo, McConnell said it's clear that political bullying is being cultivated by the Obama White House.
"There is a culture of intimidation throughout the administration," McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "The nanny state is here to tell us all what to do and if you start criticizing, you get targeted."
[Related: The IRS targeted tea party groups. Did liberal groups get better treatment?]
Earlier this month, an inspector general report disclosed that the IRS improperly scrutinized certain conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. On Sunday's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos,? Portman called for a bipartisan investigation into inspector general's report.
"What we do know is that politics was put ahead of the public interest," Portman said. "And it was done in two of the most sensitive areas of our government."
"So, it seems to me that there's a lot of issues here we need to get bottom of," the Ohio Republican added. "We need to find out what really happened and ensure that we can begin to regain some trust in our government. That's my concern."
Meanwhile, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer accused the GOP of conducting "fishing expeditions" ahead of next year's midterm elections.
"I think we've seen this playbook from Republicans before," Pfeiffer said on "Meet The Press" Sunday. "What they want to do when they are lacking a positive agenda is try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations. We're not going to let that happen."
Obama appears to be weathering the storm, the Associated Press noted. A poll released on Sunday by CNN/ORC International showed President Obama has a 53 percent approval rating, with just 45 percent saying they disapprove.
It's hard not to be curious about the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, since he or she basically just stuck around on the internet long enough to introduce Bitcoin/get everyone all riled up and then disappeared. But Ted Nelson, the sociologist who invented the term "hypertext," thinks he knows who Nakamoto really is, and in the video below he calls out Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki.
It's just a hunch, though. Nelson recently read an article on Project Wordsworth about Mochizuki, and after that, "It was obvious, like a pie in the face." Basically Nelson thinks Mochizuki fits the description because he speaks fluent English, is creative enough, and is enough of a genius to have made Bitcoin happen. Nelson adds that Mochizuki has a history of making mathematical discoveries and then just leaving them on the internet for people to find rather than publishing them formally.
Quartz points out that people are already criticizing the theory, including data haven and security expert Ryan Lackey. He commented:
Does the proposed candidate have any documented experience as a software developer? He appears to just be a mathematician, which is very helpful but not sufficient to have built the first version of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has both some theoretical breakthroughs and extensions to existing protocols (Wei Day's bmoney, Hal Finney's RPOW, etc.), but is implemented fairly reasonably in code.
I see absolutely no reason to think this mathematician was Satoshi.
Other internet speculators have already landed on Mochizuki as a candidate, though Adam Penenberg came across other solid contenders in a Fast Company piece a few years ago. Nelson told Quartz that he will donate one Bitcoin, currently about $123, to charity if Satoshi denies that he invented Bitcoin. [Quartz]
Israel?s high court has issued an injunction against extending the separation barrier through the Palestinian village of Batir, famed for its 2,500-year-old terraces and aqueducts.
By Joshua Mitnick,?Correspondent / May 19, 2013
People run past the separation wall during the West Bank?s first marathon in Bethlehem, April 21, 2013.
Mahmoud Illean/AP
Enlarge
After scarring the ancient landscapes of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the name of security, Israel?s separation barrier had been slated to carve through this Palestinian village?s 2,500-year old farm terraces and aqueducts.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
But for the first time in years, Israel?s high court has given Batir and its 6,000 residents ? famed for its annual yield of aubergines ??reason to hope that a way of life preserved through centuries won?t be destroyed.
Earlier this month Israel?s top justices issued a rare injunction against construction of the barrier, putting the onus on security authorities to demonstrate that it won?t risk Batir?s cultural and environmental heritage.
"Now I feel better because they avoid the idea [that would force] closure for our lands and destroy this heritage site," says Batir council head Akram Bader, standing alongside a gurgling spring which reputedly supplied water to Jerusalem during the era of the Roman empire. ?"Also, we have more supporters from both sides, from the Israeli, Palestinian, and all over the world."?
Indeed, the case of Batir is even more remarkable because, for the first time, an Israeli government agency came to the defense of the Palestinians affected by the barrier. A 13-page position paper by the Nature and Parks Authority declared that Batir actually represents a living vestige of a shared history dating back to the period of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
The authority ? which flip-flopped its original position from 2005 when the barrier route through Batir was first proposed ? suggested the entire project should be stopped and rethought because it represented a response to a previous war rather than the future. The agricultural terraces of the Palestinian villages are among the most ancient in the world and are part of Jewish heritage because it is "a sign of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel."?
"It?s the first time that the government has spoken in two different voices,"? Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of the environmental group Friends of the Earth Middle East, told a group of reporters on a recent tour of the village. "We don?t want to see the demise of our neighbors' heritage because the bottom line is that it's something we all share."
Built into the terraced hillside, Batir?s vine-wrapped stone alleyways give way to the ancient Roman-era pools and tiny canals that run along pathways down to flood small earthen plots where eggplants grow. The villagers use stones to control the year-round flow of water, which is rotated daily among Batir?s eight main clans. The ancient method is far less lucrative that modern day drip agriculture, but villagers have stuck with tradition. ?
"We have learned to appreciate this cultural landscape. We have an interest in preserving these locations," says Yuval Peled, director of the park?s authority planning and development department. "In every place in the world these places are subsidized so it continues to function as in the past."
A decade ago, at the height of the Palestinian uprising, Israel?s government started construction on a controversial matrix of fences, walls, and security roads to block suicide bombers in the West Bank from reaching Israeli cities.
After an initial spurt of building that separated many Palestinians from their farming lands, the project has been creeping forward because of a tide of legal challenges to the barrier, a lack of funds, and the decline of the Palestinian uprising several years later.??
As of October 2012, only two-thirds of the planned 483-mile barrier had been completed, according to the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem, a Palestinian environmental non-profit. Only in a handful of locations has the court intervened and forced the IDF to re-route.
The tens of thousands of acres of ancient terraces straddling the Green Line border in the Jerusalem hills stand as one of many reminders that the West Bank as a separate entity is a recent creation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Indeed, when Israeli and Jordanian military officers first drew the Green Line in 1949, Israel?s Moshe Dayan sought to preserve Batir?s unique tradition by leaving the frontier open and allowing Palestinian villagers access to lands within the newly formed Israeli state.
That 64-year-old recognition and the fact that villagers have refrained from attacks on Israelis despite Batir?s perch above a rail line connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv likely helped the village. Still, the case still isn?t settled.
Batir and the Parks Authority want an open frontier patrolled by cameras and sensors. The army, which still wants a physical barrier, has another six weeks come up with a proposal to submit for court review.
By then, it will be July and another eggplant season will be in full swing. An August aubergine festival is likely to be more celebratory than years past.
"Yes, we will have a festival," says council head Mr. Bader. "Look, they are preparing for the season."
Your Android phone isn't just for widgets, talking, Google Now and photos. It can also be one of the world's best gaming platforms, if you're willing to spend a little time on it.
Once the domain of tinkerers and super-nerds, Android devices have exploded in popularity over the last couple of years, spurred on by the emergence of superphones like the Samsung Galaxy S 4, HTC One and Google's own Nexus 4.
Despite this increase, there remains the perception that - at least in terms of gaming - Android phones are somehow a step behind the iPhone. That things like piracy, a lack of apps and convoluted system specs are hindering the development of games on the platform.
I'm here to tell you this is bullshit. Chances are that if you own an Android phone, and picked it up within the last 18 months, you've got in your pocket a silent killer in terms of portable gaming.
Below you'll find four steps you can follow to turn that humble little smartphone into something a little more gamey.
1. USE GOOGLE PLAY
Well, duh. But if you're a new user, or someone contemplating making the switch, this is important.
Android users have a bad reputation for pirating software, including games, and in many ways that's a fair assumption. Pirating games for the platform is way too easy.
Don't be that guy.
Be the guy that visits the newly-redesigned Google Play Store (Android's equivalent of Apple App Store) and sees that, hey, nearly every big (and small) iPhone game is there too. Just as cheap. Just as plentiful.
Seriously, there are enough quality games on there already that we could end the guide right here and you'd be set. Luckily, we're not ending the guide here.
Those remaining developers who either delay bringing their games to Android, or don't do it at all, usually cite piracy as one of the big concerns. The more people actually pay for apps and games on Android, the more of these developers will be encouraged to bring their wares to the platform. So do it.
2. GO RETRO
Let's say you want to play something more substantial than most mobile titles can offer. Or a classic game from your childhood that, for better or worse, isn't available on the Play Store. The great thing about Android phones is that you can still play these games, and it's a lot easier - and more legal - than you might think.
Two of the most popular means of running old PC games on modern systems - DOSBox (for old DOS games) and ScummVM (for old adventure games) - both have versions available for Android devices.
Before we go any further, then, you're going to need install these three applications:
While that last link isn't necessary, you're really going to want it. What DOSBox Manager does is let you create a quicklaunch screen for the games, so instead of having to enter command prompts every time you want to play a game (which is normally how DOSBox works), you just tap some box art, same as a regular app/game.
The quickest, easiest and most legal way to get hold of old PC games is to visit a site like Good Old Games. Many titles you can purchase there are supported by DOSBox, so all you need to do is download the game to your PC and copy the files over to your phone.
Tom DuPont has written a great in-depth guide to this process which you can read here.
A word of caution, though: be careful which games you bring over. Your phone has limited inputs, most likely just a touchscreen, so trying to play a fast-paced RTS or shooter might not be the best idea. Slower, mouse-driven genres like adventure and turn-based strategy are a good place to start.
Unless, that is, you want to...
3. GET A CONTROLLER (OR USE A MOUSE)
It sounds crazy, I know. Buying an external controller for your phone defeats the entire point of playing games on a portable device. But the fact of the matter is, as phones become more powerful, phone games become more powerful, and it's a tragedy that people try to play something like Real Racing using touchscreen or tilt controls. Stick a pad on there and some of these newer games will feel like a console game, instead of just looking like one.
There's also the benefit it brings to the retro games you'll be playing. Use a gamepad and suddenly all those amazing old shooters are playable. Connect a bluetooth mouse to your phone and anything you can't play with a pad, you can probably play with it.
If you don't have a spare controller or mouse already lying around, or are looking for something a little more tailored, you can always try dedicated controller solutions like the MOGA Pro.
Again, this might sound crazy since you can do this a lot more easily on a regular computer, but consider this: old PC games weren't designed to run on giant 23" desktop monitors. You either stretch their visuals until they look like garbage, or run them in a window.
Phone screens, though, are at the cutting edge. Relatively tiny yet packing amazing colours and now sometimes even 1080p resolution, they breathe new life into your old games. Trust me, fire up something like Colonization or X-Com on a contemporary phone and it'll look better than ever.
4. GET A BIGGER BATTERY (OR BATTERY PACK)
The one major downside to the crop of modern Android smartphones is that, almost to the last, they've got terrible battery life. Most can barely last a single day, even with infrequent use. If you're planning on playing a game at home, that's not a problem, but let's be honest, how often will you be playing a phone game at home?
Running 3D graphics - or even just leaving a big bright screen on for long stretches - will kill your battery. So if you're serious about gaming on your Android phone, you should think about getting a bigger battery (if your phone supports removable batteries) or an external battery case/charging pack (if it doesn't).
5. SIGN UP TO ONLIVE
It's easy to forget about the company these days after all the problems it went through last year, but streaming service OnLive is still around, and it works on Android devices. Your mileage may vary depending on your device - it's more suited to tablets than phones - but if you've got a gamepad solution for your phone, and your connection is fast enough to pull it off, you can play all kinds of games that would normally never be available on the platform.
OnLive runs through an app you can get here. It's currently only available in North America and the UK.
?-
That should about cover it! There's enough here to get you started on turning your Android phone into a go-to games platform. If you've got something to add, though, let us know below!
Howtu is Kotaku's guide on how to get the most out of your gaming.
A new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards, contradicting a host of recent studies that predict their widespread extinction in a rapidly warming planet.
The findings, which appear in the journalGlobal Change Biology, offer new hope for survival of a creature thought to be doomed
Most predictions that tropical cold-blooded animals, especially forest lizards, will be hard hit by climate change are based on global-scale measurements of environmental temperatures, which miss much of the fine-scale variation in temperature that individual animals experience on the ground, said the article's lead author, Michael Logan, a Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology.
To address this disconnect, the Dartmouth researchers measured environmental temperatures at extremely high resolution and used those measurements to project the effects of climate change on the running abilities of four populations of lizard from the Bay Islands of Honduras. Field tests on the captured lizards, which were released unharmed, were conducted between 2008 and 2012.
Previous studies have suggested that open-habitat tropical lizard species are likely to invade forest habitat and drive forest species to extinction, but the Dartmouth research suggests that the open-habitat populations will not invade forest habitat and may actually benefit from predicted warming for many decades. Conversely, one of the forest species studied should experience reduced activity time as a result of warming, while two others are unlikely to experience a significant decline in performance.
The overall results suggest that global-scale predictions generated using low-resolution temperature data may overestimate the vulnerability of many tropical lizards to climate change.
"Whereas studies conducted to date have made uniformly bleak predictions for the survival of tropical forest lizards around the globe, our data show that four similar species, occurring in the same geographic region, differ markedly in their vulnerabilities to climate warming," the authors wrote. "Moreover, none appear to be on the brink of extinction. Considering that these populations occur over extremely small geographic ranges, it is possible that many tropical forest lizards, which range over much wider areas, may have even greater opportunity to escape warming."
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
In light of recent events, it may come as good news to many that the foremost leader in the world in drug testing is easing its threshold limits on a positive test for marijuana.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) currently has a threshold of 15 nanograms per milliliter for a positive test, that limit will be increased to 150 nanograms per milliliter. That is a significant increase and would definitely reduce the possibility of detection in recreational users of the drug.
?We wanted to focus on the athletes that abuse the substance in competition,? said Julie Masse, WADA?s director of communications. ?This should exclude cases where marijuana is not used in competition.?
Marijuana is not considered a performance enhancing drug (PED), but it is included on the WADA banned list.
?From a sports perspective, I was rather ambivalent (toward marijuana),? stated Richard Pound, an attorney who was WADA?s initial chief and still serves on the Foundation Board. ?As we morphed into WADA, the USA was very keen to have it included.?
The hope is to lessen the chances a recreational user would test positive for the drug.
?There is no desire to go soft on the list,? WADA?s Athlete Committee announced, ?but members want cheaters to be caught for cheating, not for recreational usage.?
NEW YORK (AP) ? Yahoo may be on the verge of closing its biggest acquisition under CEO Marissa Mayer, as she tries to attract more traffic and advertising to the Internet company's website.
The technology news site All Things D is reporting that Yahoo's board will meet Sunday night to consider whether to approve a proposed $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, a popular online service for sharing stories, photos and other content.
The report from All Things D cited anonymous sources.
If Yahoo's board signs off on the deal, it could be announced Monday.
In an invitation sent Friday, Yahoo Inc. promised to unveil "something special" Monday evening in New York. The event is being held in a Times Squares lounge located about two miles away from Tumblr's headquarters.
Mayer will be there to make the announcement.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is promising to unveil "something special" Monday in New York as she tries to attract more traffic and advertising to the Internet company.
The Sunnyvale, Calif., company gave no further details Friday other than that Mayer will be discussing a product. Reporters are being invited to attend the 5 p.m. event at a lounge located in New York's Times Square.
Mayer has been emphasizing the need for better mobile applications and more video since she became Yahoo's CEO 10 months ago after helping to build Google into the Internet's most powerful company during a 13-year career working there.
The invitations to Monday's event were sent out amid speculation that Yahoo might form a partnership or buy a stake in Tumblr, a content-sharing service that has become a popular application for mobile devices.
The Tumblr talk was spurred by a post on the technology site All Things D, which reported Mayer has been in discussions about a possible deal with Tumblr CEO David Karp, who started the service in 2007. Citing anonymous sources close to the situation, All Things said Yahoo might even buy Tumblr for as much as $1 billion.
Tumblr is based in New York, about two miles from where Mayer is making her announcement.
Yahoo Inc. has won over investors under Mayer, even though the company's revenue is still barely growing even as advertisers are spending more money on the Internet. Yahoo's stock price has risen 69 percent under Mayer's leadership.
Yahoo's stock closed down 6 cents at $26.52 on Friday.
Mine union threatens to bring South Africa to 'standstill'
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The leader of South Africa's biggest platinum mining union threatened on Friday to bring Africa's No. 1 economy "to a standstill" and demanded a meeting with President Jacob Zuma, ramping up the rhetoric in an 18-month labor crisis. The rand, which tumbled to a four-year low against the dollar on Thursday on fears of a strike at Anglo American Platinum, extended its slide on concerns about further disruptions to an already struggling economy.
Nigerian forces bombard Islamist militant camps from the air
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian forces used jets and attack helicopters to bombard Islamist militant camps in the northeast on Friday, killing a number of insurgents, the defense headquarters spokesman said. Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade told Reuters by telephone several camps had been attacked, including in the Sambisa game reserve in Borno state, but did not have further details.
Turkey detains prime suspect in car bombings near Syrian border
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained a man they believe to be one of the main perpetrators of car bombings that killed more than 50 people near the Syrian border, officials said on Friday. Turkey has accused Syria of involvement in the two bombings last weekend in the town of Reyhanli, which fanned fears that Syria's civil war is dragging in neighboring states. Damascus denies any role.
Bulgarian president to convene parliament May 21
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev will convene a new parliament on May 21, in an attempt to have a new government formed quickly and end a political impasse in the European Union's poorest country. "The biggest challenge now is to restore the trust of the people, which can only happen through a working a parliament and government," Plevneliev said on Friday, after holdings talks with leaders of the four parties which will be represented in the assembly.
Hold Syrian peace talks soon, says U.N. chief
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - A proposed international conference on Syria should be held as soon as possible, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday, but no date has yet been agreed for a meeting that appears to face growing obstacles. Ban spoke as U.N. officials announced that the number of refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria, a conflict that has claimed the lives of 80,000 people over the past two years, had exceeded 1.5 million as conditions there deteriorate rapidly.
Myanmar frees political prisoners before president goes to U.S.
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's government has freed 23 political prisoners, a senior interior ministry official said on Friday, the day President Thein Sein was due to leave for a landmark visit to the United States. The official declined to be identified and would not provide the names of those released or give further details.
Gunmen attack police station beyond Nigeria emergency zone
KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen stormed a police station and a bank in a town in Nigeria's northwest, beyond a region covered by a military crackdown on a Islamist insurgency, a sign the offensive could provoke violence by smaller militant cells across the north. It was not clear who carried out the attack.
Fearing Afghan instability, Russia mulls border troops
KABUL (Reuters) - Russia, predicting instability once NATO-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year, is considering deploying border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border, Moscow's envoy to Kabul told Reuters in an interview. Moscow, still sore from its disastrous, decade-long war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, is increasingly concerned by what it describes as the combined threat of narcotics and terrorism reaching Russia through former Soviet Central Asian countries.
Angry Egyptian policemen close crossing with Gaza
GAZA (Reuters) - Egyptian policemen blocked the crossing into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest against the kidnapping of Egyptian security forces in the Sinai, witnesses and sources said. Locals said police had placed barbed wire across the entrance to the border and closed the gates with chains, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stranded on both sides of the fence.
Turkey's Erdogan says sees opportunity for Cyprus deal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday he saw a good opportunity for progress towards ending the division of Cyprus, a move that could further the exploitation of natural gas and oil in the eastern Mediterranean. The island has been divided since a Greek Cypriot coup was followed by a Turkish invasion of the north in 1974. Turkey keeps some 30,000 troops in the north and is the only nation to recognize the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
While "Jimmy Kimmel Live" isn't necessarily known for its sweet approach to babies or children (Kimmel routinely exhorts parents to prank their kids and capture it on camera for yuks), on Thursday night he managed to blend a spoof of "The Bachelor/The Bachelorette" with a clutch of toddler actors that was, well, downright adorable.
In a spoof of the long-running ABC reality series "The Bachelor," Kimmel lent his voice to a "preview" of a "new" series, "The Baby Bachelor," in which Wesley, a very young man just looking for a play date has to choose between a collection of similarly youthful ladies. And they're just as much of a handful as their grown-up counterparts, as demonstrated by the lovely blonde who just can't stop crying. Wesley not only gives her a hug but a peck on the cheek, to no avail.
Women!
Then of course there's always one: 35-month-old Jesse is a "stay-at-home daughter" who is "looking for a sugar daddy."
Who will accept Wesley's offer of a dinosaur toy? Check out the video for all of the cute overload!
Because of technological advancements and brutal price competition you can get a wide variety of stun guns for less than $20. For many people price is the most important element in making a purchase. In this article we will discuss the most popular stun guns under $20. Read on to learn more.
Source:Self-Defense ? Most Popular Stun Guns Under Twenty Bucks
Related Reading:
Self Defense Tactics and Techniques Against An Active Shooter (Survival Publications)Self Defense against an acitve shooter is a treatise on options you can embed in your mind and react on if you are ever caught in this demonic event.
This edtion has been updated to include a commentary on two videos that depict actions you should take in the event you are caught in a mass shooting. One video is produced by our government and the other by a private firm. You are urged to watch both and decide which one provides the best options for survival. Neither video discusses the option of citizens being armed to stop an active shooter.
The recorded timeline of mass shootings and mass school murders starts in 1914 and continues to worsen each decade. We are all aware of the last insane attacks and now we must consider how to self defend against these mad people with weapons.
Flight or fight tactics are discussed in this concise easy to read and understand book. You will learn the first important thing to understand in an attack. Things you may never think of for self defense weapons are presented. Why you should make it a habit to learn all you can about every building you frequent and why you should tour your children's school with them at your side.
A backpack filled with some common items could stop or deflect a bullet. Until bullet proof back packs are available to all, this method is better than nothing.
Self defense against an active shooter is a concise and easy to follow treatise on the options you can consider if caught in a shooting. These self defense tactics and fighting techniques should be considered if you are unarmed and facing a shooter. Download this book today and become better able to defend against an active shooter.
Self Defense: The Psychology of Attack and Survival (How To Defend Yourself and Survive In Any Dangerous Situation) (Self Defense Psychology)Self defense isn?t about carrying around a gun or mace or weapons. It?s not about being bigger or stronger than others. It?s not about what you look like, whether you?re a man or a woman or how old you are.
At the end of the day, the you will survive because your mind and body are strong and united. We?ve all heard stories of super-human strength ? the grandma who lifted up with her bare hands to save her grandson and other such stories abound.
But the same thing can happen mentally ? at times of great stress, you can acquire super-human mental powers as well as physical. Like the lady who is mugged at gunpoint and says something that spooks the robber. He runs away, dropping her purse, and the woman picks it up and walks off like nothing happened.
How do we access our super-human potential when we need it most?
How can you fight off four assailants at once?
How can you talk your way out of being robbed?
How can you protect yourself and your family when something goes wrong?
These questions haunted me for years. I would often lay awake at night or daydream about potential fights or conflicts. Some guy at the bar comes at me with a knife so I use a typical Aikido move to disarm him and throw him on the ground using his own force. I get jumped from behind in an alleyway and knocked on the ground... the scenarios played through my head over and over like a moviescreen. Only this wasn?t the movies. It wasn?t real either ? it was practice.
And that practice payed off ? in a big way.
I want this book to prepare you for what may lie ahead. No one knows what the future holds. But even if you never have to face an attack or serious bodily harm for the rest of your life, this book will prepare you mentally and physically for when times get tough.
Life isn?t about being bigger, stronger, fast or smarter than the competition. Life is about survival. It?s about freedom, confidence and success. This book will give you the tools and the confidence to know that you will survive no matter what happens.
Learn how to defend and protect yourself and your family today. Scroll up and grab your copy!
Self-Defense (Alex Delaware)Dr. Alex Delaware doesn t see many private patients anymore, but the young woman called Lucy is an exception. So is her dream. Lucy Lowell is referred to Alex by Los Angeles police detective Milo Sturgis. A juror at the agonizing trial of a serial killer, Lucy survived the trauma only to be tormented by a recurring nightmare: a young child in the forest at night, watching a strange and furtive act.
Now Lucy s dream is starting to disrupt her waking life, and Alex is concerned. The power of the dream, its grip on Lucy s emotions, suggests to him that it may be more than a nightmare. It may be the repressed childhood memory of something very real. Something like murder.
Practical Psychic Self Defense Handbook, The: A Survival GuideIs everything that goes on in your mind really you? Perhaps not, says Australian psychic researcher Robert Bruce. Drawing on more than two decades of firsthand research and experience, Bruce reports that our minds are subject to influences from many unseen spiritual sources. Some of these can influence how we think, feel, act, and even how our bodies function. They can make us unhappy, irritable, confused, sick, unstable, even crazy. This is why we need practical tools and countermeasures for psychic self-defense, all of which Bruce provides.
This is the ultimate guide to combating the influences of earthbound spirits, deranged ghosts, astral snakes and spiders, demonic spirits, and poltergeists. This is a highly anecdotal and comprehensive practical guide to the dark side of the psychic universe.
