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Finn was a Chief Petty Officer and chief aviation ordnanceman, in command of a 20-man unit whose primary responsibility was to maintain the weapons of a PBY Catalina "flying boat" aircraft squadron at the Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station, Hawaii.
On the morning that President Franklin Roosevelt would later describe as a "day of infamy," Japanese planes attacked Kaneohe Bay, located about 12 miles from Battleship Row at Ford Island, in an apparent attempt to destroy the Navy aircraft located there before they could take off. Finn and his wife, Alice, were asleep at their quarters about a mile from the hangers and field when they were awakened by machine gun fire. In an interview with The New American magazine in July 2001, Finn recalled his first thoughts: "Who the h*** is firing machine guns today? Hey, it's a Sunday!"
When a plane flew past his window, Finn at first thought it was a Naval training exercise, but the wife of one of his men knocked at their door to inform Finn: "They want you down at the squadron right away!" On the drive to the base, Finn spoke of hearing a "terrible roaring" as a plane with the "dirty red ball" (Japan's Rising Sun insignia) beneath its wings flew overhead. When he arrived, he "saw all of our planes on fire and our boys running around all helter skelter and that's when it hit me. This is the real deal, by golly!"
In another interview with CNN's Larry Shaughnessy last September 15, Finn explained that one of the first things he did when he arrived at the base was to take control of a machine gun from his squadron's painter.
"I said, 'Alex, let me take that gun,' " Finn recalled. "I knew that I had more experience firing a machine gun than a painter."
"I got that gun and I started shooting at Jap planes," Finn said, using the nickname applied to the enemy back in the 1940s.
But, noted Shaughnessy, Finn's machine gun was right out in the open, nothing protecting him from the attacking pilots.
"I was out there shooting the Jap planes and just every so often I was a target for some," Finn said. "They were Japanese fighter plane pilots. I can remember seeing, in some cases, I could see their faces."
While manning his improvised machine gun unit, with his .50-calibre gun mounted on a tripod intended for training purposes only, Finn received numerous wounds, including at least four shrapnel wounds to his chest. But he continued firing his gun for more than two hours until the enemy planes departed.
The official citation awarded to Finn with his medal reads:
Although painfully wounded many times, he continued to man this gun and to return the enemy's fire vigorously and with telling effect throughout the enemy strafing and bombing attacks and with complete disregard for his own personal safety. It was only by specific orders that he was persuaded to leave his post to seek medical attention. Following first aid treatment, although obviously suffering much pain and moving with great difficulty, he returned to the squadron area and actively supervised the rearming of returning planes.
Finn thought he had hit at least one plane during the attack, but had no way of knowing whether he had brought it down.
Chief Petty Officer Finn received the Medal of Honor on September 15, 1942, from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nimitz cited Chief Finn for his "magnificent courage in the face of almost certain death."
A report in the San Diego Union-Tribune noted that Finn was the oldest of 91 living recipients of the Medal of Honor. Only 19 other World War II recipients of our nation's highest honor remain, the oldest being Barney Hajiro, 93, of Hawaii.
The report cited Dennis McAllister, one of Finn's nephews, who said his uncle was healthy and energetic until about a week ago, when he was moved from his longtime home in Live Oak Springs, east of Campo, to the Veterans Home of California in Chula Vista.
Finn and his wife, Alice, who died in 1998, had a son, Joseph, but also took in several children from the Campo Indian Reservation in San Diego County.
"He helped our people survive when our world was in turmoil and going through a changing process," said Monique LaChappa, Campo tribal chairwoman. One of her uncles was among those helped by the Finns. "Some of the older elders would tell about how [the Finns] would feed our people. He was part of our survival. He understood us — not that he felt sorry for us, but he understood us."
Finn received posthumous praise from many sources.
"His story will continue inspiring generations to come while also reminding us all about the contributions and sacrifices of America's greatest generation," said Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), a longtime friend.
Other words of praise came from some who undoubtedly would have been unappreciative of Finn's decision to become a lifetime member of The John Birch Society (along with his wife) back in the 1960s. These included MSNBC-TV commentator Rachel Maddow, who not along ago was taking The John Birch Society to task for a variety of unfounded charges that were so stale they have been around longer than Maddow, herself. Maddow nevertheless narrated a glowing and much-deserved tribute to Finn.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Though Finn's heroic accomplishments certainly transcend the world of politics, contrasting the views Finn held about government with those of the man currently occupying the Oval Office surely makes for one of life's more beautifully idiosyncratic moments — President Obama bestowing fitting praise on a life member of The John Birch Society:
Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Retired Navy Lt. John William Finn, the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones at this time. Lt. Finn received the Medal for the heroism he displayed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Under a torrent of gunfire, Lt. Finn defended his fellow Sailors, holding his position for two hours until the skies went quiet, despite suffering serious wounds. Like many of those who have served our nation with such distinction, Lt. Finn often said that he never intended to be a hero. Instead, he felt that he was simply doing his duty. But his modesty does not diminish his extraordinary conduct — or the incredible example he has set for our men and women in uniform and for all Americans. I had the privilege of meeting Lt. Finn last year, and I was struck by his warmth and humility. As we mark Memorial Day, and pay tribute all who have fallen in defense of this nation, the passing of Lt. Finn is a reminder of the sacrifices that generations have made to preserve the freedoms we hold dear.
Arthur R. Thompson, the Chief Executive Officer of The John Birch Society, also had fond memories of John Finn, inspired, he said, by the fact that "Finn was more than a war hero — he remained a patriot throughout his life." A firm believer in the Christian concept of an afterlife, Thompson reminds us that the sense of loss he feels on learning of Finn's death is only temporary, because we will all meet him again.
Thompson shared a favorite memory related to Finn, about the time he visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Each ticket to the memorial has a brief biographical tribute to one of the heros of Peal Harbor printed on its reverse side. When Thompson purchased his ticket, whose biography did he find printed on back? John Finn's!
It is somehow fitting that this noble example of American heroic virtue passed on to meet his Maker just before Memorial Day weekend. On this Memorial Day, as we honor our fallen heroes, recollection of John Finn's sacrifice will surely be at the forefront of our minds.
Thumbnail photo: John Finn
Warren Mass is editor of the Bulletin of The John Birch Society. This article originally appeared at JBS.org and is reprinted here with permission.
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Link Radio corp Type 2442 console
Talk about anything that doesn't fit in a topic below - Also used for board announcements.
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Link Radio corp Type 2442 console
Hello all, I am a firefighter here in NC and my hobby is collecting and displaying vintage public safety radios and dispatch consoles. I recently purchased something off Ebay that I am really needing some help with. It's a 40's/ early 50's Link Radio Corp Type 2442 desktop radio console. The chassis is tagged: Radio transmitter-receiver type 2365 ED-2. The chassis is removable and is held into a mounting plate by two thumbscrews. I have been told that the chassis is possibly a mobile unit converted for base use. There is a separate AC/DC power supply that plugs into the chassis via a large 12 pin rectangular plug and the front panel meters, switches, lights and speaker are on a common harness that plugs into the power supply and chassis via two round 9 pin vacuum tube type plugs. This console is actually pretty amazing in it's modular design for something made in this time period. I have tried researching this console online and there is very little on anything made by Link. From what little that I have found, Anything Link is fairly rare and Fred Link was apparently somewhat secretive about his radios. The console needs a complete electronics restoration and there are a few tubes missing but without some service manuals or schematics it's going to be really tough to restore. I am hoping that someone out there may have these items or just some good general information on this console. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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What to do about Medicare will be a big election issue
WASHINGTON — When GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told conservative activists last week that he wants to "save" Medicare by turning it into a program that would give seniors a defined sum to shop for the health plans of their choice, he teed up an issue that has the potential to sway millions of voters, especially seniors, in November.
Days later, President Barack Obama repeated his own pledge to preserve the program, proposing as part of his 2013 budget plan to reduce Medicare's spending growth by about $300 billion over 10 years but to keep its guaranteed, specified benefits intact.
"What I will not support are efforts to turn Medicare into a voucher," the president wrote in his budget proposal.
Medicare is likely to play a key role in this year's elections, from the presidential race to contests for Congress. While young and middle-age voters are more focused on the economy, "seniors are single-issue voters when it comes to Social Security and Medicare," said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg, the senior vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a research and consulting firm. "They are such an important constituency in elections because they are very reliable voters."
That's why every one of the top vote-getters among the Republican presidential contenders, as well as Obama, has cast himself as a protector of the popular insurance program that provides health care for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans. But in the face of dire warnings about the program's long-term sustainability, every one of them also has embraced ways to lower costs that have proved to be radioactive in previous elections.
Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 2010 after hammering the president and his party for a health care law that they said cut $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years. That year, the GOP received the largest share of votes from people older than 60 in any election since the 1980s, according to Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Those votes could be up for grabs after nearly every House Republican, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, voted for a plan last year that built on the health care law's $500 billion in spending reductions and went much further.
The plan, which the Senate didn't take up, eventually would have abolished traditional fee-for-service Medicare for those now 55 and younger and replaced it with a premium-support system that would limit federal spending. Currently, Medicare pays whatever it takes to provide beneficiaries with a defined set of benefits.
Democrats targeted the Ryan plan in a special congressional election in a conservative upstate New York district last spring and scored an upset victory, citing government reports that seniors would pay dramatically more for health care under his plan.
Now, with Romney and fellow Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich embracing many of Ryan's ideas, Democrats are hoping to use that as a cudgel once again in November.
"Democrats will try very hard to link Romney with Ryan and whatever is negative about it," Blendon said.
So far, Romney has had a tough balancing act, trying to avoid positions that would alienate swing voters in November while attempting to align himself with Republican conservatives who embraced Ryan's plan.
"Ryan is a hero to conservative Republicans," Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. "They see him as a brave guy who took on a program that is going bankrupt."
Speaking in South Carolina last month, Romney reiterated support for Ryan's ideas about reducing Medicare spending, calling them "absolutely right on. Give people choice. Let competition exist in our Medicare program."
Last November, Romney unveiled his own premium-support plan, which, like Ryan's, would provide a set amount to people to purchase coverage. Romney has promised that future seniors who like the fee-for-service Medicare plan can opt for that, instead of purchasing private insurance. He's offered no details about how that option would work, however, and critics say that capping the government's contribution would mean that beneficiaries are likely to have to pay more for the same benefits.
In December, the candidate embraced a similar proposal from Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Beneficiaries would be on the hook for paying the difference if they sought more expensive plans; however, Romney said that all plans would have to offer coverage that was at least comparable to what the program provides today.
Supporting the Ryan-Wyden compromise has removed the "bull's-eye" target from Romney's back that "Democrats had planned to use," since he'd preserve traditional fee-for-service Medicare for those who want it, said Gail Wilensky, a campaign adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and the head of the Medicare program in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Greenberg, however, doesn't think so. She predicts that Democrats will attack Romney in the general election for his statement last year that he'd vote for the original Ryan plan.
"It doesn't matter that he now supports Ryan-Wyden," she said.
Santorum also has been a vocal advocate of Ryan's ideas, and he's made no effort to soften the House budget plan to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters; for instance, by keeping traditional Medicare as an option.
"It is a plan that says innovation with insurance companies and consumers drive down costs, instead of having this government-run Medicare system. ... You have Medicare driving the entire health care system in this country, and it's crushing it," he said last month in Iowa.
While Santorum praised the House Republican plan, Gingrich initially called it radical "right-wing social engineering. That is too big a jump. I think what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options," he said on NBC last May. Gingrich later commended Ryan for partnering with Wyden to keep Medicare's fee-for-service as an option.
Obama, meanwhile, has spent the last two years trying to counter the Republican narrative that the 2010 health law cuts Medicare coverage. He says the law slows the rate of spending increases — largely at the expense of medical providers — and gives seniors new benefits, such as free preventive services and lower prescription costs.
The president says he wants to preserve Medicare's guarantee to cover set benefits, but to curb costs through greater efficiencies, such as strengthening incentives for doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to give high-quality care and cutting expenditures for those who get care through the Medicare Advantage program. One-quarter of Medicare recipients are enrolled in these mostly private managed-care plans, and the government spends on average 7 percent more per beneficiary in those plans.
In his new budget proposal, Obama seeks additional savings by increasing premiums for higher-income beneficiaries, raising the price for some home health care services and increasing efforts to reduce fraud and waste. People who buy the most generous policies to supplement Medicare coverage, called Medigap, would pay a surcharge because such policies have been found to increase the use of health care.
The tug of war for the senior vote will only intensify as the general election draws closer. Senior voters turn out in much larger numbers than younger Americans do. Thirty-four percent of voters in the 2010 congressional elections were 60 or older, even though this age group accounts for only 24 percent of the adult population, Blendon wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine in July.
"The views of older voters are particularly important," he added, "because this large voting bloc swings in its loyalty between the political parties, turns out to vote at a higher rate than members of other age groups and cares about health care and Medicare as voting issues."
(Kaiser Health News reporter Jessica Marcy contributed to this report.)
(Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy organization that isn't affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
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South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
Print version ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.103 n.7-8 Pretoria Jul./Aug. 2007
Hyper-resistance to arsenic in bacteria isolated from an antimony mine in South Africa
E. Botes; E. Van Heerden; D. Litthauer
Department of Biotechnology, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa
Soil and water sites were sampled at a South African antimony mine with elevated levels of arsenic due to the refining process. Enriched media yielded two pure bacterial cultures able to grow in both arsenite and arsenate. These were identified as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia SA Ant 15 and Serratia marcescens SA Ant 16. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia SA Ant 15 was resistant to 10 mmol l1 arsenite and 20 mmol l1 arsenate, whereas S. marcescens SA Ant 16 grew in 15 mmol l1 arsenite and in up to 500 mmol l1 arsenate, making it the most arsenic-resistant organism described to date. During growth, addition of arsenate or arsenite anions adversely affected biomass production and maximum specific growth rate and, in some instances, longer lag phases were induced. Reduction of arsenate to arsenite partly accounted for the high tolerance of the bacteria to arsenate. Our results suggest the use of these hyper-resistant bacteria as remediation agents in areas where arsenic contamination is prohibitively high.
Arsenic is widely distributed throughout the earth's crust, ranging from trace levels up to hundreds of milligrams per kilogram. Sources of contamination include erosion of local rocks, industrial effluents, various commercial processes and combustion of fossil fuels.1 Arsenic can exist in several oxidation states, but under aerobic conditions arsenate [As(V)] predominates, while in reducing environments arsenite [As(III)] is the dominant species. A change in the oxidation state of arsenic alters the solubility of the oxyanion, with potential applications in the bio-remediation industry.2 Although As(III) is considered to be up to 1000 times more toxic,3 and is generally more mobile, than As(V),2 it readily forms precipitates with metal sulphides4 or hydrous oxides of iron5 and can therefore be removed from solution. Microorganisms have a variety of ways to cope with high levels of arsenic, ranging from reduced uptake,6 methylation7 and adsorption,8 to dissimilatory arsenate respiration.9 The most widespread and best-described mechanism is reduction of arsenate and extrusion of the resulting arsenite by soluble reductases and membrane-associated pumps.1013 The aim of the study reported here was to isolate and identify bacteria from an arsenic-impacted environment, to determine the level of arsenic resistance and to establish if resistance is due to the reduction of arsenate to arsenite.
Materials and methods
See Appendix
Enrichments and identification
Two bacterial cultures, resistant to antimony and arsenate, were selected from the isolates. Near full-length 16S rDNA sequences were deposited in the NCBI database under accession numbers DQ 079059 and AY551938. BLAST (v 2.2.13) analysis, with entries available at the EMBL, GenBank, and Ribosomal Data Project (release 9.35) databases, retrieved an optimum alignment (98% identity) with the 16S rDNA of Serratia marcescens (AB061685) and (99% identity) with the 16S rDNA of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (AJ131114), respectively. The phylogenetic tree (Fig. 1) illustrates the relatedness of these isolates to their counterparts. API and Biolog testing confirmed isolate SA Ant 16 as Serratia marcescens with a similarity index of 0.58. It was not possible to make a definitive identification using biochemical testing for isolate SA Ant 15.
The bacteria exhibited varying tolerance levels for both arsenite and arsenate. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia SA Ant 15 grew in up to 10 mmol l1 arsenite and 20 mmol l1 arsenate (see Fig. A in supplementary material online), while Serratia marcescens SA Ant 16 was able to grow in 15 mmol l1 arsenite and in up to 500 mmol l1 arsenate (Fig. B in online supplement). Both the specific growth rate and biomass yield were severely inhibited for S. maltophilia SA Ant 15 in the presence of arsenite. Arsenate inhibited growth less than arsenite, as indicated by specific growth rate and biomass yield, but longer lag phases were observed with the addition of increasing arsenic concentrations. For S. marcescens SA Ant 16, addition of arsenite resulted in a decrease in both specific growth rate and biomass up to a threshold concentration of 10 mmol l1 with a sharp decline in both these parameters at higher concentrations. As for S. maltophilia SA Ant 15, addition of arsenate resulted in a proportionately lengthened lag phase. A linear decrease in total biomass yield was observed as well as a decline in specific growth rate up to 500 mmol l1 arsenate. Results are summarized in Table 1.
Arsenate reduction by resting cells
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia SA Ant 15 removed 100% of the arsenate at a rate of 92.4 µmol l1 h1per mg cells over the first 2 h. Of all the arsenate removed, 25% of this removal rate could be attributed to reduction to arsenite at 4 µmol l1h1 per mg cells. Serratia marcescens SA Ant 16 removed 50% of the arsenate and, in total, 15% of the arsenate added was reduced to arsenite at approximately 2 µmol l1h1 per mg cells (Fig. 2). No chemical reduction was observed in control experiments.
Two pure bacterial cultures, hyper-resistant to arsenate and arsenite, were isolated and identified as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia SA Ant 15 and Serratia marcescens SA Ant 16. The bacteria tolerated exceptionally high concentrations of arsenate (up to 500 mmol l1 or ~37 500 ppm) and high concentrations of arsenite (up to 15 mmol l1 or ~1125 ppm) during growth. A model bacterium such as E. coli has been shown to grow in up to 50 mmol l1 arsenate,20 while bacteria isolated from arsenic-contaminated sites in New Zealand were unable to grow in arsenate concentrations exceeding 50 mmol l1 (C.R. Anderson, pers. comm.). While arsenic concentrations in soils naturally vary from 0.1 ppm to 1000 ppm,21 at the collection site the range is between 10 ppm and 30 ppm. Arsenic becomes concentrated to up to 200 ppm during the refining process,22 which is still much lower than the tolerance level of the hyper-resistant bacteria isolated from samples collected from this site. Both the bacterial strains described in this study were resistant to these exceptionally high concentrations without prior exposure to such high levels of arsenic, suggesting that this trait is genetically intrinsic. This raises interesting questions as to the evolutionary processes and pressures that would sustain a characteristic such as this in an environment where it would seem redundant.
Biomass yield, growth rate and duration of lag phase depended on the type of oxyanion enrichment. Both isolates were more sensitive to arsenite and increasing concentrations of arsenate caused longer growth lag phases, lower biomass yields and lower growth rates. It is important to interpret these results in the context of a dynamic system where the combined effects of the oxyanion and the transformation products are biologically significant. Other factors, such as a change in external pH during growth,23 may also contribute.
Both bacteria were able to reduce arsenate and extrude the resulting arsenite, but a significant portion of arsenate removed (6977%) was not recovered as arsenite. The differences between the removal and reduction rates indicate additional mechanisms of arsenate removal, such as adsorption of the negatively charged arsenic ions by oppositely charged amino groups in the bacterial cell walls,24,25 methylation following reduction of arsenate to arsenite,26 or sequestration by a range of cysteine-rich peptides such as γ-glutamylcysteine (γ-EC) and glutathione.26,27
The hyper-resistant bacteria described in this report thus have significant potential for bioremediation in environments with excess arsenic and its products.
This work was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation.
1. Smedley P.L. and Kinniburgh D.G. (2002). A review of the source, behavior and distribution of arsenic in natural waters. Appl. Geochem. 17, 517568. [ Links ]
2. Ahman D., Krumholtz L.R., Hemond H.F., Lovley D.R. and Morel F.M.M. (1997). Microbial mobilization of arsenic from sediments of the Aberjona Watershed. Environ. Sci. Technol. 31, 29232930. [ Links ]
3. Dowdle P.R., Laverman A.M. and Oremland R.S. (1996). Bacterial reduction of arsenic(V) to arsenic(III) in anoxic sediments. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 62, 16641669. [ Links ]
4. Newman D.K., Beveridge T.J. and Morel F.M.M. (1997). Precipitation of arsenic trisulfide by Desulfotomaculum auripigmentum. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 63, 20222028. [ Links ]
5. Rittle K.A., Drever J.I. and Colberg P.J. (1995). Precipitation of arsenic during sulfate reduction. Geomicrobiol. J. 13, 112. [ Links ]
6. Cervantes C., Ji G., Ramirez J.L. and Silver S. (1994). Resistance to arsenic compounds in microorganisms. FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 15, 355367. [ Links ]
7. Turpein R., Pantsar-Kallio M., Haggblom M. and Kairesalo T. (1999). Influence of microbes on the mobilization, toxicity and biomethylation of arsenic in soil. Sci. Tot. Environ. 236, 173180. [ Links ]
8. Say R., Yilmaz N. and Denizli A. (2003). Biosorption of cadmium, lead, mercury, and arsenic ions by the fungus Penicillium purpurogenum. Sep. Sci. Technol. 38, 20392053. [ Links ]
9. Stolz J.F. and Oremland R.S. (1999). Bacterial respiration of arsenic and selenium. FEMS Microbiol. Rev. 23, 615627. [ Links ]
10. Rosen B.P., Weigel U., Monticello R.A. and Edwards B.P.F. (1991). Molecular analysis of an anion pump: purification of the ArsC protein. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 284, 381385. [ Links ]
11. Ji G., Garber E.A.E., Armes L.G., Chen C-M., Fuchs J.A. and Silver S. (1994). Arsenate reductase of Staphylococcus aureus plasmid pI258. Biochemistry 33, 72947299. [ Links ]
12. Bennett M.S., Guan Z., Laurberg M. and Su X-D. (2001). Bacillus subtilis arsenate reductase is structurally and functionally similar to low molecular weight protein tyrosine phosphatases. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 1357713582. [ Links ]
13. Mukhopadhyay R., Shi J. and Rosen B.P. (2000). Purification and characterization of Acr2p, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae arsenate reductase. J. Biol. Chem. 275, 2114921157. [ Links ]
14. Lane D.J., Weisberg W.G., Barns S.M. and Pelletier D.A. (1991). 16S ribosomal DNA amplification for phylogenetic study. J. Bacteriol. 173, 697703. [ Links ]
15. Thompson J.D., Gibson T.J. Plewniak F., Jeanmougin F. and Higgins D.G. (1997). The ClustalX windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucl. Acids Res. 24, 48764882. [ Links ]
16. Altschul S.F., Gish W., Miller W., Myers E.W. and Lipman D.J. (1990). Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215, 403410. [ Links ]
17. Cole J.R., Chai B., Farris R.J., Wang Q., Kulam S.A., McGarrell D.M., Garrity G.M. and Tiedje J.M. (2005). The Ribosomal Database Project (RDP-II): sequences and tools for high-throughput rRNA analysis. Nucl. Acids Res. 33 (Database Issue), D294D296. [ Links ]
18. Swofford DL (2002) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and other Methods) Version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. [ Links ]
19. Meerow A.W., Lehmiller D.J. and Clayton J.R. (2003). Phylogeny and biogeography of Crinum L. (Amaryllidaceae) inferred from nuclear and limited plastid non-coding DNA sequences. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 141, 349363 [ Links ]
20. Silver S., Budd K., Leahy K.M., Shaw W.V., Hammond D., Novick R.P., Willsky G.R., Malamy M.H. and Rosenberg H. (1981). Inducible plasmid-determined resistance to arsenate, arsenite, and antimony(III) in Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. J. Bact. 146, 983996. [ Links ]
21. Cullen W.R. and Reimer K.J. (1989). Arsenic speciation in the environment. Chem. Rev. 89, 713764. [ Links ]
22. Davis D.R., Paterson D.B. and Griffiths D.H.C. (1986). Antimony in South Africa. J. S. Afr. Inst. Min. Metall. 86, 173193. [ Links ]
23. Anderson C.R. and Cook G.M. (2004). Isolation and characterization of arsenate-reducing bacteria from arsenic-contaminated sites in New Zealand. Curr. Microbiol. 48, 341347. [ Links ]
24. Bai R.S. and Abraham T.E. (2003). Studies on chromium(VI) adsorption-desorption using immobilized fungal biomass. Bioresour. Technol. 87, 1726. [ Links ]
25. Urrutia M.M. and Beveridge T.M. (1994). Formation of fine-grained metal and silicate precipitates on a bacterial surface (Bacillus subtilis). Chem. Geol. 116, 261280. [ Links ]
26. Brunken H.S., Nehrhorn A. and Breunig H.J. (1996). Isolation and characterization of a new arsenic methylating bacterium from soil. Microbiol. Res. 151, 3741. [ Links ]
27. Dhankher O.M., Li Y., Rosen B.P., Shi J., Salt D., Senecoff J.F., Sashti N.A. and Meagher R.B. (2002). Engineering tolerance and hyperaccumulation of arsenic in plants by combining arsenate reductase and γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase expression. Nature Biotechnol. 20, 11401145. [ Links ]
This article is accompanied by supplementary material online (see www.sajs.co.za).
Author for correspondence.E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Materials and methods
Soil and water samples were collected aseptically and placed on ice at the mining and refining sites of Consolidated Murchinson Mine near Gravelotte in the Limpopo province of South Africa. Because of the structural similarity between arsenic and antimony and the high concentrations of both at the site, aerobic enrichments were performed in TYG medium at pH 5.8, containing 5 g l1 tryptone (Biolab), 3gl1 yeast extract (Biolab),1gl1 glucose (Holpro) and 100 mmol l1 potassium antimony tartrate (Sigma) for two days at 37ºC. Positive enrichment cultures were transferred into fresh TYG medium supplemented with 100 mmol l1 potassium antimony tartrate and incubated overnight at 37ºC and thereafter streaked on antimony-supplemented plates (100 mmol l1) to obtain pure cultures. These pure cultures were then inoculated into two sets of media, consisting, respectively, of TYG media containing up to 250 mmol l1 arsenate (Na2HAsO4) (BDH Chemicals) and TYG media enriched with up to 100 mmol l1 arsenite (NaAsO2) (BDH Chemicals), and cultured at 37ºC in a rotary shaker at 200 rpm. Two isolates capable of growth in the presence of arsenic were used for further experiments.
Species identification
Genomic DNA was extracted with DNAZOLTM reagent (Gibco BRL), according to the manufacturer's instructions, and 16S rDNA fragments were amplified using universal bacterial primers 27F and 1492R.14 The PCR products were ligated into pGem®T-Easy vector (Pro-mega), transformed into competent E. coli JM109 cells, and plasmids containing inserts were isolated using standard procedures. Sequencing was performed on the 16S rDNA products from both isolates and aligned, using ClustalX (1.83),15 with those of bacteria previously found in the subsurface of mining environments as well as the closest matches revealed with BLAST searches16 and at RDP.17 A strict consensus tree18,19 was constructed and rooted with the outgroup Aquifex pyrophilus. GN2 MicroplatesTM (Biolog, Hayward) and API 20E panels (bioMerieux) were used to confirm the identification.
Minimum inhibitory growth concentration
Bacteria were inoculated into 30 ml TYG media in Erlenmeyer flasks at pH 5.8 and grown at 37ºC. TYG media, enriched with increasing concentrations of arsenite and arsenate, was inoculated with exponential growth phase cells to an OD560 of approximately 0.1. The inoculated cultures were grown with shaking at 37ºC, samples withdrawn hourly and optical density monitored at 560 nm over a 12-h period.
Whole cell arsenate reduction
Bacteria were grown at 37ºC in 100 ml TYG media containing 1 mmol l1 arsenate until late exponential growth phase was reached. Cells were harvested by centrifugation at 8000 × g, washed in 10 mol l1 PIPES buffer, pH 6.5 and resuspended in the same buffer (1:1 w/v). This was then supplemented with glucose (0.2% w/v) and arsenate (10 mmol l1) and incubated at 37ºC. Aliquots were withdrawn, cells pelleted by centrifugation and the supernatant stored at 80ºC until analysis. A negative control, without any cells, was employed to monitor chemical reduction. Arsenic species were separated on a Hamilton PRP X-100 HPLC column (12 mmol l1 H3PO4, pH 3.2 at 1 ml min1, isocratic elution), and both substrate depletion (arsenate) and product formation (arsenite) were monitored at 195 nm.
Supplementary material to:
Botes E., Van Heerden E. and Litthauer D. (2007). Hyper-resistance to arsenic in bacteria isolated from an antimony mine in South Africa. S. Afr. J. Sci. 103, 279281.


text:
FRANKFURT, July 11 (Reuters) - Germany's Siemens has received tentative offers for the postal automation and baggage-handling division being sold in its effort to streamline operations and shed non-core assets, two sources familiar with the transaction said.
The postal operation, which counts the U.S. Postal Service and Deutsche Post among its customers, has benefited from the growing number of consumers shifting to internet shopping.
The baggage-handling side of the business makes both software to track luggage and mechanical equipment such as conveyor belts. It has installed more than 300 baggage-handling systems at airports all over the world.
German private equity firm Triton and U.S. investment groups Gores and Platinum are among those that have handed in bids for the 300 million euro ($386 million) division by the July deadline, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
Siemens, Triton and Citigroup, which is running the auction, declined to comment. Neither Gores nor Platinum were immediately available for comment.
The postal automation and baggage-handling business has annual revenues of about 800 million euros and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of about 60 million euros.
"Interest in the asset has been very robust, although it is not an easy asset," one of the sources said.
One issue for prospective buyers is to line up banks that can fund the debt guarantees that suppliers of the industry's large machinery generally have to provide. These are to cover pre-installation performance guarantees and warranties once the machines have started operating.
The strong credit rating enjoyed by Siemens has meant that the engineering group has provided these at very low cost, said another source familiar with the deal.
A potential buyer would probably have to write a large equity cheque for the postal automation and baggage-handling division - without using large amounts of debt to finance the acquisition - to convince banks to supply the guarantees.
"The transaction could end up in something like a 100 million euros all-equity deal," the source said, adding that the enterprise value of the business is estimated to be about 300 million euros.
The Siemens unit competes with U.S. group Pitney Bowes , Northrop Grumman's French subsidiary Solystic, Japan's NEC, Dutch group Vanderlande and Germany's Beumer.


text:
Understanding Computers: Today and Tomorrow
Course Technology, 2006 - Business & Economics - 703 pages
Give your students a classic, well-rounded introduction to computer concepts with a modern twist! Known for its readability and breadth of topics covered, Understanding Computers: Today and Tomorrow will ensure that students have the comprehensive, current knowledge of computer concepts and issues needed to succeed in our technocentric society. This 11th Edition offers exciting new features and updates to make its content more approachable and meaningful to students.
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text:
What's really keeping you awake
Restless legs syndrome
Symptoms of this neurological disorder include creepy-crawly leg sensations and an uncontrollable urge to move legs. They worsen at night, and moving the legs relieves them temporarily.
What it feels like Every day, often right before she goes to bed, Katy Doench feels the weird tickly feeling in her thighs and toes that has bugged her since she was a child. "I feel as if I have to stretch my muscles, but I can't stretch them far enough to make the weirdness go away," explains the 31-year-old professional quilter in Cincinnati. "Walking up and down the stairs sometimes eases the sensations long enough for me to get to sleep. But there are times when they wake me up every hour all night long."
How to fix it Little is known about what causes RLS, but experts believe iron deficiencies and some drugs such as antihistamines can trigger it. Massages, hot baths and regular exercise offer relief to those with mild cases. Drugs, including anticonvulsants and dopamine agonists (also used for Parkinson's disease), are useful in treating more severe cases. Although Doench won't take meds—she worries about side effects—she has found some respite by taking iron supplements and avoiding antihistamines.
A state of nervousness and tension, it can come with irritability, dizziness, sweating and difficulty concentrating and making decisions. Anxious thoughts can also keep you up nights or wake you up midsleep.
What it feels like "I worry a lot," admits Aimée White, a 27-year-old customer service rep in Riverton, Utah. "About what others around me think, about people judging me." Unfortunately, she occasionally takes her angst to bed with her and awakes before sunrise, her heart racing or tears streaming down her face. "There are times I can calm myself down," she says. "But other times, I can't, and I'll have severe anxiety all day."
How to fix it "Almost all anxiety and mood disorders are connected to insomnia," says John Winkelman, M.D., medical director of the Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. These disorders disrupt sleep cycles, though experts don't fully know why. White eventually sought treatment and was prescribed Zoloft for her anxiety. She also does yoga and posts positive affirmations around her house. Now early-morning panic attacks happen only a few times a year. If you suffer from anxiety, the American Psychological Association can help you find a therapist.
Sleep-related eating disorder
Sleep eaters get up in the middle of the night and chow down—without waking. Often, the only clue to their munching comes the next morning in the form of crumbs.
What it feels like While Alison Perrine, 35, was pregnant six years ago, she developed an odd habit. "I would go to the kitchen in the middle of the night and eat anything I could get my hands on, even things I don't normally eat, like pasta salad with mayo—which I hate," says the marketing coordinator from Branchburg, New Jersey. She blamed pregnancy hunger, but the habit didn't go away after her baby was born.
How to fix it Experts suspect that the hormones and circadian rhythms which regulate hunger and sleep are misaligned in sleep eaters. Treatment can involve behavioral approaches (not having food in the house) and drugs (Zoloft). Perrine takes Clozapine, an antipsychotic, and sleep-eats less often.
Sleep apnea
Snoring and fatigue are major signs of this breathing disorder. It occurs when the muscles and soft tissue in the throat relax, blocking airways. When blood oxygen levels dip too low, the brain wakes you up (cue snoring) to restore normal breathing.
What it feels like For as long as she can remember, Jenny Stamos Kovacs, 31, has needed 10 hours of sleep a night. "By late afternoon, I wanted desperately to sleep," says the writer from Kitchener, Ontario. Then six years ago a boyfriend mentioned the little snorting noises she made while sleeping. "No one had ever told me I snored!" Kovacs says. A few visits with a sleep doctor and a night in a sleep clinic soon proved her snorting was due to sleep apnea.
How to fix it Not all snoring is a sign of trouble, but if you suspect you have apnea, see a specialist: Left unchecked, the disruptions in oxygen flow can lead to stroke or heart disease, warns Lisa Shives, M.D., medical director of Northshore Sleep Medicine in Evanston, Illinois. Sleeping on your side and avoiding alcohol (which relaxes tissues in the throat) can help ease mild apnea. More severe cases call for a continuous positive airway pressure machine, which involves wearing a mask that sends a steady stream of air into your nose or mouth. Kovacs now sleeps with a CPAP machine and reports needing fewer naps.
Sufferers have "sleep attacks," in which they suddenly fall asleep or experience cataplexy, a loss in muscle tone that causes the neck to go slack or knees to buckle.
What it feels like Amy Baker, 29, a stay-at-home mom in Indianapolis, first crumpled to the floor, asleep, four years ago, while holding her infant son. The baby was fine, but she broke her left arm. Three weeks later, she fell asleep while standing again and broke her right arm. Soon she was having 10 to 20 sleep attacks a day.
How to fix it Most narcoleptics have low levels of hypocretin, a neurochemical that keeps the brain alert. Treatment involves strict sleep schedules, to regulate the sleep cycle, and meds (usually stimulants). Xyrem, a nervous system depressant Baker takes, is the only FDA-approved drug that treats cataplexy. "It works," she says. "I don't fall over anymore."


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Something for everyone at Mission Bay on Auckland Anniversary Day.
Over the past 15 years the Mission Bay Arts and Crafts Market has been a twice yearly feature on the Auckland Market scene. The Selwyn Domain (the park around the famous fountain) on Tamaki Drive will be covered in stalls selling art, crafts and gourmet food products.
Around 200 arts and crafts people from all over the North Island will be attending this event and there is have a wide variety of art and crafts, from original paintings, photography and garden art as well as homemade giftware, clothing, many different styles of designer jewellery and a growing area of gourmet and hot food.
You will be surprised with what kinds of unique and interesting products are on offer at affordable prices. The market is a fantastic place to bring the whole family for a day out. You can take in all the amazing stalls as well as a walk on the beach or along the waterfront.
For further information please contact Chris Sutton, email - email@example.com and let me know what you would like to sell or phone 09 630 3643 - evenings.
If you are stallholders selling imported or manufactured goods please do not bother to contact me.


text:
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Mikal is a perfectionist! He was so easy going and he was all for it when I told him I wanted a custom package. I knew then I had to have him as my wedding photographer.
We were lucky enough to work with Mikal under 100 degree weather. Even under the sweltering sun, he kept his cool, made sure our clients were comfortable and still came up with great photos!
I would highly recommend Mikal to anyone who needs engagement and wedding coverage. If your looking for someone with a super cool personality, amazing photos and a comfortable experience, this is your man.
Lok in the Moment is by far the best wedding photographer I've known and have worked with. Mikal is awesome! He delivers exactly what you want and even exceeds many expectations.
Please check out our frequently asked questions page to find answers.


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text:
Meeting Notes 2010 08 24
the 124th meeting of Noisebridge.
Get someone to grab the membership binder now. Get someone to take notes.
- Moderator: Hephaestus
- Note-Taker: Hephaestus
Introduction and Names[edit]
- Anyone new to the meeting/space should stand up and say something cool.
- What Noisebridge is about: We make stuff and so can you!
- A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you!
No Announcements
Financial Report[edit]
Funds in bank: No treasurer's report, couldn't get ahold of lint
Membership Binder[edit]
- Read off any names from the binder for the past month.
- Anyone up for join this week should introduce them selves then leave the area in search of gifts for the rest of the group.
Sai Emrys came up for membership, consensus blocked by Hephaestus.
What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]
One short sentence about each of the following:
- Circuit Hacking Mondays (7PM, 2169)
- Python Mondays (6:30 PM, 2169)
- Linux system administration certification study group 3 PM to 6 PM (turing)
- Linux discussion group 6 PM to 8 PM (turing)
- GameDevelopment - Wednesdays at 6PM
- SCoW craft group - Wednesdays at 7PM
- Machine_Learning - Wednesdays at 9PM
- Programming_for_Poets Gentle introduction to Processing; most Thursdays at 8 if !(5MoF)
- Linux system administration certification study group 3 PM to 6 PM (turing)
- Shop Friday still plans to come back when the shop is done.
- Sensebridge and the EEG group - Sundays at afternoonish (1-2ish) - come to try brain scanning
- Spacebridge - Sundays at 5PM planning meeting this Sunday to decide
- Knots, Go, and Locks! - Sundays 3PM
- Five Minutes of Fame - last week was awesome, let's chillax for a couple of weeks
Project Updates[edit]
Consensus items[edit]
Discussion Items[edit]
We really have no way of removing old/blocked applications from the membership binder?
End of Meeting[edit]
- PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
- Put back the membership binder.
- Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
- Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
- Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
- Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.


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"President Obama ended the Iraq War…Mitt Romney would have left thirty thousand troops there … and called bringing them home 'tragic.' Obama's brought thirty thousand soldiers back from Afghanistan. And has a responsible plan to end the war. Romney calls it Obama's 'biggest mistake.'"
— Voiceover from a new Obama campaign television ad
On the eve of the final presidential debate — which focused on foreign policy — the Obama campaign released a new television ad that uses Mitt Romney's words to indict how he would have handled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the president echoed some of those claims during the debate:
"What I would not have had done was left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. And that certainly would not help us in the Middle East."
— Obama
"I'm sorry, there was an effort on the part of the president to have a status of forces agreement, and I concurred in that, and said that we should have some number of troops that stayed on. That was something I concurred with."
— Romney
But both campaigns have often taken their opponent's words out of context. Is that the case here as well?
The Facts
Ending the war in Iraq was a central Obama campaign promise in the 2008 election. But Romney is correct that the Obama administration tried to negotiate a "status of forces agreement" (SOFA) with the Iraqi government that would have allowed the U.S. to keep troops in Iraq after an earlier agreement reached by the Bush administration lapsed at the end of 2011.
The two sides could not reach agreement on immunity for U.S. troops, but up until the end, the administration was willing to keep 3,000 to 4,000 troops in Iraq. That's less than 10,000, but news reports at the time said that military commanders had wanted to keep 14,000 to 18,000 troops in Iraq. It's unclear how hard Obama pressed for a deal; he only had two conversations with the Iraqi president, leaving most of the negotiations to Vice President Biden.
When Obama announced he was withdrawing all U.S. troops after he failed to reach a new SOFA deal with the Iraqis, Romney criticized the outcome of the negotiations:
"It is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake, and failing by the Obama administration.The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate -- it's more than unfortunate, I think it's tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard won by the men and women who served there."
In other words, the phrase "tragic" referred to the failure to not reach a deal — not bringing the troops home. Here's how Romney put it on Fox News Sunday on Dec. 18, 2011:
"We're, of course, very happy to see our troops come out. But I think you're going to see another lesson learned. I think we're going to find that this president by not putting in place a status in forces agreement with the Iraqi leadership has pulled our troops out in a precipitous way and we should have left 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 personnel there to help transition to the Iraqis' own military capabilities. I'm very concerned in this setting. I hope it works out. But I'm concerned."
That's where the "30,000 troops" comes from — it was an upper range figure. In other interviews, Romney also said he would have preferred to have left 10,000 to 30,000 troops in Iraq. The mid-range of that point, of course, is what military commanders wanted.
In other words, Obama has spun a diplomatic failure — an inability to reach a deal with Iraq — into a "mission accomplished" talking point.
During the debate, in fact, Obama made a dubious claim that having any troops in Iraq "would not help us in the Middle East."
Since the departure of U.S. troops, the United States has lost leverage in Iraq. For instance, Iran uses Iraqi airspace and convoys on the ground to ferry arms and military equipment to the beleaguered regime in Syria — a government that Obama says must fall.
As for Afghanistan, here again we have another out-of-context quote. The ad makes it appear as if Romney is criticizing the plan to withdraw U.S. forces by 2014, calling it Obama's "biggest mistake."
Actually, Romney in a pair of interviews referred to Obama's "biggest mistakes," which included announcing dates when the surge would end and when combat operations would end. Those are tactical questions. Critics say announcing a withdrawal date simply signals to insurgents how long they have to hang in there before the Americans leave; supporters say it motivates the Afghan government to improve its forces. But in any case it is not a criticism of ending the war.
Romney has at times been vague as to whether he would prefer fighting to continue past 2014, but in Monday's debate he said he agreed with the current plan: "We're going to be finished by 2014, and when I'm president, we'll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014."
The Pinocchio Test
The Obama campaign frequently cries foul when it believes Romney has twisted Obama's words. But here the Obama campaign, in a negative way, gives as good as it gets.
Three Pinocchios
Check out our candidate Pinocchio Tracker
Follow The Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook .
Track each presidential candidate's campaign ads


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Alcatraz # 9, Detail, Warden's House, San Francisco Bay, California, 2009
Limited Edition Archival Photograph
Photography by Richard Johnson | Alcatraz # 9, Detail, Warden's House, San Francisco Bay, California, 2009.
To guarantee the highest quality, your piece of art is printed in our atelier by Richard Johnson personally on archival acid free satin photo paper with archival pigment ink. The work is numbered, signed and delivered with two edition stickers and a certificate of authenticity along with detailed framing instructions.
About Richard Johnson, Photographic Artist
(b. 1957, Hackensack, New Jersey) Richard is a Photographic Artist with a disciplined approach to image making since 1991 as one of Canada's preeminent Architectural Photographers. Aided by the rigor of working for many years with a large format 4x5 view camera and sheet film, Richard has adopted a classic visual style influenced by mid-century masters Bernd and Hilla Becher. [+]
// Have a question about this product or framing options? Visit our FAQs, contact us or come by our Gallery located in Toronto.
// If your selection is SOLD OUT, an artist proof may be available. Contact us.


text:
Is There Anything Special About The iPhone 5?
It's been almost a year since Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, with some significant upgrades like Siri voice recognition and both CDMA and GSM compatibility. So today the company announced the latest iteration of the iPhone, but would the iPhone 5 have enough new bells and whistles to make 4S users take a hammer to their old phones in disgust?
As expected, the iPhone 5 will not only work on 4G wireless networks like HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA but is 4G LTE compatible. Of course, this may mean nothing to you if you live in the overwhelming majority of the nation that does not access to LTE yet.
The prices for the iPhone 5 remain the same as for the original 4S: $199 for 16GB; $299 for 32GB; $399 and for 64GB. All of these require two-year contracts with the carrier.
Pre-orders begin Friday Sept. 14 and the device ships Sept. 21.
The phone's exterior is made entirely of glass and aluminum, and the company claims it's not only the lightest and thinnest iPhone yet at 18% skinnier and 20% lighter than the 4S, it's also the thinnest smartphone in the world.
The 4-inch Retina display has a 1136 × 640 resolution and a full 16 x 9 aspect ratio. The device is taller than previous iPhones. "It's because of your hand," said Apple exec Phil Schiller. "It should fit there."
"You see more of your email in mail. Your calendar shows more events," he added.
With the wider aspect ratio and 40% more color saturation, the new display should work better for streaming videos and gives some apps more room to play around with.
Schiller also claimed the display "is the most accurate display in the industry. The touch sensors are integrated right into the display itself. We removed a layer and made it sharper. This is the world's most advanced display."
The iPhone 5 is also capable of faster WiFi connections than previous iterations with 2.4ghz and 5ghz on 802.11n added to the device.
Apple says the new A6 chip doubles the speed of the CPU and graphics on the iPhone 5.
"It's a huge jump in performance, but 22% smaller," says Schiller.
The battery should allow for eight straight hours of web browsing over LTE networks.
The iPhone 5 camera is now 8 megapixels and Schiller claims that other camera upgrades allow for 40% faster image capturing. He also showed off a new built-in panorama mode that stitches together photos. There are currently any number of third-party apps that do this, but this appears to be included with the device.
And of course there is FaceTime Over Cellular, which allows users to use the native video chat app over their wireless connection. It had previously only been available for use over WiFi.
Sure to be of annoyance to some people is Apple's decision to finally do away with the wide 30-pin connectors that have been associated with iOS devices for years. But rather than go the industry standard with a micro USB connection, Apple is using a connector it dubs "Lightning."
There will of course be clunky adaptors for people who have purchased any number of 30-pin based accessories over the last half-decade.
iOS 6 has a new feature called Passbook, that appears to allow users to make certain things — boarding passes, movie tickets — available from the lock screen, rather than requiring them to search through the phone for them.
The updated OS also has built-in, cloud-based photo sharing that allows you to pick images and then select the contacts you wish to share them with, rather than sending a photo via text or through a third-party app.
Like its predecessor, the iPhone 5 will be available in black and white.
Earlier in the press conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that over 400 million iOS devices have been sold to date.
He claims that even though the market has been flooded with tablets in the last year, the iPad now has 68% of the market share in the U.S., up 6% from a year ago.
What's more, Cook says that iPads account for 91% of web traffic from tablets.
"I don't know what these other tables are doing," he zinged, "They must be in warehouses or on store shelves, or maybe in someone's drawer."
Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.


text:
(CNN) -- If there's one thing Quincy Jones can't stand, it's people without a sense of history.
Music producer and composer Quincy Jones says he wants to encourage arts education in the United States.
Particularly musical history.
"I was in Seattle about a month ago, and I asked a kid [at a local high school], 'What do you think about Louis Armstrong?' And he said, 'I've heard the name,' " Jones says in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. "I said, 'What do you think about Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and Coltrane?' He said, 'I've never heard of them.'
"And that hurts me a lot. Because it's easier to get where you're going if you know where you came from."
Jones, who was in Washington to accept yet another honor in a life that's been filled with accolades -- in this case, an Inspire Award from AARP The Magazine for his work as a poverty fighter -- knows exactly how he got to be where he is. The producer, composer, arranger and music industry eminence grise has made versatility and hard work his life's guiding principles.
When he was 14, Jones met a 16-year-old Ray Charles. By the time Jones was 18, he was playing in Lionel Hampton's band.
He produced Lesley Gore's hit records, including "It's My Party," and arranged for Count Basie and Frank Sinatra. He was nominated for an Oscar for his "In Cold Blood" score (one of seven Academy Award nominations), wrote music for "Roots" and then produced Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall," "Thriller" and "Bad."
All this and charitable work through his Quincy Jones Foundation.
Even today, at 75, he has a number of projects brewing, including a miniseries on Armstrong, a film on Brazil's Carnival, a Tony Bennett-Stevie Wonder duets album and an entry in Las Vegas, Nevada's restaurant business.
One look through Jones' new book, "The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions" (Insight Editions), shows how Q -- the nickname Sinatra gave him -- found his way. See some of the season's other great coffee-table books »
The book, which arrives seven years after Jones' revealing autobiography, is practically a Q scrapbook. There's a photo of Jones recording Dinah Washington; a copy of the lead sheet of "We Are the World"; a map of Jones' exhausting trip through Europe in 1960, a tour that left him almost $150,000 in debt.
The material is richly packaged and cleverly designed, with some in the form of replicas of record covers and correspondence.
Ironically, given his sense of history, it wasn't Jones who saved this treasure-trove. He gives credit to his brother and sister-in-law, who "saved everything."
"I used to write a log every day when I was starving to death in New York in the early '50s -- every little arrangement, because we were surviving on that," he says. "They had all of that material. I had no idea they saved all that. I move too fast to do all that," he laughs.
But he remains passionate, particularly about music and history. He has hopes Barack Obama will appoint a secretary of the arts. "Our music is the most widely imitated music on the planet, and we're the only country without a minister of culture. ... All over the world they understand our music better than we do."
For his part, he's doing the best to pass on his knowledge -- and keep moving. Looking at "The Complete Quincy Jones," he says, was eye-opening.
"It startled me. It still does. [You look at the index], and you say, how did all this happen? ... It's an astounding experience.
"And what's strange about it," he adds, "is I feel like I'm just starting."
All About Quincy Jones • Frank Sinatra • Music


text:
Brian E. Walsh necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 165 diseños de 44 diseñadores freelance.
Agile Technology Group
Highly disciplined engineers collaborating with customers on a daily basis is the core principal of Agile Technology Group. We recognize that requirements and environments change often and we view our management of that volatility as a core competency. By frequently interacting with our customers and maintaining agile development principals our firm is able to adapt to environmental shifts. Our adaptability and agility gives us an edge on other firms that are often tied down with outdated software development practices.
ATG targets prime contractors to provide engineering services as a subcontractor
Regarding the logo... Agile Technology Group (ATG) like something that's 1 color and simple. ATG likes logos like:
ATG is looking for a logo that's just a picture. ATG can optionally add our name underneath in some kind of font. In that sense ATG is looking at the Telcordia boat
or the Sun 4S think rather than logos like Nikon (where the name is present) or Intel (also where the name is part of the logo).
ATG thinks of logos like the NBA, MLB, WWF, Toyota, BestBuy (yellow tag), Apple and like them. They are just pictures without a company name. Please present your
designs with and without a name under or to the left/right of the logo.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
Interest Calculated
Loan Amount: $500
* Please Note: These are not payment amounts. Figures shown represent the total interest you will pay with a bi-weekly pay frequency
** High-interest loans should be paid off as soon as possible to save money
How Do Installment Loans Work
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All you need to bring into us to process the loan is:
- State issued ID
- Proof of income/most recent paystub
- Proof of address dated in the last 30 days
FOR ONLINE FUNDING: A checking account is necessary for us to deposit money directly into your account. We will issue the funds transfer to your account immediately. It could take up to 24 hours for the bank to process that transfer. We take all steps to get the funds right into your account as fast as possible. From start to finish, this process is completely confidential and secure.
How Much Does a Loan Cost?
If you only need the loan for 3 days then you only pay 3 days worth of interest! Checkout how much a $500 loan costs above! At Dollar Loan Center, YOU are in charge of how much interest you pay! Be sure to pay it back as soon as you can for the best savings!
How To Make Payments:
There are various alternatives for repayment of your Nevada short-term loans:
With your Nevada installment loan, you can make your principal and interest payment, based upon the date you receive your paycheck, until your loan is paid in full. You can pay your Nevada installment loans all at once, make minimum payments, or increase your payments so that you can pay down your loan more quickly, reducing your interest fees. You can pay off your Nevada installment loans without any prepayment penalties. Our online members area allows you to see your account balance 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
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Disclaimer: Licensed by the Nevada Financial Institutions Division. Loan charges are based on a 65-week, $500 loan with 31 bi-weekly payments of $42.42 each, and a final payment of $42.33 with an APR of 199.99%. The actual APR on your loan may be higher or lower, depending on the amount you borrow and the payment schedule. These calculations are based on an example of a typical bi-weekly loan. In this scenario, the customer has a bi-weekly pay frequency with his first pay day after 14 days from the loan date. The amount of the finance charge is $857.35. Please note, the aforementioned finance charge is the total amount of interest that would be paid if the loan is kept out for the full 65-week term and all payments made are the minimum payment and made on their scheduled due dates. Loans may be repaid early without penalty. Loan approval and loan terms are based on the lender's underwriting standards and a review of the applicants' creditworthiness. Applicants must provide proof of employment or reliable income and valid state issued I.D. Customer must meet the normal loan qualifications. To review loan qualifications visit us at dontbebroke.com. Certain limitations may apply. Loans are subject to approval.
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Season Eight - Episode Descriptions
Episode 9 - "The Gang Dines Out" (Airs December 13, 10:00 pm e/p) - Every member of The Gang has something to celebrate at Guigino's, Philly's finest eatery. But when Mac and Dennis' private dinner is interrupted by an unexpected sighting of Frank and Charlie, the in-fighting begins. Dee turns up at a table for one, and over the course of the night, the "one-ups-manship" soars to new heights. Written by Mehar Sethi; directed by Matt Shakman.


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freemarkethotels necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 58 diseños de 21 diseñadores freelance.
We're building a new travel price comparison site aimed at couples called NoYouDoIt.com. This site will ask a selection of question to a couple (where you want to go, how much to spend, etc.) and recommend 9 hotels, 3 for him, 3 for her, and 3 which are a compromise.
Target audience is couples. Both partners need to interact with the site.
The website design we will post as a separate project once the logo is done but it will be very uncluttered clean and simple. Think along the lines of twitter, iPhone. The image we're trying to put across is simple, quick, accurate, friendly advice. Also think about the name and what it means.
Site we like; simonseeks.com, twavel.com, http://www.tidysongs.com/screenshots, iphone aplications
We're only looking for a logo at this stage, so get designing and we look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Just one more thing to help explain the site;
Want to find a Hotel?
Want to sift your way through hundreds of options trying to find something that both you and your partner will agree on?
Want to search loads of booking sites trying to find the best price?
No you do it.com
When we do it...
We look at what you want and what your partner wants.
We choose 3 hotels for each of you then we choose 3 that are a compromise you'll both like
We search all the best hotel booking sites and find the best prices for those hotels
When we do it, you save both time and money.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Win It: POND'S Luminous Clean Makeup Remover Towelettes./
I told you about my new favorite makeup remover cloths, and I knew I had to share some with you. Luckily, my friends over at POND'S said I could give away 5 packs of their new Luminous Clean Wet Cleansing Towelettes!
The POND'S Luminous Clean Wet Cleansing Towelettes take off a days worth of makeup, dirt and grime with just a few wipes of this heavy duty, yet gentle cleansing cloth. I use one at the end of the day before I go onto my night time skin care routine. They are super soft and feel great on my skin.
They are so easy to use that you really have no excuse but to use one at the end of the day to get your skin fresh and clean before bed. Now 5 lucky readers will get to try these wonderful makeup remover cloths and can win one 30 pack of POND'S Luminous Clean Wet Cleansing Towelettes. To enter, leave me a comment telling me why you want to win. Make sure to leave your email address in the comment form (not in the comment!) so I have a way to contact you in case you win. Then, on October 12th, I will randomly select 5 winners! Please read the complete rules below and leave a comment to enter now.
The POND"S Luminous Clean Wet Cleansing Towelettes Sweepstakes (the "Sweepstakes") is intended for participation only in the United States (excluding Rhode Island) and shall be construed according to, and governed exclusively by, United States law. Do not participate in the Sweepstakes if you are not a legal resident of the United States (excluding Rhode Island) physically located in the United States (other than in Rhode Island) at the time of entry or do not fall within the eligibility requirements set forth in these official rules.
PROMOTION DESCRIPTION: The Sweepstakes begins on or about October 2, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time ("EST") and ends on or about October 12, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. EST (the "Promotion Period"). By participating in the Sweepstakes, each entrant unconditionally accepts and agrees to comply with and abide by these Official Rules and the decisions of Beautiful Makeup Search and POND's ("Sponsor"), which shall be final and binding in all respects. Sponsor reserves the right to modify or terminate sweepstakes if conditions arise that compromise its integrity or intended play.
ELIGIBILITY: Only legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia (excluding Rhode Island) who are eighteen (18) years of age or older and located in the United States and the District of Columbia (excluding Rhode Island) at the time of entry are eligible to enter the Sweepstakes. Employees of Sponsor and Sponsor's advertiser partners and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, distributors, retailers, sales representatives, advertising and promotion agencies and each of their respective officers, directors and employees (and immediate family members and those persons living in the same household of any such officers, directors and employees) (collectively, the "Promotion Entities"), are ineligible to enter the Sweepstakes or win the prize. Subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Void in Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, all U.S. territories and possessions and overseas military installations, and where prohibited.
TO ENTER: Leave a comment on this post telling me why you want to win. 5 winners will be randomly chosen on or about October 12, 2012 and be notified by email left by entrant in the comment form. Winner has 48 hours to respond or prize will be forfeited. All decisions by the sponsor are final.
PRIZE DELIVERY: Sweepstakes prize will be delivered within 3 weeks of sweepstakes promotion period ending. Sponsor cannot be held responsible for the prize once it leaves them for delivery.
By entering this sweepstakes, you agree to all official rules.
Congratulations to the following randomly selected winners: Babs, Melanie, Ro, Jordyn and Dee. All winners have been notified. Thanks!


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We strive to maintain the best and most comprehensive inventory of quality Pre-Owned vehicles including used cars, trucks and SUVs from various manufacturers.
Browse Pre-Owned Specials for up-to-date promotions, or check out Brampton Auto Mall's Featured Vehicles, highlighting select vehicles from our entire inventory.
If we do not currently stock your ideal vehicle, simply complete the CarFinder form and Brampton Auto Mall will begin the search for you!


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Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney have joined the ranks of Hollywood A-listers who have donated $1 million or more to aid Haiti earthquake victims, a list that includes Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
Clooney will officially give away $1 million at the star-studded multi-network "Hope for Haiti" telethon he's organized for later this evening, Usmagazine.com reports.
DiCaprio has earmarked $1 million for the Clinton Bush Haiti fund, a rep for the Hollywood A-lister tells Us.
In the aftermath of Haiti's devastating earthquake, a parade of celebrities has opened up their wallets to contribute to relief efforts.
Many will appear on Clooney's "Hope for Haiti" telethon, which is being broadcast between 8-10 p.m. on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and CNN, among other networks.
Bullock announced last week she would give $1 million to Doctors Without Borders' emergency operation in Port-au-Prince.
Victoria's Secret model Bundchen donated $1.5 million to the Red Cross, while Madonna gave $250,000 to Partners in Health, a Haitian health care provider.
Earlier, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders to help Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake.
They were at the fore of a chorus of stars calling for help for Haiti that also included Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller, Wyclef Jean and several others.
Jean -- who is set to co-host tonight's telethon from New York -- has led a massive fund raising effort to aid his homeland, where he arrived shortly after the quake struck.
Earlier this week, Jean tearfully denied using funds from his "Yele" charity for past personal benefit. Afterward, Russell Simons and a host of celebrities rushed to Jean's defense.
Other stars who have signed up to participate in tonight's telethon include Pitt and DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Jon Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna will be among the performers on the show.


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Search for hotels in Heathrow on Expedia.co.in. You can easily find your hotels in Heathrow using one of the methods below:
Explore London's top attractions when you book a flight to Heathrow Airport (LHR).
Fly into the busiest airport in the United Kingdom, and you'll find yourself just 15 miles west of central London. Because the airport is on the outskirts of all London's hottest attractions, you can start your adventures as soon as your flight lands. Hop in a gondola on the London Eye, check the time at Big Ben, and catch your favorite Shakespeare performance as the Globe Theatre. Stroll through Hyde Park, stand at the gates of Buckingham Palace, and then retreat to one of the nearby Heathrow Airport hotels.
Here at Expedia.co.in, we're committed to helping you find lodging within easy access of the runway and famous landmarks. When you're looking to make reservations on the go, use our mobile booking app and discover our cheap deals on hotels near Heathrow Airport. Sort through accommodations with restaurants, fitness centers, meeting rooms, and concierge services, all within your price range. Once you've got your heart set on the ideal lodging, book it, and then reserve our cheap flights to London. When you make all your travel arrangements here today, you'll be all set to fly into Smoke City tomorrow.


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August come to us with beautiful and powerful Leo Constellation.
So, let's see! :icontruesmiles:
Not all natives of Leo were born to lead the country, but are more likely than any other zodiac sign to gain prestige and influence and succeed to play the lead role. Lions are able not only to lead but also to love. People born under this zodiac sign, suffer more if they are not respected or admired. They are willing, have high moral qualities, are honest and sincere in their intentions.
For natives of Leo (23 July – 22 August) the Universe is a great scene to play a show.
Ideogram of Leo zodiac sign, symbolizes tail, head and mane of a lion.
Leo is a masculine sign of fire, predominantly physical, active, ruled by Sun.This powerful influence enhances, authority, will, dete


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Bitter Music
There was a technical snafu at the 24-Hour Plays recently and to entertain an irritated crowd, Ethan Hawke took to the stage with his guitar and performed a song he wrote "while shooting a movie in Paris during his divorce."
Music & Lyrics… about Uma.
According to New York Magazine, Ethan isn't over it:
He proceeded to sing a ditty that included lyrics about "not caring if [he] ever saw New York again," "the lawyers," and — most telling — "my wife." Uma! "My wife hates me," he sang, adding something about how she would call him a prick, how he longed to send for his children, tralalala singing stuff. We were intoxicated, both with beverages and with memories of Dead Poets Society. And then! "My wife is a big fat beast," he sang. We gasped, along with the rest of the audience. He called Uma fat! In public! Sheepishly, Hawke broke his musicianly stride: "Yeah, I was very upset at the time."
Here's Ethan in Soho yesterday shooting scenes for New York, I Love You with the unbelievably beautiful Maggie Q. She's like the Asian Gisele Bundchen. Total gorgessity.
Ethan's girlfriend, also the former nanny to his children, is pregnant. And we all know Ethan isn't exactly immune to getting distracted by distractions. Maggie Q is as about as tempting a distraction as they come.
Photos from Splashnewsonline.com