Video: Clinton warns Syria not to use chemical weapons

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50094347/

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Cashman on Yanks: 'Beggars can't be choosers'

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? Here's a new one for the New York Yankees.

"Beggars can't be choosers," Brian Cashman, general manager of baseball's wealthiest team, said Tuesday.

While the Boston Red Sox have added Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino this week, the Yankees are taking a slow approach and appear focused on getting their payroll below the $189 million luxury tax threshold in 2014.

Dependable catcher Russell Martin already has left New York, right fielder Nick Swisher appears certain to follow and reliever Rafael Soriano also is likely to depart.

"I think sometimes people assume that the New York Yankees are the New York Yankees and there's no budget constraints and there aren't things that we want to stick to," manager Joe Girardi said about Martin. "But there are. So I think that's part of the reason why he wasn't re-signed."

New York has paid the luxury tax every year since it began in 2003 and the Yankees have been the top-spending team every season from 1999 on. By dropping under the threshold ? which includes benefits ? in 2014, New York would lower its tax rate in 2015 to 17.5 percent from 50 percent. And the Yankees would become eligible to get some of their revenue-sharing money back in 2014, known as a "Market Disqualification Refund" under baseball's new labor contract.

Girardi thinks moves may become even more limited.

"I don't think we'll get a true flavor until next year. When I say next year, I mean 2014," he explained, "and maybe it's July 28th, and you're talking about adding a guy, and it puts you over the cap. I don't think we'll really get a true idea of what it's like until then."

New York's moves thus far have been a trio of one-year contracts for pitchers nearing the ends of their careers ? $10 million for Mariano Rivera, $12 million for Andy Pettitte and $15 million for Hiroki Kuroda. The Yankees are uncertain of right field and catcher, and third base is open for at least the first half of the season because Alex Rodriguez needs surgery on his left hip.

Eric Chavez, Rodriguez's backup, also is a free agent. Cashman said he has talked with the agents for Ichiro Suzuki, Kevin Youkilis and A.J. Pierzynski.

"I'm prepared to drag this thing out," he said.

Rodriguez's hip injury, detected during an examination last month, complicates matters.

"When you go into an offseason, you feel you have to address certain areas, and all of a sudden you get a surprise in a sense," Girardi said. "It's a pretty big hole to fill. It may not necessarily be with one person. We're not sure exactly how we're going to do it. We'll let things play out here. It's not what we were expecting."

A-Rod was pinch hit for and benched during a dismal postseason. The Yankees say now the injury likely caused the production decline.

"He wasn't the Alex we saw before the injury, and now we have a reason possibly why," Girardi said. "He kept trying to play and kept trying to be productive for us. Obviously, he wasn't even sure what was going on. But he knew that his hips weren't working the way he was accustomed to them working."

New York hopes to sign Chavez or another player who can fill in. Finding that player isn't easy.

"There's not a lot of choices out there," Cashman said. "It's a very limited sandbox to play in."

___

AP Baseball Writer Ben Walker contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cashman-yanks-beggars-cant-choosers-020828923--mlb.html

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Fossilized rain may resolve Earth paradox

SAN FRANCISCO?? The young Earth may not have been a churning ball of scalding hot water, but a planet slightly cooler than today with more temperate oceans, according to two new studies.

The studies, presented Monday here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, may shed light on the paradox of the faint young sun : Why, despite the sun being 70 percent as bright as it is now, the early Earth during the Archean Eon (about 2.5 billion to 4 billion years ago) wasn't a giant snowball. Rather, it had a vast liquid water ocean filled with primitive microbes, ancestors to modern-day methane-producing and sulfur-eating microbes.

In one study, researchers analyzed fossilized raindrops that fell from the heavens some 2.7 billion years ago, finding the atmosphere from which they fell was not that different from today, suggesting that it didn't have the several-fold increase in greenhouse gases that was thought necessary to keep the planet hot.

Another study found that scientists could resolve the paradox because the young planet didn't actually need to be warm to support liquid water. If you model the Earth as a 3-D sphere, even with a dimmer sun and an atmosphere not that different from today's, the Earth could still have supported liquid water around the equator ? just not at scalding hot temperatures. [ 50 Amazing Facts About Earth ]

"We think that for the last four decades the community has been making the faint young sun paradox harder than it needs to be," said climate scientist Eric T. Wolf, who conducted the 3-D simulation, adding that early Earth "could have been similar in temperature to modern Earth or maybe a little colder."

Faint sun, hot Earth?
Starting in the 1960s, scientists used ocean cores and other fossilized records to determine that the Earth's oceans reached as high as 170 degrees Fahrenheit (77 degrees Celsius) during the Archean period. Meanwhile, scientists ran computer simulations of early Earth with a faint sun and a similar atmosphere to our modern one by simplifying the Earth to a one-dimensional line, rather than a more realistic sphere. That meant an average temperature below freezing caused the entire planet to freeze over in their simulations.

To explain the faint sun paradox, scientists have proposed the early Earth's atmosphere was filled with much greater amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that kept the Earth warm. Pressure rises in direct proportion to the amount of gas in the atmosphere, which gave researchers a way to test this idea.

To find out early Earth's atmospheric pressure (and temperature), Sanjoy Som, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in California, and his colleagues looked at primeval, fossilized raindrops found in South Africa. During a brief, light rainstorm, the raindrops fell into an ancient river that was blanketed with volcanic ash. The imprints were preserved after another fine veil of ash covered them, immortalizing the divots in the fossil record, Som told LiveScience.

To calculate the pressure in the early atmosphere, the researchers dropped water droplets from a seven-story height and measured the size of the imprints they made in a pan of volcanic ash from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallaj?kull. Because a raindrop's top speed, or terminal velocity, depends on the density of the air around it as it falls to Earth, Som's team could calculate the air pressure by calculating the speed at which the 2.7-billion-year-old raindrops hit the surface.

They concluded that the ancient atmospheric pressure was no more than twice what it is today, which suggests ancient Earth couldn't have had anywhere near the level of greenhouse gases as other researchers had suggested. Given that, Som said, "I don't think we have a solid explanation as to how the planet stayed warm." [ 10 Weird Ways Weather Changed History ]

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Cooler planet
Wolf and his colleagues, meanwhile, using their 3-D computer simulation, found that even given more realistic atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the Earth would have been about as cold as it was during the last ice age. Even so, it could have supported smaller belts around the poles where temperatures were higher and could support liquid water.

The team also reassessed older geological evidence that scientists used to infer the temperature on early Earth, such as marine sediment cores, finding that for near-boiling oceans much of that evidence was questionable.

For instance, scientists have previously used the absence of ice in the fossil record from that time as proof that Earth was ice-free, when in fact, it could mean we just haven't found any ice, Wolf said. And geological evidence for warm temperatures found at northern latitudes came from unknown ocean depths and may very well have come from closer to the equator; that evidence shifted around with breaking continents and churning oceans in the 2.8 billion years since. That means scientists may have been looking at samples that are more representative of tropical, equatorial regions and using those to infer the average temperature on Earth.

More modern research, they found, supported the notion of a more temperate Earth.

That finding may resolve the faint young sun paradox, Wolf told LiveScience.

"This would allow liquid water and life to survive," Wolf said. "Looking at it from that view, the paradox ceases to become a paradox."

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook? and Google+.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50074921/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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News Corp?s iPad-Only Newspaper, The Daily, Shutting Down, Brand And Some Staff Folded Into New York Post

News Corp today announced that The Daily, it's iPad-only digital newspaper publication, would be stopping its standalone publication effective December 15, 2012. The Daily will continue as a brand as part of "other channels," according to a News Corp press release, including The New York Post, which will adopt its technology section and other components, as well as take on some of its staff.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_Y1A_zD_DXI/

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Hey, another new member.

Hello and yes you did.

This is the introductions forum. That's very interesting, the part about your school's...paideia? I had no idea what that was, so I Googled it and went on Wikipedia. Apparently, and this is from the Wiki, it's a sort of "rearing or educating" a well-rounded member of society. Thus they involved Moral, Intellectual, and Physical refinement of the individual. Moral - Music, Philosophy, Poetry; Intellectual - Arithmetic, Medicine; Physical - Wrestling, Gymnastics.

So...basically you guys have a giant "Everything" fess where you learn a bunch of stuff?

*sighs and shakes head*

Not getting it.

Anyway, I hope you get past your social anxiety. Your username harkens to me a Shakespearean theme, but whatever... *shrugs*

On behalf of everyone here at RPG, RolePlayGateway, we're glad to have you here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/X9PW2VoelW4/viewtopic.php

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Phineas Upham and the Philosophy Book Review Announce New ...

The Philosophy United Initiative will create a nonprofit outreach
program that brings philosophy education to developing nations
around the world.

Writer Phineas Upham and the Philosophy Book Review are collaborating to create a brand new outreach program entitled ?Philosophy United Initiative,? which seeks to bring philosophy writing to underprivileged youth by making it part of nonprofit educational programs in developing nations.

Phineas Upham, along with a team of philosophy bloggers, will develop a series of lesson plans and course materials, including worksheets, exams and classroom activities, to be distributed to schools across the world.?The human brain is the most powerful tool we have, ?said Upham, ?It is critical that children have the opportunity to develop their thinking skills from a young age.?

The initiative kicks off with an international tour of select schools partaking in the program. During these visits, Upham and participating Philosophy Book Review staff will meet with teachers and students and lead discussions on select course materials.

?I am extremely devoted to this cause and want to ensure that educators and students alike are getting the most out of the Philosophy United Initiative,? said Phineas Upham.

The prospective launch date for the program is February 2013.To learn more, please visit Philosophy Book Review.

About Philosophy United Initiative
The Philosophy United Initiative is a brand new outreach program that will seek to bring philosophy writing to underprivileged youth by making it part of nonprofit educational programs in developing nations. The program is a partnership between the Philosophy Book Review and author Phineas Upham. The goal of Philosophy United is to bring opportunities for critical and emotional growth to educational programs in developing nations by creating lesson plans and sending course materials to target schools around the world.

About Phineas Upham
Phineas Upham works as an investor in New York City and San Francisco and an editor on the Philosophy Book Review blog. He has experience doing financial research and analysis for a bulge-bracket investment bank and in macro-economic and technology investing at a leading hedge fund. Upham's community service involvement has been extensive, including serving as the youngest member of the Board of the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Young Friends. Phineas received his undergraduate degree with Honors from Harvard University, and advanced degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Source: http://newsguide.us/arts-entertainment/books/phineas-upham-and-the-philosophy-book-review-announce-new-philosophy.html

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Tax Justice Network: Media Training: Introduction to Illicit Finance ...

The Tax Justice Network is helping put together a remarkable new initiative. This blog contains an invitation to participate. It is directed primarily at journalists; participants from developing countries are particularly encouraged to apply.

Media Training: Introduction to Illicit Finance, Financial Secrecy & Asset Recovery

City University London, UK
19-22 March 2013

Over four days you will be shown how to investigate corporate accounts, offshore activity and corporate corruption. We will show you where to find documents, how to analyse them and other practical tools to help uncover financial secrecy.

A combination of hands-on training and top speakers will give you the basis to investigate financial corruption as well as offering the opportunity to network with other journalists. This course is aimed at practicing journalists who have an interest in investigating the financial sector. Experience in financial reporting an advantage but not a prerequisite.

If you are interested in attending, please download the form.

Source: http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2012/12/media-training-introduction-to-illicit.html

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