Greek lawmaker accused of trying to punch mayor

ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? A lawmaker from Greece's extreme-right Golden Dawn party allegedly tried to punch the mayor of Athens on Thursday, swinging at him but reportedly missing and hitting a 12-year-old girl instead.

The confrontation came hours after police used pepper spray to prevent the nationalist party from distributing free food to Greek citizens only in the city's main Syntagma Square in defiance of a municipal ban the mayor had vowed to uphold.

Once a marginal group, Golden Dawn saw a meteoric rise in the polls in recent years, becoming Greece's third most popular party as the country slid further into financial crisis and unemployment skyrocketed. Its members have been repeatedly accused of involvement in violent attacks against immigrants and others.

"The only thing these people know is the language of violence," Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said after the incident, in which he said lawmaker Giorgos Germenis also tried to pull out a gun before being restrained by the mayor's bodyguards.

Germenis showed up at a municipal charity event where Kaminis was handing out gifts to children of unemployed parents ahead of Sunday's Orthodox Easter.

"This man sneaked in, we didn't notice him ... and he tried to hit me," Kaminis told Vima FM radio. "At the last minute my personal guards stopped him." The mayor said Germenis had a gun tucked into the back of his waist band, and attempted to pull the weapon out.

Television footage showed the mayor's bodyguards struggling with Germenis as a woman carrying a baby scurried out of the room. The security guards pinned the lawmaker against a wall before marching him out of the building.

Greek media said the blow intended for Kaminis ended up hitting a girl, leaving her with a bruised forehead but no serious injuries.

"Extreme actions, especially when their victims are innocent 12-year-old children, do not befit our democracy," said government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou.

Golden Dawn issued a statement denying a girl had been hit and vowing to sue Kaminis and his security guards. For his part, Kaminis intends to sue Germenis for the attempted attack, the municipality's press office said. Police said they were investigating complaints against the lawmaker for threats and brandishing a weapon.

Golden Dawn had announced it would hand out free Easter food to Greeks only on Thursday. Kaminis had banned any such events in the city's main square, and vowed Wednesday not to allow the "soup kitchen of hate" to take place.

But party members with Golden Dawn logo emblazoned across the backs of their black T-shirts arrived more than two hours before the announced time with a truck carrying meat, potatoes and other goods and began handing out bags of food after checking recipients' identity cards.

Scuffles broke out with riot police, who used pepper spray to repel party members wielding Greek flags on thick wooden sticks.

Giving up on the idea of a charity handout in the capital's main square, the party moved the distribution to its own offices in downtown Athens ? not far from where Kaminis later attended the separate municipal charity event.

"Today in Syntagma Square, the law was implemented against the Golden Dawn neo-Nazis who once again displayed their wares: racist hatred, the use of violence and bullying," said Fofi Gennimata, spokeswoman of the Socialist PASOK party that is a junior member of the governing coalition.

Though Golden Dawn rejects the neo-Nazi label, its website shows great fondness for Nazi literature and symbols.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/greek-lawmaker-accused-trying-punch-mayor-161816271.html

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A Self-Propelled Snowboard Makes Going Uphill Just as Fun

When Archimedes thought up his revolutionary water-pumping screw, little did he know that one day a group of high school students in Lyon, France would find a better use for his design. Their Propul-Surf uses a pair of horizontally-mounted screws to push a snowboard through the snow when gravity doesn't provide enough momentum. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/x_977RPH2j4/a-self+propelled-snowboard-makes-going-uphill-just-as-fun

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Boosting the powers of genomic science

Apr. 25, 2013 ? As scientists probe and parse the genetic bases of what makes a human a human (or one human different from another), and vigorously push for greater use of whole genome sequencing, they find themselves increasingly threatened by the unthinkable: Too much data to make full sense of.

In a pair of papers published in the April 25, 2013 issue of PLOS Genetics, two diverse teams of scientists, both headed by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, describe novel statistical models that more broadly and deeply identify associations between bits of sequenced DNA called single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs and say lead to a more complete and accurate understanding of the genetic underpinnings of many diseases and how best to treat them.

"It's increasingly evident that highly heritable diseases and traits are influenced by a large number of genetic variants in different parts of the genome, each with small effects," said Anders M. Dale, PhD, a professor in the departments of Radiology, Neurosciences and Psychiatry at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Unfortunately, it's also increasingly evident that existing statistical methods, like genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that look for associations between SNPs and diseases, are severely underpowered and can't adequately incorporate all of this new, exciting and exceedingly rich data."

Dale cited, for example, a recent study published in Nature Genetics in which researchers used traditional GWAS to raise the number of SNPs associated with primary sclerosing cholangitis from four to 16. The scientists then applied the new statistical methods to identify 33 additional SNPs, more than tripling the number of genome locations associated with the life-threatening liver disease.

Generally speaking, the new methods boost researchers' analytical powers by incorporating a priori or prior knowledge about the function of SNPs with their pleiotrophic relationships to multiple phenotypes. Pleiotrophy occurs when one gene influences multiple sets of observed traits or phenotypes.

Dale and colleagues believe the new methods could lead to a paradigm shift in CWAS analysis, with profound implications across a broad range of complex traits and disorders.

"There is ever-greater emphasis being placed on expensive whole genome sequencing efforts," he said, "but as the science advances, the challenges become larger. The needle in the haystack of traditional GWAS involves searching through about one million SNPs. This will increase 10- to 100-fold, to about 3 billion positions. We think these new methodologies allow us to more completely exploit our resources, to extract the most information possible, which we think has important implications for gene discovery, drug development and more accurately assessing a person's overall genetic risk of developing a certain disease."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Diego Health Sciences, via Newswise.

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

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Journal References:

1. Andrew J. Schork, Wesley K. Thompson, Phillip Pham, Ali Torkamani, J. Cooper Roddey, Patrick F. Sullivan, John R. Kelsoe, Michael C. O'Donovan, Helena Furberg, Nicholas J. Schork, Ole A. Andreassen, Anders M. Dale. All SNPs Are Not Created Equal: Genome-Wide Association Studies Reveal a Consistent Pattern of Enrichment among Functionally Annotated SNPs. PLoS Genetics, 2013; 9 (4): e1003449 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003449
2. Ole A. Andreassen, Wesley K. Thompson, Andrew J. Schork, Stephan Ripke, Morten Mattingsdal, John R. Kelsoe, Kenneth S. Kendler, Michael C. O'Donovan, Dan Rujescu, Thomas Werge, Pamela Sklar, J. Cooper Roddey, Chi-Hua Chen, Linda McEvoy, Rahul S. Desikan, Srdjan Djurovic, Anders M. Dale. Improved Detection of Common Variants Associated with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Using Pleiotropy-Informed Conditional False Discovery Rate. PLoS Genetics, 2013; 9 (4): e1003455 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003455

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/W-16k4bufPw/130425213754.htm

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Fall Out Boy 'Save Rock And Roll' With #1 Album, Kid Cudi #2

Cudi's final G.O.O.D. Music release, Indicud, came in just behind FOB's second #1 debut.
By Gil Kaufman

Fall Out Boy's "Save Rock and Roll"
Photo: Island and Decaydance

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706249/fall-out-boy-save-rock-roll-billboard-charts.jhtml

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Apple's Pile Of Cash Is Still Growing, Up 6% To $145 Billion

Apple now has $145 billion in cash on hand — a 5.8 percent increase over the past three months. The company last reported that they had $137.1 billion in cash back on December 30. To put this into perspective, with $140 million, you can produce the movie Spider-Man. Apple has enough money to produce a thousand blockbusters. Apple could use its cash to acquire some companies. But with more than $145,000,000,000, you can acquire a lot of companies. For example, Facebook’s market capitalization is only $61.89 billion. If Apple would use all of its cash to acquire Facebook, it would still pay a nice premium. With $9.5 billion in profit and little operating expenses, Apple’s cash will likely grow over the next three months. Yet, Apple doesn’t seem to be ready to use its cash on hand (short-term investments). Now that Apple is handing out dividends, its cash is one of the remaining issues with investors. Shareholders wants Apple to actually use this cash for something — acquisitions, big investments dividends or other financial activities (such as a share buyback). The company likes to tap into its deep pockets to secure deals with its production line in order to make sure its supply chain is efficient. But that still leaves a lot of cash. Apple is still sitting on over $145 billion without any plan in sight.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Ngi2cvKhypM/

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To Secure the Border, Let in More Immigrants

A border checkpoint in Tijuana, Mexico

Photo by Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa kicked off Senate hearings on immigration reform with the idea that ?given the events of this week,? we ought to put terrorism concerns near the top of our list of priorities when changing the system. To Grassley, a longtime immigration skeptic, that means primarily asking, ?How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the U.S.??

But while security checks should be done and should be done properly, by far the best way to keep dangerous foreigners out of the country is to make it easier for nondangerous ones to enter. Border security is a wonderful thing. But in the absence of adequate legal channels for immigration, a large human smuggling industry will spring into existence to serve the needs of economic migrants and leave the country more vulnerable to real security risks.

Start with the key question: Why do people violate America?s immigration laws? For the overwhelming majority, it?s not to blow things up?it?s to work.

People come here from Mexico because they can earn higher wages. Americans are, on average, much richer than Mexicans, so we can afford to pay more for our maids and our gardeners. The United States also has more and better capital equipment than Mexico, so people who work here are more productive and can earn more. Crossing the border to work is lucrative, in other words, so people do it.

It?s lucrative, but in most cases, it?s also illegal. Making something that?s lucrative illegal has rarely stopped it from happening. Marijuana is illegal, but there are still plenty of people around who are happy to sell you some. What prohibition does first and foremost is alter prices. If marijuana were legal, it would be much cheaper. By the same token, making it illegal to cross the border makes it more expensive to cross?not impossible to cross.

Between 1993 and 2006, the United States drastically increased spending on controlling its southern border. This didn?t stop unauthorized migrants from crossing to work and settle. But that doesn?t mean the border-hardening had no impact. Wayne Cornelius, a researcher at UC?San Diego, has conducted decades of field research among Mexican migrants to the United States that shows that the tighter border led to a booming people-smuggling industry. By 2006, more than 90 percent of unauthorized border crossings were assisted by a coyote. And according to Cornelius, ?The fees that smugglers can charge have tripled since 1993.?

More recently, net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero. The Obama administration likes to tout this as an enforcement success story to bolster its argument that reform needn?t cause a new boom in illegal border crossings. But to people who just don?t like the idea of foreigners coming here, the apparent success of Obama-era enforcement sends the message that crackdowns work.

Enforcement is part of the story, but an equally important part is that moving to the U.S. isn?t all that lucrative. The unemployment rate is high at 7.6 percent. The Latino unemployment rate is higher at 9.2 percent. The unemployment rate for people with no high-school diploma (a decent proxy for the labor market prospects of rural Mexicans who likely lack English literacy skills) is 12 percent. The construction sector, known especially as a key user of illegal labor, has been in a funk. Under the circumstances, it?s no surprise the coyote trade has gone into a deep freeze. But if the broader labor market comes back to life, smuggling will revive along with it. And while the overwhelming majority of smuggling is simply aimed at bringing people here to build houses and wash dishes, as long as the industry exists, it can be used by people with more nefarious motives.

Any serious border security strategy ought to emphasize establishing a big enough legal channel for migration to undercut the coyote industry. The immigration reform bill before Congress attempts to do this with a new W visa program for low-skilled guest workers. It would let 20,000 people come in the first year, rising to 75,000 by the fourth year, and then with a range between 20,000 and 200,000 workers in future years depending on labor market conditions. The only problem here is that even 200,000 may not be enough to squelch human smuggling. Michael Clemens and Lant Pritchett show that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting much more growth in the quantity of jobs than will be fillable with a 200,000-person cap. That means that when the economy recovers, breaking immigration law will be lucrative again, just as it was 10 or 15 years ago. That means a rebound for the coyote sector with the dangers that it brings.

The W visa program as proposed would still be a huge improvement over the status quo. But it?s really not clear why the 200,000 cap exists. The W visa program is structured so that the number of visas issued in any given year will be pegged to labor market conditions. If the process for making that determination is sound, then by definition the cap can only come into play if labor market conditions indicate the need for more workers?precisely the situation that perversely gives rise to the human smuggling market. As Congress looks at this legislation through a security lens, it needs to keep this angle in mind. Establishing a robust legal channel for would-be economic migrants is a crucial piece of the border security puzzle.?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=8b9123d3db48e58935c5b4ee6e70e501

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Film review: 'Oblivion' a thrilling ride at end of the world | The Salt ...

This film publicity image released by Universal Pictures shows Olga Kurylenko, left, and Tom Cruise in a scene from "Oblivion." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

Review ? ?Oblivion? makes good work of familiar sci-fi ideas.

One can pick apart "Oblivion" for its liberal pilfering of science-fiction tales and tropes ? or sit back and enjoy how cleverly director Joseph Kosinski builds those spare parts into a fast, exhilarating and sometimes smart thrill ride.

It?s 2077, we?re told, and Earth is a wasteland. As our hero, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), informs us in the opening voiceover, alien invaders called The Scavengers attacked the Earth, and humans fought back with nuclear weapons ? driving away the Scavs but leaving Earth uninhabitable. The surviving humans have relocated to a terraformed new home on Titan, Saturn?s moon, except for a few good soldiers, like Jack, left behind to maintain the robot drones that patrol the planet.

?

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?Oblivion?

In this sharp action movie, Tom Cruise labors on a post-apocalyptic Earth that isn?t what he thinks.

Where ? Theaters everywhere.

When ? Opens Friday.

Rating ? PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity.

Running time ? 126 minutes.

Jack and his mission partner/lover, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), spend their days monitoring drones and dodging rogue Scavs, with Jack in the field and Victoria watching the screens back at their home base ? with their only contact a Mission Control official, Sally (Melissa Leo), on a space station called Tet. Jack and Victoria hold onto the hope that their mission is nearly over, and they will soon go to live on Titan.

But Jack harbors a fondness for Earth, having found a secret safe haven by a lake where he collects trinkets he finds in the field. He also keeps from Victoria his dreams, which include a recurring vision of meeting a beautiful woman (Olga Kurylenko) at the Empire State Building.

On a patrol one day, Jack sees a spaceship crash-land nearby. Disobeying Sally?s orders, he investigates and finds the wreckage of a NASA ship ? whose survivors include the woman from his dreams. It?s the first of many discoveries that prove to Jack that things are not as he believes them to be. (One discovery the movie?s ads have already given away: Morgan Freeman is tied up in all this somewhere.)

Kosinski ("Tron: Legacy"), who wrote the story for the graphic novel on which the script (by Karl Gajdusek and Michael deBruyn) is based, cribs generously from a wide array of science fiction ? from "2001" and "The Matrix" to "Star Wars" and "The Road Warrior." He adds a stunning visual panache, ranging from the airy all-glass perch where Jack and Victoria live to the cobbled-together wilderness of the Earth below. And he springs some sharp surprises throughout the plot, twists that urge you not to divulge to friends who haven?t seen it yet.

Once the truth is revealed, "Oblivion" does fall into the unfortunate habit of repeating things until everyone in the audience catches up. But that?s a minor quibble for an action drama that has something on its mind other than just getting to the next explosion.

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Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56172763-223/jack-oblivion-iframe-action.html.csp

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