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This undated photo provided by the candidate's campaign shows Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C. The last undecided House race has been called for the incumbent Democrat, bringing an unofficial close to the 2012 campaign more than three weeks after Election Day. North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre has narrowly survived a challenge from Republican David Rouzer, who conceded Wednesday night after a recount. (AP Photos/Files)

FILE - This May 8, 2012 file photo shows North Carolina Republican Congressional candidate David Rouzer in Wilmington, N.C. The last undecided House race has been called for the incumbent Democrat, bringing an unofficial close to the 2012 campaign more than three weeks after Election Day. North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre has narrowly survived a challenge from Republican David Rouzer, who conceded Wednesday night after a recount. (AP Photo/Mike Spencer, Wilmington Star-News, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The last undecided House race has been called for the incumbent Democrat, bringing an unofficial close to the 2012 campaign more than three weeks after Election Day.

North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre will return to Congress in 2013 after barely surviving a challenge from David Rouzer. The Republican conceded to McIntyre on Wednesday night after a recount showed the Democrat maintaining a small lead.

With McIntyre's race decided, only two House seats in next year's Congress remain up for grabs. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois Democrat, won re-election but resigned last week, citing ongoing health issues and acknowledging he's the subject of a federal investigation. Special primary elections to nominate candidates to replace him will be held in February.

And in Louisiana, which held its primary election for Congress on Nov. 6, there will be a run-off between two Republicans next month for the other seat.

House Republicans will stay in the majority, although their ranks will drop from 240 this Congress to 234 next year. Two hundred Democratic members will make up the minority in the House, up from 190 Democrats this year. There are currently five vacancies in the House.

In the Senate, 53 Democrats will make up the majority. Two independents will caucus with them, including newly elected Angus King from Maine, for an effective total of 55. Republicans, who currently number 47 in the Senate, will have just 45 senators in 2013.

Women will make up 1 in 5 senators, setting a new record.

President Barack Obama won 27 states and the District of Columbia for a total of 332 electoral votes. Republican Mitt Romney won 24 states and 206 electoral votes. Several states, including New York, California, Arizona and Washington, are still counting votes, but the remaining votes won't alter the outcome of the election.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-11-29-Election%20Results/id-cc55bf74f8c04078af874a0c4cb2e98d

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The Palestinians are certain to win U.N. recognition as a state Thursday but success could exact a high price: Israel and the United States warn it could delay hopes of achieving an independent Palestinian state through peace talks with Israel.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, mounted an aggressive campaign to head off the General Assembly vote. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly declared Thursday that the Palestinians would have to back down from long-held positions if they ever hope to gain independence.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, thousands of Palestinians from rival factions celebrated in the streets of the West Bank. Although the initiative will not immediately bring about independence, the Palestinians view it as a historic step in their quest for global recognition.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, mounted an aggressive campaign to head off the General Assembly vote.

In a last-ditch move Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns made a personal appeal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promising that President Barack Obama would re-engage as a mediator in 2013 if Abbas abandoned the effort to seek statehood. The Palestinian leader refused, said Abbas aide Saeb Erekat.

With most of the 193 General Assembly member states sympathetic to the Palestinians, the vote is certain to succeed. Several key countries, including France, have recently announced they would support the move to elevate the Palestinians from the status of U.N. observer to nonmember observer state. However, a country's vote in favor of the status change does not automatically imply its individual recognition of a Palestine state, something that must be done bilaterally.

The Palestinians say they need U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in 1967, to be able to resume negotiations with Israel. They say global recognition of the 1967 lines as the borders of Palestine is meant to salvage a peace deal, not sabotage it, as Israel claims.

The non-member observer state status could also open the way for possible war crimes charges against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court.

Netanyahu warned the Palestinians Thursday that they would not win their hoped-for state until they recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, declare an end to their conflict with the Jewish state and agree to security arrangements that protect Israel.

"The resolution in the U.N. today won't change anything on the ground," Netanyahu declared. "It won't advance the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather, put it further off."

While Israel argues that Abbas is trying to dictate the outcome of border talks by going to the U.N., the recognition request presented to the world body in fact calls for a quick resumption of negotiations on all core issues of the conflict, including borders.

Netanyahu's predecessors accepted the 1967 lines as a basis for border talks. Netanyahu has rejected the idea, while pressing ahead with Jewish settlement building on war-won land, giving Abbas little incentive to negotiate.

For Abbas, the U.N. bid is crucial if he wants to maintain his leadership and relevance, especially following the recent conflict between his Hamas rivals in Gaza and Israel. The conflict saw the Islamic militant group claim victory and raise its standing in the Arab world, while Abbas' Fatah movement was sidelined and marginalized.

In a departure from previous opposition, the Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip, said it wouldn't interfere with the U.N. bid, and its supporters joined some of the celebrations Thursday.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, some in a crowd of several thousand raised green Hamas flags, while in the city of Ramallah, senior figures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups normally opposed to Abbas, addressed the crowd.

"It's the right step in the right direction," Nasser al-Shaer, a former deputy prime minister from Hamas, said of the U.N. bid.

The Palestinians chose the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" for the vote. Before it takes place, there will be a morning of speeches by supporters focusing on the rights of the Palestinians. Abbas is scheduled to speak at that meeting, and again in the afternoon when he will present the case for Palestinian statehood in the General Assembly.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Wednesday that the U.N. vote will not fulfill the goal of independent Palestinian and Israeli states living side by side in peace, which the U.S. strongly supports because that requires direct negotiations.

"We need an environment conducive to that," she told reporters in Washington. "And we've urged both parties to refrain from actions that might in any way make a return to meaningful negotiations that focus on getting to a resolution more difficult."

The U.S. Congress has threatened financial sanctions if the Palestinians improve their status at the United Nations.

Ahead of the vote, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch filed an amendment to a defense bill Wednesday that would eliminate funding for the United Nations if the General Assembly changes Palestine's status.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said that by going to the U.N., the Palestinians violate "both the spirit and the word of signed agreements to solve issues through negotiations," which broke down four years ago.

But Israeli officials appeared to back away from threats of drastic measures if the Palestinians get U.N. approval, with officials suggesting the government would take steps only if the Palestinians use their new status to act against Israel.

Regev, meanwhile, affirmed that Israel is willing to resume talks without preconditions.

U.N. diplomats said they will be listening closely to Abbas' speech to the General Assembly on Thursday afternoon before the vote to see if he makes an offer of fresh negotiations with no strings, which could lead to new talks. The Palestinians have been demanding a freeze on Israeli settlements as a precondition.

As a sign of the importance Israel attaches to the vote, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman flew to New York and was scheduled to meet Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before the vote.

Unlike the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly and the resolution to raise the Palestinian status from an observer to a nonmember observer state only requires a majority vote for approval. To date, 132 countries ? over two-thirds of the U.N. member states ? have recognized the state of Palestine.

The Palestinians have been courting Western nations, especially the Europeans, seen as critical to enhancing their international standing. A number have announced they will vote "yes" including France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland. Those opposed or abstaining include the U.S., Israel, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia.

The Palestinians turned to the General Assembly after the United States announced it would veto their bid last fall for full U.N. membership until there is a peace deal with Israel.

Following last year's move by the Palestinians to join the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, the United States withheld funds from the organization, which amount to 22 percent of its budget. The U.S. also withheld money from the Palestinians.

_____

Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem and Karin Laub in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/palestinians-certain-win-recognition-state-052920823.html

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arvisokevin63 · ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? Hoping to expand our understanding of auroras and other fleeting atmospheric events, a team of space-weather researchers designed and built NORUSCA II, a new camera with unprecedented capabilities that can simultaneously image multiple spectral bands, in essence different wavelengths or colors, of light. The camera was tested at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO) in Svalbard, Norway, where it produced the first-ever hyperspectral images of auroras -- commonly referred to as "the Northern (or Southern) Lights" -- and may already have revealed a previously unknown atmospheric phenomenon.

Details on the camera and the results from its first images were published November 29 in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.

Auroras, nature's celestial fireworks, are created when charged particles from the Sun penetrate Earth's magnetic field. These shimmering displays in the night sky reveal important information about the Earth-Sun system and the way our planet responds to powerful solar storms. Current-generation cameras, however, are simply light buckets -- meaning they collect all the light together into one image -- and lack the ability to separately capture and analyze multiple slivers of the visible spectrum. That means if researchers want to study auroras by looking at specific bands or a small portion of the spectrum they would have to use a series of filters to block out the unwanted wavelengths.

The new NORUSCA II hyperspectral camera achieves the same result without any moving parts, using its advanced optics to switch among all of its 41 separate optical bands in a matter of microseconds, orders of magnitude faster than an ordinary camera. This opens up new possibilities for discovery by combining specific bands of the same ethereal phenomenon into one image, revealing previously hidden details.

"A standard filter wheel camera that typically uses six interference filters will not be able to spin the wheel fast enough compared to the NORUSCA II camera," said Fred Sigernes of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Norway. "This makes the new hyperspectral capability particularly useful for spectroscopy, because it can detect specific atmospheric constituents by their unique fingerprint, or wavelengths, in the light they emit."

These spectral signatures can then reveal subtle changes in atmospheric behavior, such as the ionization of gases during auroras. This form of multispectral imaging also will enable scientists to better classify auroras from background sky emissions and study the way they cluster in the atmosphere.

A New Phenomenon

On Jan. 24, 2012, during the inaugural research campaign of NORUSCA II, a major solar flare jettisoned a burst of high-energy particles known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The CME eventually slammed into Earth's magnetic field, producing magnificent auroras and a chance to fully test the new camera.

The researchers were able to image the aurora in unprecedented clarity through a layer of low altitude clouds, which would have thwarted earlier-generation instruments (see Image 1). The camera also revealed something unexpected -- a very faint wave pattern of unknown origin in the lower atmosphere (see Image 2). The wave pattern resembles "airglow" -- the natural emission of light by Earth's atmosphere. Airglow can be produced by a variety of known sources, including cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere and chemical reactions. Its concurrent appearance with the aurora suggests that it may also be caused by a previously unrecognized source.

"After the January CME, we think we saw an auroral-generated wave interaction with airglow," said Sigernes. This would be an entirely new phenomenon and if confirmed, would be the first time airglow has been associated with auroras.

"Our new all-sky camera opens up new frontiers of discovery and will help in the detection of auroras and the understanding of how our Sun impacts the atmosphere here on Earth. Additional development and commissioning will also hopefully verify our intriguing first results," concludes Sigernes.

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

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/NnP1uPSdwfc/121129111839.htm

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Fighting cancer is never easy. But as Dr. Oliver Bogler undergoes his second month of chemotherapy for breast cancer, he says he is grateful that his wife can relate. Five years ago, she was also going through her second month of chemotherapy, also for breast cancer.

Oliver and his wife Irene are both cancer researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. They met 20 years ago while doing cancer research at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in San Diego. The two connected over their passion for research.

Irene, now 52, was the first in their family to face cancer. It was 2007, she was 46, and they had two children under the age of seven at the time.

"I think you feel numb, a little bit shocked, but within a few days I was in at Anderson having tests and making determinations on treatments," says Irene. She went through chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiation, in that order. During that time, Irene says she remembers Oliver giving her unconditional support.

"Oliver was great," says Irene, "he obviously didn't understand the personal experience but he understood the process."

The two have also drawn from their extensive background in cancer research: They know what to expect when facing cancer head-on.

"Even though you're a laboratory researcher, you do over time, meet cancer patients," says Irene, "so you are sort of immersed in that." Never before, however, have the two researchers met a couple who have developed the same kind of breast cancer at the same age.

Oliver, 46 years old, is now undergoing chemotherapy and is looking ahead to his own radical mastectomy in March.

"First of all, we don't have a history of cancer" in the family, says Oliver's brother Daniel. "Second of all," he says, "breast cancer is an extremely unusual thing for a man."

Breast cancer is very rare in men. "Of all the cases of breast cancer, 99 percent are women and one percent are men," according to Oliver's doctor and men's breast cancer specialist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Sharon Giordano. The Boglers are the first couple Giordano has ever seen who have both had breast cancer -- and she has seen over 100 male breast cancer patients.

"These two people who do nothing but work against cancer all their lives -- what have they done to deserve this? Why does lightning have to strike twice on their little family?" asks Daniel. He does, however, say, "If it has to happen to anyone, he's someone who's intimately familiar with cancer and he's at the best place to get the best care."

"I am probably not going to die of this in the next five or 10 years," says Oliver, "I have to tell you, it would have been better to go to the doctor sooner but I couldn't imagine this happening twice in our family. Having a wife who had [breast cancer], I thought it would be weird saying I had it too."

Giordano says a lot of the time men have a delayed diagnosis because they don't think they could be at risk for breast cancer. "Men on average have an advanced disease because you have to have a lump to identify it. They don't examine their nipples and think breast cancer."

Members of Oliver's family say they wondered if the cancer research could have been a reason Irene and Oliver both had the same cancer.

"It's not Irene's genes or Oliver's genes, so you do wonder why," says Daniel. "We asked Oliver about that when he was diagnosed; we thought maybe while feeding his cells and growing his cultures."

Oliver assured his family that the radiation he and Irene received in their labs while researching is no worse than one gets from an X-ray machine at the airport. Daniel says he believes the entire situation is nothing more than very bad luck.

Oliver's cancer is Stage 2, just as Irene's was. The family remains overwhelmingly optimistic that Oliver will reach the same cancer-free stage that Irene has. Until then, the two are benefiting from a mutual understanding of what Oliver is going through.

"I think all cancer patients have an internal dialogue," says Irene. "They are having an internal conversation with themselves about the hope, fears and their future and I think only a cancer patient would know more about that and what that means to have that going on in your head all the time."

Oliver agrees, "One of the things that's nice is that she understands where I'm at -- that support has been great. You begin to think about the fact that you won't make it 'til 80 years old and it changes how you tackle life. It's hard to convey that unless you've gone through that yourself."

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Source: http://gma.yahoo.com/married-cancer-research-couple-both-breast-cancer-225947486--abc-news-health.html

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arvisokevin63 · ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) ? Areopaguristes tudgei. That's the name of a new species of hermit crab recently discovered on the barrier reef off the coast of Belize by Christopher Tudge, a biology professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

Tudge has been interested in biology his whole life, from boyhood trips to the beach collecting crustaceans in his native Australia, to his undergraduate and PhD work in zoology and biology at the University of Queensland. He has collected specimens all over the world, from Australia to Europe to North and South America.

Until now, he has never had a species named after him. He only found out about his namesake after reading an article about it in the journal Zootaxa. Apparently, finding out after-the-fact is standard practice in the highly formalized ritual of naming a new species.

The two crustacean taxonomists and authors of the paper who named the new crab after Tudge, Rafael Lemaitre of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and Darryl L. Felder of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette's Department of Biology Laboratory for Crustacean Research, have known Tudge since he first came to Washington in 1995 as a postdoc research fellow at the Smithsonian.

Crustecean Elation

Lemaitre and Felder have been collecting specimens on the tiny Belizean island for decades and for more than 10 years, they had asked Tudge -- who specializes in the structures of crustacean reproduction and how they relate to the creatures' evolutionary history -- to join them on one of their semiannual research outings. Finally, in February 2010, Tudge joined them on a tiny island covered with hundreds of species of their favorite fauna.

It was crab heaven for a cast of crustacean guys.

"So you can take 40 steps off the island and you're on the edge of the reef, and then the back part of the reef is what they call the lagoon," Tudge recalled. "You slowly walk out into ever-increasing depths of water and it's a mixture of sand and sea grass and bits of coral, and then there's some channels. There's lots of different habitats there. Some islands are covered by mangroves. So we would visit all the different habitats that were there."

"We would collect on the reef crest, go and turn over coral boulders on the reef flat, snorkel over the sea grass beds. We pumped sand and mud to get things out of the ground. We walked into the mangroves and collected crustaceans from under the mangrove roots. We even snorkeled in the channels in the mangrove islands."

But discovering the new species was much less involved: Tudge turned over a coral boulder in an intertidal area, saw 50 or so tiny crabs scrambling around, and stuck a dozen or so specimens in a bottle before going on with his work. Only later in the lab, under the microscope, was it determined that this isolated little group of hermit crabs might be unique.

As the journal authors write: "Given this cryptic habitat and the relatively minute size of the specimens (shield length range = 1.0-3.0 mm), it is not surprising that these populations have gone unnoticed during extensive sampling programs that have previously taken place along the Barrier Reef of Belize."

Getting the Word

Tudge found out only recently found out that Areopaguristes tudgei -- a tiny hermit crab differentiated from others in its genus by such characteristics as the hairs growing on some of its appendages -- was joining the list of about 3 million known species. Lemaitre emailed him a PDF of the finished article. A note said only, "Here's a new species. What do you think?" The note had a smiley emoticon.

That's the way it works, said Tudge's colleague American University's College of Arts and Sciences, biology professor Daniel Fong. There's no warning; one day you just find out. Fong has also had species named after him, and he has discovered new ones as well.

"You go through several emotions when a species has been named after you," Fong said. "It is truly an honor, in the most formal sense of the term, that your colleagues have thought of naming a species after you. It is a very special type of recognition of your contribution to your research field by your colleagues."

Amid their exhaustive taxonomic description, complete with drawings and photographs of Areopaguristes tudgei, the journal article authors explain why they chose its name: "This species is named after our colleague Christopher C. Tudge (American University) who first noticed and collected populations of this diminutive hermit crab living under large dead coral boulders during joint field work in Carrie Bow Cay. The name also acknowledges his unique contributions to knowledge of the reproductive biology of hermit crabs."

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White House economists warn that unless Congress extends expiring middle-class tax cuts 'without delay,' consumer confidence will take a hit at a critical holiday season for retailers.

By Linda Feldmann,?Staff writer / November 26, 2012

Holiday shoppers wait on a check-out line in the Times Square Toys-R-Us store after doors were opened to the public at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving in New York. White House economists warned on Monday that the holiday shopping season will be hurt, if Congress does not extend middle-class tax cuts.

John Minchillo/AP

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The White House is ramping up pressure on Republicans to make a deal that averts a trip over the ?fiscal cliff.?

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'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // --> Monitor correspondent Liz Marlantes discusses why Democrats have the upper hand over the GOP when it comes to 'fiscal cliff' negotiations.

Monday morning, the White House put out a report warning that Americans might pull back on spending in the face of a tax increase, threatening the economy. A typical family of four will see a tax increase of $2,200 next year if the Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire on the middle class, the report says.

Later on Monday, a top White House economist made a surprise appearance at the daily briefing to reinforce the report.

?One of the many reasons why I think it's important that Congress extend the middle-class tax cuts without delay, without drama, is because it will help to maintain the increase in consumer confidence that we've seen since August of 2011,? said Alan Krueger, chairman of President Obama?s Council of Economic Advisers.

The ?fiscal cliff? refers to the $607 billion in tax increases and deep spending cuts that will automatically go into effect at the end of the year if Congress does not act. The Obama administration is adamant that taxes rise on the top 2 percent of taxpayers, while holding taxes steady for the rest.

Mr. Krueger says the White House economic team calculated that if taxes rise on the middle class, consumption would decline next year by about $200 billion.

?To put that in some perspective, that would reduce the growth of consumption by 1.7 percentage points and shave 1.4 percentage points off of GDP growth next year,? Krueger said, noting that consumption accounts for about 70 percent of GDP.

?Our estimates are quite close to estimates of private sector forecasts and also quite close to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that GDP growth would be reduced by 1.3 percentage points next year if the middle-class tax cuts are not extended,? Krueger said.

The White House also suggested that uncertainty over taxes could harm the holiday shopping season, a particularly critical time for retailers.

In separate action, White House officials met Monday with Thomas Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable president John Engler, and other business leaders. Two weeks ago, Mr. Donohue complained in a press conference that he had been left out of the fiscal-cliff discussions.

At the White House briefing, press secretary Jay Carney rejected the characterization of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) that the fiscal-cliff talks were ?at an impasse.?

?We remain hopeful and optimistic that we can achieve a deal,? Mr. Carney said.

Over the weekend, Obama spoke with the leaders of both houses of Congress, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, about the negotiations. In addition, some Republicans ? including Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina ? indicated flexibility over allowing a tax increase for the wealthy, as long as the Democrats makes concessions on entitlements.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zT6KmjZgngM/Fiscal-cliff-White-House-steps-up-pressure-on-GOP-to-reach-a-deal

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Every November Birmingham plays host to a German festive market - this is now in it's 10^th year and arose because the city is twinned with Frankfurt, and is now considered the "largest authentic German market outside of Germany and Austria". Some Brum inhabitants may feel a little shortchanged by this, as several of the stalls carry similar stock, and many feel it is overpriced and an unnecessary nuisance of crowds and noise when trying to go about your normal business - plonking a double line of stalls down an already busy pedestrian thoroughfare can bring out the festive rage in the best of people. But there are good things to be found if you can get past the irritation and mellow out (the gl?hwein mit rum helps with that), and in recent years there has also been the addition of a 'craft market' of English-based stalls to take the enforced revelry all the way up to the Symphony Hall area.

If you can steel yourself against the crowds - or pick a quieter time to go - and can justify spending a bit of cash on yourself, my recommendations follow for the best food & drink options to check out. These are based on my personal taste, so more meat than sweet, and washed down with something tasty too.

1. Hogan's Cider

This is the best thing about the festive market, from my point of view! Hogans now have a corner of the Craft market up by Baskerville House/Broad Street firmly marked out for themselves, with wooden picnic benches and some cover from the cold and rain providing the perfect environment to get stuck in to some quality cider and perry. Allen Hogan will often be behind the bar, ready to dispense great drinks and cider wisdom to those with a keen thirst. This year the range on offer is bigger than ever, on draught, keg and bottle, and includes mulled cider; Panking Pole 6.2% - slightly hazy but very smooth-drinking; Pickers Passion 5.3%; and Hazy Daisy 3.9%. Some traditional cider makers dilute their cider down with the quaintly-named 'brook apple' (i.e. water!) ? dilution helps to obtain a lower ABV, make the crop go further, and to bring down the tannins, to make a more drinkable product. Allen's version is diluted with fresh pressed English apple juice, which gives a sweeter edge and a full juicy flavour, for a very slurpable cider without the higher alcohol content. Conversely, due to the high quality extra juice used, this makes Hazy Daisy more expensive for Allen to produce than the other ciders in his range! But if you're planning a bit of a session, I can recommend you start with this delicious drop before moving to the six-percenters.

?
Hogan's stall also stocks Purity Mad Goose ale, Freedom lager, and some warming spirits, with bottles of cider and perry available to take home.
My personal favourite is the Vintage Perry - and I'm happy to brave the worst of the winter weather to huddle under a heater and enjoy a pint of this with other cider and perry loving chums.

2. Pork with dumplings and red cabbage
This can be found at the beer chalet nearest the Museum, at the side of the Town Hall. They offer roast pork ("with cracking") or pork neck ("without cracking"), served either in a bap, or - the best plate in the market, IMHO - with a potato suet dumpling and red cabbage. The pork is plentiful, the dumpling stodgy enough to soak up the gravy, and the red cabbage sweet and subtly flavoured with juniper. It may not seem cheap at ?7.50 for this plate, but that's pretty comparable to what you'd pay in a Munich bierkeller for a similar meal, and matches any pub lunch in town. Washed down with a half of weissbier, if you love pork as much as me, this will put a big smile on your face and set you up for further market exploring.

3. Wood's real ale
Real ale at a market is a bit of a rarity, but Woods appeared at the Craft Market a few years ago, and now offer three ales on handpump, with several bottles and packaged gift sets available. There seems to be a fair turnover of the draught ale, so the exact beers on offer may vary each time you visit, but the condition of these when sampled on Saturday last was all spot on, and I'd happily spend a while drinking their signature Shropshire Lad bitter (4.5%), or for something more robust, their seasonal Cracker at 6%.

4. Stein of weissbier
Sadly this isn't *quite* as exciting a treat (for me, personally) as it used to be - as up to a few years ago they served the more enticing Paulaner Hefe-Weiss for ?3.50 a pint - a bargain for one of the quintisentially clove and banana-accented Bavarian weisses. In recent years, they've changed to Franziskaner - not quite as much happening flavour-wise, and this year on sale at ?4 - but still, it's a pretty nice experience to grab a heavy glass halbe-stein of German weiss while you mull around or munch on some porcine treats, for less than the price of a non-imported beer in many London establishments - even better if you have the time and capacity on your hands to enjoy a whole stein! (though best to have worked out where your toilet options are beforehand, otherwise you'll have to endure the dire festival-style cubicles... be warned!). If you can squeeze into one of the wooden drinking huts that have covered tables in the back, the press of bodies will keep you warm while the cold beer goes down and you plan your next tactical move through the throngs.

5. Roast hams

Right at the busiest point of the market, where there's a pinch-point for pedestrian traffic going in two different directions through the main drinking and gawping area, is a stall selling roast ham. Huge banks of hams rotate on spits at the back, while surly-looking staff carve off chunks and stick them into buns. For ham-in-a-bap at ?4.50 this does seem a little expensive, but as the price hasn't changed in many years, and with the rise of street food in England at similar costs, it doesn't seem that unreasonable these days. You'll be rewarded with hot, rich, salty, thick ham goodness ? just the thing to act as a restorative between steins.

6. Hot cider from Orchard Pig

This producer is based in the Somerset area, but have had a stall at the Craft Market for the past few years. This year they have some smart new branding and a range of products on offer - from sweet/dry ciders to horseradish liqueur - but my recommendation here, as well as their draught still cider, would be to have the spiced, mulled cup of cheer - it will warm you up and soothe away any of that lingering hatred of the crowds and bustle. Well, until you stop drinking it and try to go anywhere, that is.

7. Many flavours of Wurst

Everyone likes a sausage! Well, mostly ... There are several sausage-merchants at the market, as you'd expect, though sadly the little Nurnberger variety are missing (I guess to be expected as it is nominally a Frankfurt festive market). If you have a large enough mouth for this kind of endeavour, then go to the sausage stall with the large circular grill, between the Council House and the Floozie in the Jaccuzi fountain - they have fast turnover and about 3 different types of sausage (Bratwurst, Weisswurst, and 'Spicy' sausage) and you can load it up with sauerkraut, senf (German sweet mustard) and ketchup before you bite in and get it half in your mouth and half all down yourself.

8. Mead
There are two different mead sellers at the market - an Eastern European stall, selling bottles of mead to take away, and some mead-based liqueurs, as well as honey with different flower accents; and a drinking-stall further down New Street towards the Bull Ring, where plastic 'Viking horns' will be used to dispense hot or cold mead to shivering consumers. I'd recommend the European mead stall for bottles to take home and enjoy with friends and family at the turning of the year, but if you need a quick, hot, honey-based pick-me-up, that you're guaranteed not to find in Birmingham the rest of the year round, head down for the horn!

9. Meat Stall
A stall selling meaty goods to take home has been at the market for several years, but each year it changes location, so I have to hunt around anxiously until I've found it and know my supply of pig-based treats is secure for another festive season. The range here keeps expanding, and seems to have several new additions this year ? so as well as different types of cured salamis (with chilli, herbs, nuts, garlic, pepper etc.), and sides of bacon and cured ham, there is also a chilled sausage cabinet with cook-at-home weisswurst and frankfurters, and meat p?t? and spreads. Another rare thing you can find here is ?schmalz? - a lardy spread that the Germans love to eat on bread, and is best topped with some crispy fried onions. I'm sure it's terribly bad for you but as a once-a-year treat in small doses, it would be pretty tasty washed down with a rauchbier or bock.

10. Hot chestnuts

Something simple to finish ? a bag of hot chestnuts with a sprinkling of salt. We ate these all the time in winter when I was growing up ? the benefit of having an open coal hearth to cook them in ? so there may be a bit of nostalgia creeping in here. But I've noticed that chestnut seller carts are commonly found in parts of London like Covent Garden, and wondered why they never appear in Birmingham. But at the market, here's your chance to grab some. They make a good snack to pick up at lunch and take back to the office, acting as a handwarmer in your pocket. And (depending on how much salt you like) probably one of the healthier things to be found among all the beer, meat and sugary foods lining the streets.

Normally the stalls at the market are reliably/disappointingly* (*delete as appropriate) the same every year, so it was a pity to discover my most frequent lunchtime haunt, the flammkuchen stand, wasn't selling any this year, and indeed hadn't brought their usual lovely German wine selection with minerally Rieslings, elegant Sylvaner and rich Spatburgunders. This would definitely have taken up two of my top ten. But instead they are offering some 'lachs' - sides of smoked salmon, which are finished off by hanging on a wooden board over a roaring brazier, to absorb a little more smoky flavour before being sliced - so I'll have to give this new offering a go while mourning the lack of flammkuchen this year.

There are plenty of other food & drink options if the above don't appeal: pretzels, doughnuts, frankfurters, sweet and savoury crepes, fried cheese croquettes, fat pieces of garlic bread, fried potatoes, schnitzel, elaborate cakes, and many things in between, and the market is open from 10am to 9pm daily until 22nd December. So if you can put that 'Winterval' misanthropy to one side, I'll maybe see you there for a pork and cider feast!

Source: http://bafadventuring.blogspot.com/2012/11/food-drink-highlights-at-birmingham.html

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arvisokevin63

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Source: http://hometown-yelp.blogspot.com/2012/11/energy-efficient-windows-home.html

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arvisokevin63

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your entrepreneurial journey.

I grew up wanting to be an artist from the time I was in preschool. Around 8^th grade I began to realize I was never going to make a living selling my paintings, and around the same time the internet was really starting to take off. I talked my parents into letting me set up my own website, taught myself how to code, and realized I could combine my love of design with this new medium and have a profitable career I would actually enjoy.

I studied commercial graphics in college and set out to join the corporate world, never dreaming I would want to start my own business. But I was never quite satisfied in my jobs because I never felt like I got to contribute enough of myself.

When my husband first suggested I start a business, I shrugged off the idea, thinking it would be too hard. Then my son came along, and I began to wonder what it might be like to work from home so that I could spend more time with him.

I started Alamo Websites in my spare time, and as business grew, I was working 5 days a week at my regular job, 1 day a week teaching, and the last day of the week (plus any evenings when I didn?t crash before 10 PM) getting my two businesses off the ground. Working that hard pushed me past my limits, but it also gave me the motivation I needed to make sure the businesses succeeded so I would never have to work that hard again.

What did you do before launching your own business??

I was a graphic designer for about 5 years before I started Alamo Websites. I did everything from designing postcards to running printing presses to heading up online marketing campaigns, and what seemed like an odd mix of jobs ended up preparing me better than I could ever have intentionally prepared to open Unbeatable Banners.

How did you fund your businesses??

Blood, sweat, and tears. One of the greatest things about creating an online business is that if you can code things yourself, you barely have any expenses. I am blessed to have an extremely talented husband who was able to code what I couldn?t, and equally blessed to have a mentor and friends who helped me spread the word and get both businesses off the ground.

How many hours do you work a week and how much is spent is your home office?

I have 3 days a week to myself, so I use nearly all of that time (18 hours) for work. It?s tricky balancing client work, updating my own sites, and marketing, so I usually spend another 4 hours evenings or weekends squeezing in what I couldn?t quite finish during the week. I do almost all of my work from my cozy home office because I stay a lot more focused there. I always wish I had more time to devote to my businesses, but I really enjoy spending 2 days a week just with my son and having weekends to relax again.

How would you rate your success?

I?m big on setting goals, and in short-term goals I have been very successful. I have happy web design clients, satisfied banner customers, and income to show for all my hard work. Now I?m focusing my efforts toward the longer-term goal of growing both businesses so that I can continue to work from home and spend more time with my family. My farthest-reaching goal is to innovate and grow to the point where I can create jobs for others who want to work from home. Both companies are designed in a way that would let employees work from anywhere.

What has been your biggest business struggle as an entrepreneur?

Finding the best way to get the word out and bring in customers. The web used to be an ?if you build it, they will come? marketplace, but there is so much competition these days that you have to find the right marketing mix.

What advice would you give to a new entrepreneur?

1. Find something that you are truly passionate about before you start a business. Everything will come a lot easier to you, since you?ll already be familiar with your target market and what they are looking for.

2. Seek out mentors and learn from others. There?s no need to reinvent the wheel, and connections can help you grow your business in ways you never even imagined. Read up on good books like Mom, Inc., participate in forums, and reach out to your heroes. If you genuinely connect with someone who has been successful in your field, more often than not they will be willing to help you in some way.

3. Don?t expect anything to happen overnight. Sometimes your business will grow by leaps and bounds; at other times you will feel like you?ve been working for nothing because you haven?t seen the results yet. That?s why doing something you truly enjoy and having mentors around is so important ? you?re more likely to see it through and reap the rewards you have been working toward.?

How do you manage all of your personal and business activities?

I find balance by scheduling business activities, family activities, and free time. I break down big goals into 1- or 2-hour chunks so I?m always making progress toward several goals, and I only schedule about 75% of my weekdays so if I need to take a break and walk through the park, take a nap, or just watch a TV show that doesn?t air on Nick Jr., I?m not falling behind.

I keep a big planner and mark down all the things I do each day, like getting groceries and cleaning, in addition to the tasks I planned. This lets me look back on a week and feel like I accomplished so much more ? and it helps me see patterns where I am not using my time wisely, so I can make better plans for the future.

Connect with Elaine Shannon and Unbeatable Banners & Alamo Websites?

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A Dietary Change For the Better (?)

The classic vegan I see (physically in my office) or hear about often is one who used to have a really unhealthy diet. They once ate a diet that often consisted of processed artificial foods, excess sugar, diet soda, and plenty of bad fats. Basically, their diet was a train wreck. Then they switched from this type of diet to either vegetarian, (often still eating milk and eggs ? ?ovo-lacto?), before going to hard-core vegan, though some have gone straight to the vegan route. What happens when they make this change? They feel great! They?ve cleaned up their diet from so many processed and artificial products that they?re reaping the health benefits. A vegan diet is so much better than what they were eating previously and if there were only a processed artificial diet and vegan diet to choose from then I?d go vegan too.

Vegans feel that they cannot eat a healthy and? clean diet without eliminating everything that contains or came from some living creature. However, consuming pasture raised eggs and undenatured dairy often equates with improved health (and fitness) for many even more than the fully vegan diet. And many see even a further improvement in their health when they add in grass fed meats and wild caught fish too, (a Paleo Type Diet).

Vegans and Protein

Vegans tend to be deficient in protein. But I?ll add to this statement because the rebuttal here is that a healthy person doesn?t need much protein ? maybe just 40 or so grams a day. To this I call bullshit ? that?s just enough to get you by but not be healthy or sustain fitness. Heck, you only need roughly 10mg of vitamin C a day to prevent scurvy, but hopefully you?re striving for more than that (a bite of an orange), for overall health. Ideally a person should consume at least 1.0 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight, and athletes should shoot for at least 1.5 g/kg. Many athletes during high intensity or long duration training periods should plan on 2.0 g/kg.

Vegan diet: legumes Vegan protein sources are almost primarily grain based and incomplete for the most part. Yes, quinoa is a so-called ?complete protein? grain, but still not optimal when compared to animal proteins or even those proteins from an animal ? especially whey and egg ? perhaps the two best complete and bioavailable sources of protein.

Vegans then turn to legumes, (beans & lentils), hempseed, and various grains such as amaranth and buckwheat for protein, increasing their dietary carbohydrate content. Yes, most legumes (the beans) are carbs, not proteins. Peanuts have a good amount of protein, though they are more of a fat.? And then there is the somewhat dreaded soy. Soy proteins are notoriously known for their estrogen-mimicking effects on the human body ? clearly not healthy. Soy proteins, (the ones that make up so many soy protein products and ?fake meat? items), are often derived from petroleum based solvents which is obviously not good for any body. Fermented soy, however, can be beneficial, and this includes tempeh, tamari, miso, and soy sauce. Though not a significant amount of protein, especially the soy sauce, they?re pretty good sources for vegans. But you only should, (and can), eat just so much soy, even fermented.? Tofu is typically processed and it?s coagulated soy milk. Soy milk, like agave, (which is similar to high fructose corn syrup), are two foods that I feel should be removed from the food industry, especially health food stores. They are in no way healthy and they have no place in a healthy diet. But they?re both vegan.

Vegans, Fats, and Inflammation

Vegans are very susceptible to creating inflammatory problems directly due to their diet. As discussed in detail here in the Sock Doc First Aid Series Part III, high carbohydrate foods combined with Pasture eggs - vegetarian refined omega 6 oils is a recipe for disaster. Many vegans eat a lot of these types of foods and even those who eat raw vegetables, nuts, and seeds need to be careful to not consume too many omega 6 fats. To help prevent this, flax and walnut oils can be included in the diet, providing some omega 3 fats. Unfortunately this still leaves the diet devoid of the important arachiodonic acid (AA) fats from their natural source ? animals. If you?re vegan there?s no way to get around this roadblock; of all the dietary fats I believe AA fats are vital and highly undervalued in regards to optimal health.

Nutrients and Phytonutients in a Vegan Diet

Vegan: healthy herbs Vegans who consume a lot of raw, organic plant based foods and shy away from the refined grains and processed foods tend to have very healthy levels of vitamins and minerals and especially those ever so healthy phytonutrients (powerful antioxidants that give the plants their flavors and colors). This is definitely one perk of the vegan diet, though any non-vegan healthy diet should also contain a lot of these fruits, vegetables, and herbs too. Since plant foods do not provide vitamin B12, many vegans need to supplement. Fortified foods often don?t make up for the deficiency and are of course only found in those processed unhealthy foods anyway.

Are Vegans Truly Healthy?

I?ve heard this line many times: ?I?m very healthy and I?m vegan.? Then the person making that statement goes on to ask me why they keep getting injured, sick, or can?t get out of some low energy or training funk. Yes, I?m well aware that this is common for even non-vegans, but my point is that a lot of vegans think they?re healthy and they?re not.

Health is not merely the absence of some pathological disease. Many people think they are healthy but often they are not as healthy as they could be. Do you sleep well throughout the night without awakening and then wake up feeling refreshed without aches and pains? If not, I?d define that as poor health. Do you take any medication ? whether it?s an anti-inflammatory, hormone replacement, a drug to wake up, to go to sleep, or to have sex? Taking any medication is a sign of some health problem, (though they are sometimes necessary). Do you lack physical and/or mental energy during the day? How about your digestion? Are you one of the many women (and sometimes guys) like those I see in my office who think it?s normal to have a bowel movement just a couple of times a week? That?s definitely not healthy. Do you need to wear an orthotic in order to walk without pain or need some form of traditional footwear with support and ?cushion? so you can walk, stand, or even exercise? If you do you?re definitely not healthy from my perspective.

Think about how healthy you really are, and if your diet is promoting or deterring health.

The Vegan Role Model

Oh please don?t say that there are great athletes out there who are vegan and that?s your vegan justification. That?s just all wrong type of thinking. There are also great athletes eating McDonalds and only drinking Red Bull and Diet Coke and they?re awesome. (Maybe they?re on drugs?!) You don?t know if that athlete is suffering some health problem, either functional or pathological. Don?t equate fitness with health and don?t assume that being vegan got? him or her to the top of their sport.

Yes, some vegans choose to eat in such a way due to ethical or religious reasons and although I don?t agree with it, I understand and respect it, (more the religious aspect). I?ve never tried to change a person?s diet away from vegetarian or vegan which they are following due to their religion. I?ve tweaked it as much as possible within those religious guidelines and for vegetarians that often means a lot more eggs and whey protein and dairy fats. Those who choose to be vegan due to ethical reasons, feeling as though all other diets are unethical, I think are somewhat misled. There are ways to still eat non-vegan and be ethical and humane towards animals ? even if you don?t actually eat them; case in point is the vegan omission of eggs and honey.

Eggs & Honey: Vegans Just Say No!

You really wanna mess with the Colonel?

Vegans won?t eat eggs as they feel they are eating an animal or one which will soon become life. I?ve got a good dozen egg-layers running around my yard and I know more than a thing or two about these birds, one being is that the egg which they lay isn?t going to turn into a cute little chick unless it has be inseminated by a rooster. So no rooster ? no chick. But the hen will still lay her egg every day and if you don?t eat the egg, then you?re wasting food. It?s that simple. Now even if you have a cool-as-hell rooster around as I do, (we call him the Colonel), that hen then has to go broody to have that little chick hatch from the egg. That means she has to sit on it, and stay on it. Many hens never go broody ? actually we?ve never had one go broody. So again, that perfectly laid source of protein egg containing vital nutrients for health will once again be wasted ? not if it?s laid, but when it?s laid. You?re not going to stop a hen from laying, at least not naturally. So I could be very direct here and say vegans waste food, but I won?t go there though I just did. And yes I understand that many vegans don?t want to support commercial farming of eggs; neither do I.

Vegans also won?t use honey because they feel it harms, enslaves, or kills bees. I?m a beekeeper and can tell you that a responsible beekeeper isn?t just stealing honey and then feeding the bees Vegans & honey nutrient-poor sugar water and they sure aren?t stealing honey from a hive and leaving the bees to die. If there is a hive full of honey then eventually the queen has no place to lay her eggs and guess what ? she takes off with much of her staff. The hive swarms and honey is left behind in a hive with half a colony and that?s ready to be robbed by other bees or pests. A beekeeper will only take off the surplus honey. Some years, such as this past year, there wasn?t much honey surplus and most colonies have now needed sugar water to get ready for the upcoming winter, without it they will most likely die. If they die then that?s less bees next year and that?s worse for pollination for all the vegan crops. And the notion that keeping bees in a hive is a form of enslavement is just plain nuts; sorry but it is. The traditional hive is a great place for a colony to live and thrive and protect themselves. They can come and go when they please too ? I?ve never known a slave to have that freedom. Again, I understand that commercial farming of bees is a huge problem.

A Final Vegan Note

Cool Vegan Foods

Here?s the point ? follow a diet that works for you and don?t assume that you?re on the ideal diet for your genetics, chemistry, lifestyle and activity level based solely upon what you read or what someone else is doing. You need to figure out and fine tune your own individual diet. If you were eating junk food for years and switched to vegan and feel awesome then I applaud you, (really, but not literally?? sorry), but assuming that you?re now on the road to optimum health is shortsighted. You very well, and I?ll say from experience most likely will, feel even better if you add in some high quality protein and vital fats and nutrients that come from, and are in, animal products. Notice that I said ?come from??? you don?t need to be a meat-eater to have a healthy diet, but swinging to the opposite team isn?t necessarily the best idea for most either.

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Friday, November 30, 2012

Last House race brings 2012 election to an end

Thursday, November 29, 2012

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Married cancer researchers both get breast cancer

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Monday, November 26, 2012

New crab species discovered off the coast of Belize

Fiscal cliff: White House steps up pressure on GOP to reach a deal

Food & Drink highlights at the Birmingham Festive Markets

Energy efficient windows ? Home Improvement: House Plans

Interview with Elaine Shannon ? Owner of Alamo Websites ...

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Thursday, November 22, 2012

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Vegan Diet: Can Vegan Athletes Have Superior Health & Fitness?