MITT ROMNEY: President Obama Out Of Touch Like Marie Antoinette. ?When the president?s characterization of our economy was, ?It could be worse,? it reminded me of Marie Antoinette: ?Let them eat cake.? . . . This is not a time to be talking about, ?It could be worse.? It?s a time to recognize that things should be better.?
Source: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/134412/
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Source: http://ultravie.ticketabc.com/events/stompin-savoy-new-ye/
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5 min left to win a bball signed by the @UConnHuskies, defending @NCAA Champs! RT! Giddy up! I mean, MUSH! #Back9Christmas 
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Montanans Launch Recall of Senators Who Approved NDAA Military Detention. Merry Christmas, US Senate #MT #Senate... fb.me/LnG02ujy 
pdamerica Source: http://twitter.com/pdamerica/statuses/151732606105436160
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We've already seen a few benchmarks and other hints that they'd soon be shipping, and Intel has now officially announced that its new Cedar Trail Atom processors are finally available, with the first systems using them set to roll out early next year. The two chips you'll likely be seeing the most of are the Atom N2600 and N2800 -- both dual-core, and both designed for use in netbooks, where they promise to allow for up to ten hours of battery life and "weeks of standby," and offer support for 1080p video playback. Also rolling out today are the D2500 and D2700, which are designed for use in entry-level desktops and all-in-one computers, as well as more commercial systems. As for all those systems themselves, details remain a bit light, but Intel says you can expect to see some from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and Toshiba.Intel starts shipping Atom N2600, N2800 processors for netbooks, ten hours of battery life promised originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/28/intel-starts-shipping-atom-n2600-n2800-processors-ten-hours-of/
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Public release date: 27-Dec-2011
Share ] Contact: Prof. Ulrich Hbscher, University of Zurich, Veterinary
hubscher@vetbio.uzh.ch
41-446-355-472
University of Zurich
Oxidative stress is the cause of many serious diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, arteriosclerosis and diabetes. It occurs when the body is exposed to excessive amounts of electrically charged, aggressive oxygen compounds. These are normally produced during breathing and other metabolic processes, but also in the case of ongoing stress, exposure to UV light or X-rays. If the oxidative stress is too high, it overwhelms the body's natural defences. The aggressive oxygen compounds destroy genetic material, resulting in what are referred to as harmful 8-oxo-guanine base mutations in the DNA.
DNA repair mechanism decoded
Together with the University of Oxford, Enni Markkanen, a veterinarian in the working group of Prof. Ulrich Hbscher from the Institute of Veterinary Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Zurich has decoded and characterized the repair mechanism for the mutated DNA bases. This mechanism efficiently copies thousands of 8-oxo-guanines without their harmful mutations, thus normally preventing the negative consequences of 8-oxo-guanine damage. In their study, published in PNAS, the researchers outline the detailed processes involved in the local and temporal coordination of this repair mechanism.
Prof. Ulrich Hbscher hopes that this basic research can be used therapeutically. We expect that the DNA repair mechanism discovered here will lead to less invasive approaches in cancer therapy and that it will be possible to develop new clinical tests for the early detection of certain types of cancer. In cooperation with University Hospital Zurich, a study is already underway that involves examining samples of different types of cancer for the repair gene and its regulation.
###
Literature:
Enni Markkanen, Barbara van Loon, Elena Ferrari, Jason L. Parsons, Grigory L. Dianov, and Ulrich Hbscher. Regulation of oxidative DNA damage repair by DNA polymerase ? and MutYH by crosstalk of phosphorylation and ubiquitination. Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences. PNAS. December 26, 2011. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1110449109
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 27-Dec-2011 Share ] Contact: Prof. Ulrich Hbscher, University of Zurich, Veterinary
hubscher@vetbio.uzh.ch
41-446-355-472
University of Zurich
Oxidative stress is the cause of many serious diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, arteriosclerosis and diabetes. It occurs when the body is exposed to excessive amounts of electrically charged, aggressive oxygen compounds. These are normally produced during breathing and other metabolic processes, but also in the case of ongoing stress, exposure to UV light or X-rays. If the oxidative stress is too high, it overwhelms the body's natural defences. The aggressive oxygen compounds destroy genetic material, resulting in what are referred to as harmful 8-oxo-guanine base mutations in the DNA.
DNA repair mechanism decoded
Together with the University of Oxford, Enni Markkanen, a veterinarian in the working group of Prof. Ulrich Hbscher from the Institute of Veterinary Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Zurich has decoded and characterized the repair mechanism for the mutated DNA bases. This mechanism efficiently copies thousands of 8-oxo-guanines without their harmful mutations, thus normally preventing the negative consequences of 8-oxo-guanine damage. In their study, published in PNAS, the researchers outline the detailed processes involved in the local and temporal coordination of this repair mechanism.
Prof. Ulrich Hbscher hopes that this basic research can be used therapeutically. We expect that the DNA repair mechanism discovered here will lead to less invasive approaches in cancer therapy and that it will be possible to develop new clinical tests for the early detection of certain types of cancer. In cooperation with University Hospital Zurich, a study is already underway that involves examining samples of different types of cancer for the repair gene and its regulation.
###
Literature:
Enni Markkanen, Barbara van Loon, Elena Ferrari, Jason L. Parsons, Grigory L. Dianov, and Ulrich Hbscher. Regulation of oxidative DNA damage repair by DNA polymerase ? and MutYH by crosstalk of phosphorylation and ubiquitination. Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences. PNAS. December 26, 2011. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1110449109
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uoz-odd122311.php
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| All Times EST |
|---|
| First Round |
| Saturday, Nov. 26 |
James Madison 20, Eastern Kentucky 17
Old Dominion 35, Norfolk State 18
Stony Brook 31, Albany (N.Y.) 28
Central Arkansas 34, Tennessee Tech 14
Georgia Southern 55, Old Dominion 48
Montana 41, Central Arkansas 14
Maine 34, Appalachian State 12
Sam Houston State 34, Stony Brook 27
Montana State 26, New Hampshire 25
Lehigh 40, Towson 38
North Dakota State 26, James Madison 14
Northern Iowa 28, Wofford 21
Montana 48, Northern Iowa 10
Sam Houston State 49, Montana State 13
Georgia Southern 35, Maine 23
North Dakota State 24, Lehigh 0
Sam Houston State 31, Montana 28
North Dakota State 35, Georgia Southern 7
Sam Houston State (14-0) vs. North Dakota State (13-1), 1 p.m.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/college-football-wire/article686047.ece
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VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI issued pleas for peace to reign across the world during his traditional Christmas address Sunday, a call marred by Muslim extremists who bombed a Catholic church in Nigeria, striking after worshippers celebrated Mass.
The assault on the Catholic church left 35 dead in Madalla, near the Nigerian capital. A failed bombing also occurred near a church in the city of Jos, followed by a shooting that killed a police officer. The blast came a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombs in Jos claimed by Islamist militants killed 32.
Benedict didn't refer explicitly to the Nigerian bombings in his "Urbi et Orbi" speech, Latin for "to the city and to the world" in which he raises alarm about world hotspots. But in a statement, the Vatican called the attacks a sign of "cruelty and absurd, blind hatred" that shows no respect for human life.
Elsewhere, Christmas was celebrated with the typical joy of the season: In Cuba, Catholics had plenty to cheer as they prepared for Benedict's March arrival, the first visit by a pontiff to the Communist-run island since John Paul II's historic tour nearly 14 years ago.
"We have faith in God that we will be allowed to have this treat," said Rogelio Montes de Oca, 72, as he stood outside the Cathedral in Old Havana. "Not every country will have the chance to see him physically and receive his blessing."
And in the Holy Land, pilgrims and locals alike flocked to Jesus' traditional birthplace in numbers not seen since before the Palestinian uprising over a decade ago, despite lashing rains and wind.
"We wanted to be part of the action," said Don Moore, 41, a psychology professor from Berkeley, California, who came to Bethlehem with his family. "This is the place, this is where it all started. It doesn't get any more special than that."
The holy town of Bethlehem is no stranger to violence. Like the rest of the West Bank, it fell on hard times after the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation broke out in late 2000.
But as the violence has subsided, tourists have returned in large numbers. On Saturday, turnout for Christmas Eve festivities in Bethlehem was at its highest since the uprising began driving tourists away. An estimated 100,000 visitors streamed into Manger Square on Christmas Eve, up from 70,000 the previous year, according to the Israeli military's count.
The Holy Land and the entire Mideast were very much on Benedict's mind as he delivered his Christmas speech from the the sun-drenched loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. The 84-year-old pontiff appeared in fine form, just hours after celebrating a two-hour long Christmas Eve Mass that ended around midnight.
"May the Lord come to the aid of our world torn by so many conflicts which even today stain the earth with blood," Benedict said.
He said he hoped that the birth of Jesus, which Christmas celebrates, would send a message to all who need to be saved from hardships: that Israelis and the Palestinians would resume peace talks and that there would be an "end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed."
He called for international assistance for refugees from the Horn of Africa and flood victims in Thailand, among others, and urged greater political dialogue in Myanmar, and stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa's Great Lakes region, which includes Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.
After his speech, Benedict delivered Christmas greetings in 65 different languages, from Mongolian to Maori, Aramaic to Albanian, Tamil to Thai. He finished the list with Guarani and Latin, as the bells tolled from St. Peter's enormous bell towers.
In the piazza below, thousands of jubilant tourists and pilgrims, and hundreds of colorful Swiss Guards and Italian military bands mingled around the Vatican's giant Christmas tree and larger-than-life sized nativity scene.
In the U.K., the leader of the world's Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the summer riots in Britain and the financial crisis had abused trust in British society.
In his Christmas Day sermon, Rowan Williams appealed to those congregated at Canterbury Cathedral to learn lessons about "mutual obligation" from the events of the past year. He said Sunday that "the most pressing question" now facing Britain is "who and where we are as a society."
"Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost," he said.
Britain's royal family, meanwhile, celebrated Christmas with one notable absence. Queen Elizabeth II's husband Prince Philip remained hospitalized after having a coronary stent put in after doctors determined the heart pains that sent him to the hospital on Friday were caused by a blocked artery.
Elizabeth's annual Christmas message dealt with the theme of family. The message was recorded Dec. 9, before Philip went into the hospital.
Wearing a festive red dress, the Queen said that the importance of family was driven home by the marriages of two of her grandchildren this year. Elizabeth spoke of the strength family can provide during times of hardship and how friendships are often formed in difficult times.
She pointed to the Commonwealth nations as an example that family "does not necessarily mean blood relatives but often a description of a community."
And in the United States, members of the loose-knit hacking movement known as "Anonymous" claimed to have stolen a raft of e-mails and credit card data from U.S. security think tank Stratfor, promising a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on targets including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, Goldman Sachs and MF Global.
The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.
___
Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, Dalia Nammari in Bethlehem, Paul Haven in Havana and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- The cargo ship accident that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of thick, tarry ship fuel into San Francisco Bay caused lasting damage to the region's once-plentiful schools of Pacific herring, the bay's only commercially fished species, according to a study released Monday.
Herring embryos collected from shorelines left coated in oil starting about 3 months after the November 2007 Cosco Busan spill suffered from unusually high death rates and a range of ailments and deformities associated with exposure to the chemicals in crude oil, the study found.
"The majority of embryos in samples from oiled sites were dead on examination in the laboratory," wrote the study's authors, who were led by John Incardona, a toxicologist with the fisheries division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
By 2010, death rates had returned to normal, but the embryos continued to show heart defects that are a common symptom in herring of oil exposure.
The bay's Pacific herring are the largest coastal population in the continental U.S. and a key element of the bay's complex food web, according to the study, which was published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The spill that resulted from the massive cargo ship striking one of the pillars of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog killed more than 6,800 birds and closed beaches to swimmers for weeks.
In 2009, California regulators cancelled the bay's herring fishing season, which typically begins in January. The state said the herring populations in the bay had reached an all-time low, with the causes ranging from drought to pollution from the oil spill.
The north-central San Francisco Bay shorelines left coated in oil and littered with sticky tarballs are one of the historic spawning grounds for the bay's herring. Only about half the oil along those shores was recovered, and an unknown amount remained submerged near the water's edge, the study said.
The study's authors knew from herring harmed in Alaska's Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 that those same fish in San Francisco Bay would likely be threatened. Unlike the Valdez spill, which sent hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling into Prince William Sound, the Cosco Busan leaked bunker fuel, a mix of diesel and fuel oil left over from the crude oil refining process.
Embryos exposed to chemicals in crude oil suffer from a range of maladies, from heart problems and deformities to swelling and cancer. Similar symptoms were seen in embryos collected for the San Francisco Bay study.
The problems did not seem to be caused naturally or by other pollution in the bay, the study's authors wrote. They said the only common feature of three sites where the embryos were collected was that they were exposed to oil.
Jonathan Maul, a toxicologist with The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University who was not involved in the study, said the researchers faced difficulty in showing that the toxins came from the Cosco Busan's bunker fuel and not other sources in the environment. He said the study should encourage scientists to look further into the toxic effects of oil contamination.
"Overall I believe it is a valuable study and should garner attention toward impacts to early life stages of fisheries," Maul said.
Because the chemical levels found in the embryos didn't seem high enough to cause the high death rate, the study concluded that exposure to sunlight played a part in making the spill more deadly.
"One or more of these unidentified chemicals likely interacted with natural sunlight in the intertidal zone to kill herring embryos," the study said.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/26/2562222/study-san-francisco-bay-oil-spill.html
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Continue reading Human Birdwings combines Wiimote, smartphone in DIY flying initiative (video)
Human Birdwings combines Wiimote, smartphone in DIY flying initiative (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The United Kingdom?s royal family celebrates Christmas Eve without its patriarch, Prince Philip, 90, hospitalized after a late night scare and emergency heart surgery. NBC?s Duncan Golestani reports.
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Almost three decades after his last season as coach of the Falcons, Leeman Bennett remains involved with one Atlanta football game each year.
Bennett, 73, is the long-time chairman of the team selection committee for the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which will match Auburn against Virginia on New Year's Eve in the Georgia Dome.
Bennett's association with the bowl dates to 1987, when he got a call asking him to consider helping the then-struggling event. He's been helping ever since, making him one of the bowl's longest-serving -- and highest-profile ?- volunteers.
Bennett was the Falcons' fourth head coach, the first to accumulate a winning record with the franchise (46-41 from 1977 through 1982).? He was fired after a playoff loss in the strike-shortened ?82 season; the owner who fired him, Rankin Smith Sr., later would call it a mistake. Even now, only three coaches in Falcons history have had cumulative winning records while with the team: Bennett, Jim Mora (26-22 in 2004-06) and Mike Smith (42-20 since 2008).
Bennett had only one coaching job after the Falcons fired him, that with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the mid-1980s, but the years have been kind to him.
After a wide range of pursuits ?- several years in the recreational vehicle and automobile businesses, about a decade as director of development for Greater Atlanta Christian School, a year as executive director of Atlanta's 1994 Super Bowl host committee, a seat on a bank board, a stint as host of the Falcons' pregame and postgame radio shows ?- Bennett these days is enjoying retirement with his wife of 51 years, Pat.
They split their time between homes in Cumming and Jacksonville, each home close to two of their four grandchildren (ages 6 to 16). Bennett enjoys fishing, hunting, golfing and, pertinent to his involvement with the Chick-fil-A Bowl, college football.
"It's been a good life," Bennett said last week at the bowl offices, shortly before leaving on a family ski vacation. "I've had a great run."
Most of the people who live in metro Atlanta today were not here when Bennett coached the Falcons, but he still regularly encounters folks who fondly remember those years.
"That was a fun time. It was the first time [the Falcons] had ever won. We went to the playoffs three out of the six years," Bennett said. "I'm not as high-profile as I used to be, but plenty of people do still remember."
Dozens of coaches have been fired in Atlanta's professional sports history, but Bennett's firing was perhaps the most criticized. Appreciation of his winning record only grew as the Falcons posted losing records in eight consecutive seasons (and 13 of 15) following his departure.
"With Rankin [Smith] coming out later and making the statement that it was the biggest mistake he ever made, it made me feel a little better about being fired anyway," Bennett said.
Most pro coaches quickly leave town after being fired, but Bennett has mostly stayed here. He left in 1985 to? coach the talent-poor, penny-pinching Buccaneers but returned to Forsyth County two years later when back-to-back 2-14 seasons got him fired in Tampa.
At that point, Bennett was almost 50, had spent 25 years as a coach on the college and NFL levels and was tired of moving from city to city, job to job.
"After Tampa, we decided to come back to Atlanta," he said, "because we had lived here longer than anywhere else and our roots seemed to be deeper here with our friendships and church and things that make a community."
As the years went by and it became clear Bennett wouldn't coach again, his association with Atlanta's bowl game -- known as the Peach Bowl before adopting the Chick-fil-A name -- kept him involved with football.
"I looked at it as a way to give back to the community," Bennett said.
The bowl, which struggled for survival in the 1980s, has become a success in terms of attendance, TV ratings, payouts to participating teams and contributions to charity. Bennett cites four developments for the turnaround: "getting out of the cold" of Atlanta-Fulton County by moving into the Georgia Dome; contracting with the ACC and SEC to provide the teams; the addition of Chick-fil-A as title sponsor; and the leadership of bowl president and CEO Gary Stokan.
Another key factor, Bennett said, has been the contribution of about 450 volunteers.
Stokan said several volunteers have been continuously active with the bowl, which started in 1968, for more than 40 years and more than a dozen others, including Bennett, for around 25 years or longer.
Bennett, chairman of the team selection committee since 1987 and also the bowl's overall chairman from 2004 through 2006, plans to remain involved in some capacity "as long as they'll let me hang around," although he noted that his time spent in Florida curtailed his presence this season. Stokan said he and Bennett talked by phone twice a week while Bennett was away.
"I treasure Leeman as a sounding board for a lot of issues," Stokan said. "He has a good feel for people and analyzes things well. As a coach, he brings a different perspective to the table. "
"It has been a great ride," Bennett said of his involvement with the bowl. "I certainly wasn't the key by any stretch of the imagination, but it has been good to be just a small piece in the wheel of something that turned into a success."
Source: http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-falcons/former-falcons-coach-still-1271608.html?cxtype=rss_sports
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Sharing insight into this weeks economic data and the outlook for next week's market, with Mebane Faber, Cambria Investment Management and John Derrick, U.S. Global Investors.
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My 7-year-old son has spent the last few months eyeballing the Apple iPad some family members have been sporting. It's not something I was actually considering getting him anytime soon. The good news is, I found something that he found just as entertaining: the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer ($99.99 list). Aimed at the 4- to 9-year-old set, this device is meant to be not just a gaming and media consumption platform but also one for learning.
Design and Features
The LeapPad measures approximately 5.1 by 7 by 1 inches (HWD). The chassis is made of plastic in the LeapFrog signature colors of white and bright green (there is also a pink and white version). The 5-inch TFT touch screen has a resolution of 480 by 272, which is higher resolution than the 320-by-240 of the LeapFrog Leapster Explorer ($69.99 list). The whole device is rugged enough for typical wear and tear, and just the right size for children's hands.
The stylus can be stowed magnetically in a slot in the top right side of the LeapPad. While the magnet slot is a cool feature, I strongly recommend using the bundled second stylus with a string and attaching it to a small thin bar in a hollow right above the magnetic slot (we managed to lose the stylus without a string in a day). The location of the stylus slot is a vast improvement over its location on the Leapster Explorer, as both left- and right-handed users will not have a problem wielding the stylus even attached to the string.
The tiny power button lies on the left side of the screen. There's also a headphone jack at the top of the device, to the left of the game cartridge slot, and a mini-USB port next to the cartridge slot (a USB cable is bundled with the system). There is a small home button at the bottom right of the screen, which gets you back to the main menu, and the volume control is located to the right of the screen. In the middle of the area underneath the screen is a toggle button.
On the back of the LeapPad is a built-in camera and video recorder, and the device comes with 10 photo edit tools, as well as a countdown timer so users can take self-portraits. The LeapPad has an accelerometer, which allows users to move the device in various directions when playing games.
Leaplet Apps
Since it launched its Leaplet apps store, LeapFrog has added much to its inventory. Granted, it's not anywhere near as many apps as, say, the iTunes store, but at over 100, there's a lot to choose from. Among the highlights are what LeapFrog is calling Ultra ebooks (not to be confused with the new laptop category), a souped-up version of the ebooks that LeapFrog already had in its library. Where the ebooks had sound effects and a read-aloud feature, the ultra ebooks add games in the middle. For instance, the Cars 2 ultra ebook features a couple of cool racing games that take advantage of the built-in accelerometer.
In addition to games and e-books, there are also LeapFrog videos for purchasing and downloading to the Leapster. (I hope to see more videos available either in the store or on cartridges, if possible.) You have two options for purchasing an app from the Leaplet store. You can do so directly from LeapFrog's site, or you can buy a Leaplet app card, wait until you get it, then enter the download code. Once purchased, you can add the app, book, or movie to up to four Leapster Explorer and LeapPad devices, a boon to those who own several devices.
PerformanceAfter I connected, I added the device to my existing LeapFrog account (creating a new account is just as easy). It's important to note that if you have a previous LeapFrog account and set up a new account, you won't have access to apps you downloaded using your original account. (I found that out the hard way.) After the setup, I handed the LeapPad to Jake and sat back. Given that he already has the Leapster Explorer, it wasn't too hard for him to figure out the controls. The difference is that the physical controls?two control buttons (A and B), main menu, Hint button with a question-mark icon, and a Pause button?are now touch controls on the screen, but they're located more or less in the same place they were in the Leapster Explorer.
Jake had a lot of fun using his Leapster Explorer game cartridges ($24.99 list) on the LeapPad, such as Wolverine and the X-Men, a game that lets you customize over 12,000 words that the user can spell while reuniting the X-Men and saving mutant-kind, and Ben 10 Alien Force, which teaches concepts about animals, geography, and DNA.
Being an emerging comics fiend, Jake played the Wolverine game first. I thought the game creators did a clever job of weaving spelling exercises in with the gaming action. I actually thought he was oblivious to the learning that was going on with the gaming, until he said to me, "Mom, it's like the iPad, but with learning." That's my boy.
Jake was relatively intrigued with the racing games in the Cars 2 ultra ebook. Getting accustomed to using the accelerometer to race took time, but once he mastered it, he loved playing the games over and over again. He didn't have as much interest in the actual book, but that maybe because his reading skills are more advanced. That wasn't the case with his 3-year-old brother Matt. Matt was very taken with the read-aloud function, and spent a lot of time just listening to the book being read aloud to him. He was also very taken with the Pet Pad app that came with the device. He thought it was very funny that blowing into the microphone could help dry his pet. Both Jake and Matt had fun with the built-in camera and video recorder, and they loved playing their videos back on the device.
It's important to keep in mind that the LeapPad is toy, and not an actual tablet. In contrast, the Vinci Tab ($389 list, 2.5 stars) is an actual Android-based tablet that's targeted toward children. The Tab is certainly more expensive than the LeapPad, but it also has higher-end components, and the android-based game apps are cheaper than the $24.99 gaming cartridges or the $5 and up gaming, movie, and book apps you would shell out for the LeapPad. But the LeapPad offers a bulletproof kids' experience right out of the box, with minimal setup and no support necessary.
The LeapPad's design and interface are appropriate for Jake's age, and it's colorful and advanced enough to hold his interest. It was also something that his younger brother enjoyed playing with. So, I consider it a two-for-one win. I wish LeapFrog had put in some sort of media card slot. That way, we could maybe keep more apps and games than the system's of onboard memory allows. But then again, 2GB of memory is pretty big. I also hope LeapFrog comes out with a recharger, because, seriously, I'm keeping Duracell in business. Overall, the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer is my?and more important, Jake's?favorite LeapFrog product yet. It takes the concept of a tablet and makes it an attractive learning toy for the kid crowd.
More Toy Reviews:Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/jKXsPMwvhzs/0,2817,2396653,00.asp
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BERLIN (Reuters) ? German business sentiment rose sharply in December, defying expectations for a decline and underscoring the resilience of Europe's dominant economy in the face of a sovereign debt crisis that has hammered euro zone growth.
The Munich-based Ifo think tank said Tuesday that its business climate index, based on a monthly survey of some 7,000 companies, rose to 107.2 in December from 106.6 in November, posting its biggest monthly rise since February.
It was the second rise in a row after an equally surprising gain in November. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast a drop to 106.1.
Analysts welcomed the rise but took care not to overplay its significance, particularly in the wake of recent downbeat German export and manufacturing data, and amid continuing downward revisions to 2012 economic growth forecasts.
"The small rise in the December's Ifo index is a welcome surprise but hardly transforms the outlook for the economy," said economist Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics.
"All of the indices are still sharply down on their summer readings... Overall, there is some encouragement here that the German economy is not currently plunging into recession, but the picture is one of very weak growth at best," he added.
News of the data helped the under-pressure euro to a gain of 0.6 percent to $1.3080. It also fuelled a climb in European stocks, following a slide of 4.3 percent over the last fortnight.
"The German economy seems to be successfully countering the downturn in Western Europe. This bodes well for Christmas," Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn said in a statement.
SLOWDOWN, BUT NO SLUMP?
The survey's coordinator, Klaus Abberger, noted the business climate in retailing and domestic construction had improved.
"At the moment I don't think we (Germany) will fall into recession again," he said.
The business expectations sub-index proved particularly strong, rising to 98.4 from a previous 97.3, the biggest gain since July 2010, and well in excess of a forecast for 97.0.
The figures dovetailed with data from the GfK institute released earlier Tuesday showing consumer morale held steady going into January, bucking expectations for a fall, as income expectations and views of the economy improved.
Domestic demand helped the German economy grow a healthy 0.5 percent in the third quarter, but investor morale has since soured as a convincing solution to the euro zone debt crisis remains elusive, fuelling expectations of a slowdown going into the new year and depriving the euro zone of its key growth motor.
Three think tanks cut their 2012 forecasts for German GDP on Tuesday, with the IMK becoming the first major institute to predict a recession for Europe's bulwark economy.
"The main reason for the drastic economic slowdown remains now, as before, the unresolved confidence crisis in the euro zone and the high-profile austerity programs in ever more euro zone and European Union countries," the IMK institute said.
Concerns over Germany's ability to weather the crisis were underlined earlier this month, when a survey showed German manufacturing contracted for a third straight month in December and exports posted their biggest fall in October in half a year.
Analyst Rainer Sartoris at HSBC Trinkaus called the Ifo index "a forgiving end to the year."
"The numbers show confidence that the German economy will not collapse. The first and second quarters of 2012 will be weak but we expect the German economy to pick up in the course of the year."
(Reporting by Berlin bureau; Writing by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by John Stonestreet)
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[prMac.com] New York, New York - ByteSquared, developers of business oriented productivity apps for mobile devices, today announces a free update to its critically-acclaimed productivity suite, Office HD for iPad. Office HD's latest update focuses on adding in many more of the advanced features normally expected in a desktop word processor.
ByteSquared's latest update to Office HD offers new enhancements to existing features and integrates additional layout tools to its document editor which creates and edits Word docs (.docx and .doc). This new feature set provides students and business executives with the ideal set of tools for creating and editing polished documents on the go. Users now have unprecedented control over the appearance of their documents, allowing them to create both functional and admirable documents right from their iPad.
"Whether you're a student or an executive at a Fortune 500 company, your time is precious," said Simon Bates, CEO of ByteSquared. "Office HD's latest update transforms mobile office productivity from a secondary method of completing office tasks to a powerful and even preferential manner of quickly and efficiently keeping in touch with your office. I feel this new version easily makes Office HD the app of choice for editing Microsoft Office(R) documents on iPad."
About Office HD:
Optimized for Microsoft Office(R) documents, Office HD enables users to view, edit and create documents, spreadsheets and presentations on-the-go. Additionally, users can download, create, edit, save, send, print, upload and transfer documents locally or via Google, Dropbox, Box.net and more as well as the ability to read and create PDF documents.
What's New In This Update:
* Multi-Columnar Layout - Specify up to 4 columns for each section
* Shapes - Add shapes to a document including, lines, text boxes, rectangles, etc
* Rulers - Page rulers, tab stops (left, center and right aligned), paragraph margin setters
* File Versioning - Allows users to revert to previous 10 versions of a file for editing
* Section Breaks - Both continuous and next page to separate sections
* Floating Images - Images can now float above text and aligns accordingly around the images
* Referencing - Footnote and endnote integration make for easy MLA formatting
Device Requirements:
* Compatible with iPad
* Requires iOS 5.0 or later
* 6.6 MB
Pricing and Availability:
Office HD 5.0 is $7.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Business category.
Byte is an innovative software development company that prides itself on expertise in Office file formats and specializes in creating office-based productivity apps for mobile devices on iOS and Android platforms. Combining nearly 50 years of commercial software development experience, Byte was founded by Simon Bates and Stuart Prestedge in 2009. Byte launched the world's first iPhone spreadsheet app, Spreadsheet in 2009, followed by 2010 MacObserver Editor's Choice Award Winner Office for iPhone. Byte continues to strive for the most intuitive productivity apps on the market. Copyright (C) 2011 Byte. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
###
Source: http://prmac.com/release-id-36048.htm
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BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Arab states may take their proposals for ending Syria's crackdown on protests to the U.N. Security Council next week unless Damascus agrees to implement the initiative, Qatar's foreign minister said on Saturday.
Expressing frustration that Syria had not carried out the plan, six weeks after it was first agreed, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said the window for an Arab solution to the crisis was closing.
"If this matter is not solved in the weeks ahead, or couple of months, it will no longer be in Arab control," he told journalists after an Arab ministerial committee meeting in Qatar. "That is what we told the Syrians from the beginning."
Arab ministers would vote on Wednesday on whether to ask the Security Council to approve the initiative. "I believe that December 21 will be decisive, and we hope that the brothers in Syria will sign (the deal) before this date," Sheikh Hamad said.
Syria has conditionally approved a plan to send monitors to oversee implementation of the November 2 Arab League initiative, which calls on Assad to withdraw the army from urban areas, release political prisoners and hold talks with opponents.
But Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said Damascus was objecting to the League's call for protection of Syrian civilians, saying members of the security forces were also being killed in the turmoil.
The United Nations says Assad's crackdown on the protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world this year, has killed more than 5,000 people. Authorities blame armed gangs for the violence and say 1,100 soldiers and police have been killed.
The Arab League suspended Syria and declared economic sanctions against Damascus over its failure to implement the initiative, joining the United States, European Union and neighbouring Turkey who have also imposed sanctions.
Long-time Syrian ally and arms supplier Russia took a step closer to the Western position on Thursday when it presented a surprise draft resolution at the United Nations which stepped up its criticism of the bloodshed in Syria.
Sheikh Hamad said that, in response to Moscow's move, the Arab League would meet on Wednesday to decide whether "to ask the Security Council to adopt the Arab initiative and Arab resolutions instead of resolutions from other states."
"We are not talking about military action but we will ask the Security Council to adopt the Arab initiative," Sheikh Hamad said, adding Syria should take heed of events in the Arab world where three leaders have been overthrown this year.
"Procrastination and banking on things quieting down or being controlled by security methods will not work," he said.
Any referral of the Arab plan to the United Nations would be likely to anger Damascus, which has accused unnamed Arab countries of trying to set the stage for foreign intervention.
GROWING INSURGENCY
The unrest is the most serious challenge to the 11-year rule of Assad, 46, whose family is from the minority Alawite sect - an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam - and has dominated majority Sunni Muslim Syria since 1970.
An armed insurgency has begun to eclipse civilian protests, raising fears Syria could descend into civil war.
Two days ago army deserters killed 27 soldiers and security personnel in the southern province of Deraa, an activist group said. On Saturday at least 24 people were killed, half of them in the province of Homs, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said another eight people were killed in the southern province of Deraa after army deserters clashed with Assad's forces carrying out raids in the region.
A delegation from Shi'ite-led Iraq, which opposed the Arab League sanctions and fears unrest in Syria will spill across the border and upset its own delicate sectarian balance, stopped in Damascus on Saturday before travelling on to Cairo.
Assad met the Iraqi delegation, which included National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayad, and "affirmed that Syria dealt positively with all proposals submitted to it," the official news agency SANA reported.
"The delegation will present details of the Iraqi initiative to League officials on solving the Syrian crisis after positive discussions which we had with President Bashar al-Assad during our visit to Syria," a member of the team said on arrival in the Egyptian capital, the Arab League headquarters.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's media adviser, Ali al-Moussawi, earlier told Reuters in Baghdad that the meeting in Damascus was "very good."
The main exile opposition Syrian National Council was meeting in Tunisia on the first anniversary of the self-immolation of a jobless Tunisian graduate Mohamed Bouazizi, the incident that set off a wave of revolts around the Arab world.
Syrian protesters have expressed growing frustration that the Arab League, which surprised many when it suspended Syria and subsequently announced sanctions against Damascus, has since then extended the deadline for Syrian compliance several times.
Hundreds of thousands demonstrated on Friday, according to the British-based Observatory, under the slogan of "The Arab League is killing us."
(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad and Sami Aboudi in Dubai; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111217/wl_nm/us_syria
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New York ? Activists say U.S. citizens are being detained under a federal program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants
An already controversial Obama administration push to find and arrest illegal immigrants is facing a new round of criticism from civil rights and immigrant groups, who say that documented U.S. citizens are being detained under the program. How often is this really happening? Here, a brief guide to the federal government's immigration crackdown, and some of its unforeseen consequences:
Are immigration agents really detaining U.S. citizens?
Yes, at least in a flurry of recent cases. These people are typically picked up by local police for other reasons ? U.S. citizen Antonio Montejano of Los Angeles, for example, was arrested for allegedly shoplifting a $10 bottle of perfume last month. But in custody, he was tagged as a suspected illegal immigrant by federal agents, acting on bad information in their database. As is typical in these cases, Montejano was supposed to be released quickly, but immigration agents told police to hold him in a local jail for possible deportation.
SEE MORE: Should 'citizen juries' decide illegal immigrant status?
?
Wait, they can do that?
In theory, it's OK to hold people who have been arrested if they're genuinely suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Under the controversial Secure Communities program, federal agents can tell police to keep criminals locked up, pending an investigation into the detainees' legal right to be in the country. But mistakes happen: Montejano spent two extra days in jail after the judge in his shoplifting case ordered him released. "I was telling every officer I'm an American citizen," he tells the Los Angeles Times. "Nobody believed me."
Could Montejano take legal action?
Possibly. "Any case where an American is held, even briefly, for immigration investigation is a potential wrongful arrest," says Julia Preston in The New York Times. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which runs Secure Communities, takes the allegations "very seriously," spokesman John Morton tells the Times. "We don't have the power to detain citizens," he says.
SEE MORE: The 'dramatic' decline in illegal immigration: 3 theories
?
How often is this happening?
That depends on whom you ask. The American Civil Liberties Union points to the cases of Montejano and three others as irrefutable evidence that the problem is real, and widespread. The ACLU cites a study which found that 82 people were held ? for up to a year ? at Arizona immigration detention centers until a judge said they couldn't be deported because they were citizens. But the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank dedicated to reducing immigration, says the ICE database "contains no records of U.S. citizens who were detained by or for ICE."
Sources: Center for Immigration Studies, LA Times, NY Times
SEE MORE: Is Alabama's tough immigration law turning kids into bullies?
?
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Reporting from Washington?
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The petroleum industry and federal regulators focused more on exploration and production than safety in the years leading up to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, helping to set the stage for the worst offshore environmental disaster in U.S. history, according to a new independent report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.
Conducted at the behest of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the report said the "multiple flawed decisions that led to a blowout" on the Deepwater Horizon rig resulted from "a deficient overall systems approach to safety" among the corporations that ran the drilling of the Macondo well, including BP, Transocean and Halliburton.
The report, titled "Macondo Well ? Deepwater Horizon Blowout, Lessons for Improving Offshore Drilling Safety," echoed many findings from previous studies of the disaster. But it added new levels of detail and put the nation's top engineering peer group behind a call for redesigning a massive set of valves, rams and hydraulic devices once thought to be fail-safe: the blowout preventer that failed to stem the flow of more than 200 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico.
"There were numerous warnings to both industry and regulators about potential failures of existing BOP [blowout preventer] systems" over the previous decade, according to the report, which demanded greater emphasis on safety than industry and regulators have shown, and questioned industry and regulatory norms that could erode safety.
The fragmented nature of offshore oil drilling, with different companies responsible for highly specialized tasks, means that few people on a rig may have a complete sense of the risks involved in the drilling operation, the report concluded.
The report committee's chairman, former Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter, said that improvements in regulatory oversight and in industry response to offshore disasters gave him confidence that offshore drilling should continue. But he stressed that more work needed to be done.
"Our concern is whether this is a good first step in the right direction," Winter said in a conference call, "or whether these changes represent a transient response in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon."
The Interior Department said in a statement that it welcomed the report's findings, which it said backed the regulatory policies it has pursued since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010.
The department introduced more stringent environmental and safety regulations, and the industry responded by developing new oil spill response and containment systems, incorporating lessons from the gulf disaster.
But the report expressed concerns about how serious and sustained industry efforts might be, given that its research and development efforts over the last 20 years have been shrunk and outsourced. And most of those efforts have "been focused disproportionately on exploration, drilling, and production technologies as opposed to safety."
Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute trade group defended the industry's research focus. "The industry is leading the way in applying the best elements of the most successful existing safety programs, including the use of independent auditing and certification by third parties," Milito said.
Complacency about safety, particularly in the case of blowout preventers, became apparent in testimony before the committee that showed "a misplaced confidence that blowout preventers could provide a guarantee, an insurance policy to the blowout," Winter said.
The industry seems to have tempered its confidence in the reliability of blowout preventers, said Roger L. McCarthy, a private engineering consultant from Palo Alto and a member of the report committee. Still, there is no uniform standard for blowout preventers and no independent certification of their efficacy, McCarthy said.
"You can't buy a circuit breaker for your home that hasn't been independently certified by Underwriters Laboratories," McCarthy said, "while a BOP is kind of a circuit breaker for an incredible amount of power that comes up the drill string, and it's not certified to any standard."
Deep offshore oil drilling is becoming more common, as evidenced by the $337 million in bids offered Wednesday in the Interior Department's first auction of federal leases in the western Gulf of Mexico since the BP spill.
In such an environment, the industry needs to approach safety through a "proactive" system that articulates all the risks inherent to each particular process and puts in place steps to prevent them, the report recommended. Although that approach was adopted in the North Sea in the wake of disasters there a generation ago, not all companies use the approach beyond their North Sea operations.
neela.banerjee@latimes.com
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PITTSBURGH ? Steelers linebacker James Harrison is having his appeal hearing on his one-game suspension.
The hearing, via video conference call Wednesday, is being conducted by Ted Cottrell, who was hired by the league and the NFL Players Association to oversee such appeals. No decision is expected until Thursday at the earliest.
Harrison was suspended Tuesday for Pittsburgh's game next Monday night at San Francisco because of his helmet-to-helmet hit on Cleveland quarterback Colt McCoy, who suffered a concussion. That hit came in Pittsburgh's 14-3 win on Dec. 8.
The NFL cited Harrison's history of flagrant hits ? this was his fifth on a quarterback ? in making him the first player suspended under stricter guidelines for player safety that were invoked midway through last season.
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If you come upon a file extension you don't know, the endlessly useful Wolfram Alpha has a tool built-in that will tell you what it is and what programs you'll need to open it.
While you could use something like previously mentioned Fileext.com, Wolfram Alpha is dead simple and probably something you already have in your custom search engines (and if you don't have it there, you should). Just head to Wolfram Alpha, type in the file extension you're looking for with a dot preceding it (e.g. .jpg), and search. It'll tell you what type of file it corresponds to, as well as give you some sample applications that you can use to open it. Hit the link to read more, including a trick on finding out how to open files that don't have an extension.
How to Open Files that have Unknown Extensions | Digital Inspiration
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TOKYO (Reuters) ? An investigative panel has found Japan's disgraced Olympus Corp hid up to $1.67 billion in losses from its investors, but is likely to say there is no evidence of involvement by organized crime in the cover-up, a source said Monday.
The panel will also stop short of recommending criminal charges against executives involved in the accounting scandal, presenting only the facts and leaving Olympus to pursue this aspect, said the source familiar with the panel investigation.
"That is up to the company," he said.
The panel's report is due to be released as soon as Tuesday, almost two months after Olympus's sacked chief executive, Englishman Michael Woodford, went public with his concerns over its dubious accounting for a series of murky acquisitions.
The maker of cameras and medical equipment has since lost more than half its market value and risks being delisted from the Tokyo stock exchange, a sanction that would cut it off from equity markets and put it under pressure to sell core assets.
But it may be able to avoid that humiliation if there is no proof of the much-rumored link between the cover-up and Japan's "yakuza" gangsters -- and if Olympus can meet a December 14 deadline to iron out its books and report its second-quarter results.
Olympus shares firmed 3 percent on the news, though investors remain on tenterhooks for not only the panel's official findings but also the outcome of a separate, joint investigation by police, prosecutors and the market regulator.
The source said the panel found that former executive vice president Hisashi Mori and ex-internal auditor Hideo Yamada had led the cover-up of losses, which amounted to 130 billion yen ($1.67 billion) at its peak.
The panel has found Mori and Yamada then informed former president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, the source added. Kikukawa at first publicly rejected the accusations of a cover-up when the scandal broke in October, but he later quit and the company conceded it had hid investment losses stretching back as far as two decades.
CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS
Current President Shuichi Takayama has said the firm is prepared to take legal steps, including filing criminal complaints, against those responsible for the cover-up.
Olympus has so far said that it used some of $1.3 billion in acquisition payments and advisory fees to aid in the cover-up of the losses on its securities investments. It has declined to give details until the panel hands down its report.
The panel was appointed by Olympus and includes a former supreme court judge.
Olympus remains under joint investigation by Tokyo police, prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission. The official investigations include a police unit dedicated to fighting organized crime.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange has placed Olympus on a watch-list as a possible prelude to delisting. Even if the firm meets the December 14 reporting deadline, the exchange can still delist the stock depending on the scale of its past misreporting or if it is found to have knowingly done business with organized crime.
Woodford, who blew the whistle on accounting tricks at the company after his sacking from the top job in October, has launched a campaign to oust the current board and replace it with his own team of candidates led by him as nominated CEO.
That has set up a battle between Woodford, who was a rare foreign CEO in Japan, and Takayama, who plans to stay on, at least in the short term, to try to get the firm back on track.
The Olympus affair has fanned doubts about corporate governance generally in Japan as well as revived concerns about ties between yakuza and companies. Yakuza have a long history of trying to extort money from companies, sometimes threatening to release information that firms would like to keep secret.
Attention will also focus on the panel's findings over the role of auditors who signed off on Olympus' books, as well as outsiders such as Akio Nakagawa, a banker with lengthy ties to Olympus and whose firm Axes received a huge advisory fee related to the 2008 takeover of UK medical equipment maker Gyrus.
(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/ts_nm/us_olympus
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MOSCOW ? Several thousand protesters took to the streets Monday night and accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party of rigging this weekend's parliamentary election in which it won the largest share of the seats.
It was perhaps the biggest opposition rally in years and ended with police detaining about 300 activists. A group of several hundred marched toward the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin, but were stopped by riot police and taken away in buses.
Estimates of the number of protesters ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. They chanted "Russia without Putin" and accused his United Russia party of stealing votes.
In St. Petersburg, police detained about 120 protesters.
United Russia won about 50 percent of Sunday's vote, a result that opposition politicians and election monitors said was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud. It was a significant drop from the last election, when the party took 64 percent.
Pragmatically, the loss of seats in the State Duma appears to mean little because two of the three other parties winning seats have been reliable supporters of government legislation.
Nevertheless, it was a substantial symbolic blow to a party that had become virtually indistinguishable from the state itself.
The result has also energized the opposition and poses a humbling challenge to Putin, the country's dominant figure, in his drive to return to the presidency.
Putin, who became prime minister in 2008 because of presidential term limits, will run for a third term in March, and some opposition leaders saw the parliamentary election as a game-changer for what had been presumed to be his easy stroll back to the Kremlin.
More than 400 Communist Party supporters also gathered Monday to express their indignation over the election, which some called the dirtiest in modern Russian history. The Communists finished second with about 20 percent of the vote.
"Even compared to the 2007 elections, violations by the authorities and the government bodies that actually control the work of all election organizations at all levels, from local to central, were so obvious and so brazen," said Yevgeny Dorovin, a member of the party's central committee.
Putin appeared subdued and glum even as he insisted at a Cabinet meeting Monday that the result "gives United Russia the possibility to work calmly and smoothly."
Although the sharp decline for United Russia could lead Putin and the party to try to portray the election as genuinely democratic, the wide reports of violations have undermined that attempt at spin.
Boris Nemtsov, a prominent figure among Russia's beleaguered liberal opposition, declared that the vote spelled the end of Putin's "honeymoon" with the nation and predicted that his rule will soon "collapse like a house of cards."
"He needs to hold an honest presidential election and allow opposition candidates to register for the race, if he doesn't want to be booed from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad," Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Many Russians have come to despise United Russia, seeing it as the engine of endemic corruption. The balloting showed voters that they have power despite what election monitors called a dishonest count.
"Yesterday, it was proven by these voters that not everything was fixed, that the result really matters," said Tiny Kox of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, part of an international election observer mission.
Other analysts suggested the vote was a wake-up call to Putin that he had lost touch with the country. In the early period of his presidency, Putin's appeal came largely from his man-of-the-people image: candid, decisive and without ostentatious tastes.
He seemed to lose some of the common touch, appearing in well-staged but increasingly preposterous heroic photo opportunities ? hunting a whale with a crossbow, fishing while bare-chested, and purportedly discovering ancient Greek artifacts while scuba diving. And Russians grew angry at his apparent disregard ? and even encouragement ? of the country's corruption and massive income gap.
"People want Putin to go back to what he was in his first term ? decisive, dynamic, tough on oligarchs and sensitive to the agenda formed by society," said Sergei Markov, a prominent United Russia Duma member.
The vote "was a normal reaction of the population to the worsening social situation," former Kremlin-connected political analyst Gleb Pavlovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Only seven parties were allowed to field candidates for parliament this year, while the most vocal opposition groups were barred from the race. International monitors said the election administration lacked independence, most media were biased and state authorities interfered unduly at different levels.
"To me, this election was like a game in which only some players are allowed to compete," said Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Of the 150 polling stations where the counting was observed, "34 were assessed to be very bad," Tagliavini said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington has "serious concerns" about the elections.
"Russian voters deserve a full investigation of all credible reports of electoral fraud and manipulation, and we hope in particular that the Russian authorities will take action" on reports that come forward, Clinton said.
Other than the Communist Party, the socialist Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party led by mercurial nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are also expected to increase their representation in the Duma; both have generally voted with United Russia, and the Communists pose only token opposition.
Two liberal parties were in the running, but neither got the 7 percent of the national vote needed to win seats. Nemtsov's People's Freedom Party, one of the most prominent liberal parties, was denied participation for alleged violations in the required 45,000 signatures the party had submitted with its registration application.
About 60 percent of Russia's 110 million registered voters cast ballots, down from 64 percent four years ago.
Social media were flooded with messages reporting violations. Many people reported seeing buses deliver groups of people to polling stations, with some of the buses carrying young men who looked like football fans, who often are associated with violent nationalism.
Russia's only independent election monitoring group, Golos, which is funded by U.S. and European grants, has come under heavy official pressure in the past week. Golos' website was incapacitated Sunday by hackers, and its director Lilya Shibanova and her deputy had their cellphone numbers, email and social media accounts hacked.
___
Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov, Nataliya Vasilyeva and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.
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