0 Shell ship grounding fuels Arctic drilling argue

There's no sign of a fuel drip from a petroleum drilling ship that ran aground on a remote Alaska island, the Coast Guard says of a maritime accident that has refueled debate over oil examination in the U.S. Arctic Ocean.
The Royal Dutch Shell PLC ship was being towed to a Pacific Northwest shipyard for preservation when it went aground during a cruel storm New Year's Eve.

"There are still no signs of any sheen or ecological impact and the Kulluk appears to be stable," Coast Guard Capt. Paul Mehler said Wednesday night, after flying over the rig with a Shell representative and an Alaska Environmental Conservation Department official.
He said he saw 4 life boats on the shoreline but there was no indication that other debris had been ripped from the ship.
The overflight in drizzle and 35 mph winds showed a few birds but no marine mammals near the rig, said Steve Russell of the Environmental Conservation Department.
Calmer climate conditions on Wednesday allowed a team of 5 salvage experts to be lowered by helicopter to the Royal Dutch Shell PLC ship to behavior a 3-hour structural assessment.
After the grounding, critics speedily asserted that it has foreshadowed what will happen north of the Bering Strait if drilling is allowed.
Environmentalists for years have said conditions are too cruel and the stakes too high to allow manufacturing development in the Arctic, where drilling sites are 1,000 miles or more from the closest Coast Guard base.
For oil giant Shell, which leads the way in drilling in the border waters of the U.S Arctic, a spokesman said the grounding will be a learning experience in the company's yearslong effort to draw oil from beneath the ocean floor, which it maintains it can do safely. Though no wells exist there yet, Shell says it has invested billions of dollars gearing up for drilling in the Beaufort and the Chukchi seas, off Alaska's north and northwest coast.
The potential bounty is high: The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 26.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas exist below Arctic waters.
Environmentalists note the Beaufort and Chukchi seas are some of the wildest and most remote ecosystems on the planet. They also are among the most fragile, supporting polar bears, the ice seals they feed on, walrus, endangered whales and other marine mammals that Alaska Natives depend on for their subsistence culture.
"The Arctic is just far different than the Gulf of Alaska or even other places on earth," said Marilyn Heiman, U.S. Arctic director for the Pew Environment Group.

Thanks: http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2013/01/03/check-of-grounded-drill-ship-stable-no-sheen

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0 Sandy deals a gust to well-liked US websites

As New York City experiences the Superstorm Sandy which has disturbed the functioning of the city, analysts are still in the process of the estimating the cost of the hurricane. According to the BBC News Magazine, some analysts expected damage totalling $10 billion to $20 billion.

A Superstorm is usually referred to as the downgraded version of a hurricane.

Investopedia, few months back did a study on the 5 costliest hurricanes in

The Huffington Post and other popular US websites struggled to get back on their feet Tuesday after superstorm Sandy knocked them out of cyberspace.

On its homepage, the Huffington Post blamed power outages triggered by Monday's storm for "technical difficulties" as it offered readers minimalist post-storm updates with no photos or links to other parts of its vast site.

"We are working around the clock to get the site back to normal," it said in a boldface editor's note.

The hip Manhattan-centric website Gawker and stablemates such as Jezebel and Gizmodo were also out of action overnight, although Gawker managed to restore minimal service using an old-school live blog format.

Buzzfeed invited its visitors Tuesday to proceed to the website's Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook accounts for fresh content, in the absence of homepage updates since Monday.

On its Tumblr account, Buzzfeed said it was told by DataGram an Internet service provider that also serves the Huffington Post and Gawker that it had sustained serious flooding during the storm.

Thanks: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/sandy-deals-a-blow-to-popular-us-websites-286555
http://in.finance.yahoo.com/photos/

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0 DIY Halloween Costumes: Michelle Obama

Halloween is hands down the best thing that has ever been invented. Every week this month, I am going to show you how to make a totally kewl Halloween costumes, because I’m tired of seeing a bunch of you dressed like the Mario Brothers and/or sexy cats.

Halloween is supposed to be scary. When I imagine Michelle Obama getting mad, I feel like I’m about to shit my pants and then pass out. The first time I saw a picture of her, I was simultaneously shocked and amazed, as if I had just seen a public execution. Michelle Obama is just so, so, so much woman. Those biceps. That Harvard degree. It is truly terrifying. 

How to Make Your Own Michelle Obama Costume in Three Easy Steps
 


1.) Before you get too creative with this, the first thing you need to do is master the regular things that people notice about Michelle Obama. Michelle is one of the most fashionable first ladies in history. That’s a tough gig to pull off. Your outfits should be able to make people respect you, but also make them salivate at the same damn time. So for this costume, I would suggest picking out something that you may have worn to your grandmother’s 80th birthday party, where you may or may not have convinced your cousin’s boyfriend to eat you out in the back room. 

Great. So now you want to add some extra effects. Find something cheap or old that you won’t mind ripping apart. You could tear a few seams open and fray the fabric in a few places to give it more of that “Hulk” vibe that’s so defining of her character. Also note that all first ladies love to wear pearls, so be sure to wear any pearl jewelry that you have. 

2.) Next you have to build your Obama arms. These arms have received a lot of press over the past four years, so make sure you give this part of your costume all of the attention that it deserves. One of the easiest arm-building strategies I found was to use a shit load of socks. I happened to have these thigh-high knitted socks just lying around, but you could also use cheap spandex tights, or an old polyester shirt. You just want to make sure you’re choosing a material that will stretch and conform to the shape you give it.

So once you put on your arm-tubes, just start shoving all of the socks that you own into the top opening near your shoulders. It’s going to look really fucked up at first, but keep molding and kneading the socks until you look like a body builder. 

3.) Finally—and most importantly—is the mask. The Michelle mask is going to bring the whole ensemble together. Making masks is the easiest fucking thing in the world. You do not have to go to a costume store and spend 50 dollars on a shitty mold of plastic that will make your face sweat and smell like condoms. Just go onto Google Images and search whatever it is you want to make a mask of—which in this case is Michelle Obama—print it out, and then poke out holes for your eyes. 

I like using string to attach the mask to my head, because it’s more malleable than, say, an elastic headband or a staple gun. 

Thanks: http://www.vice.com/read/diy-halloween-costumes-michelle-obama

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0 Hotel Transylvania Review

The film tells a story of Dracula, the owner of Hotel Transylvania, where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters, including Frankenstein's monster, Mummy, a Werewolf family, and the Invisible Man, to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis. When the hotel is unexpectedly visited by an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan, Dracula must protect Mavis from falling in love with him before it is too late.

Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) is the owner and creator of Hotel Transylvania, a five-star resort where the world's monsters can be safe from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters like Frankenstein's Monster (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Bigfoot, The Blob, and other monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his daughter Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez). However, Mavis prefers to explore the outside world with her father's permission, but the village he directs her to is actually an elaborate deception to convince her of the threat of humans enough to coax her back.

However, this charade inadvertently attracts the attention of an ordinary young traveler named Jonathan (voiced by Andy Samberg) who was exploring the surrounding forest and he follows the staff to the hotel. Once Jonathan enters the hotel, Dracula frantically attempts to hide him from the patrons such as disguising him as a Flesh Golem named Johhny-stein with the later hasty cover story of being a relative of one of Frank's body parts. Eventually, Jonathan is discovered by Mavis and company, forcing Dracula to claim he is going to arrange Mavis' birthday party with a young perspective. In doing so, Jonathan manages to liven up the staid activities at the hotel, charming everyone, especially Mavis. Eventually, even Dracula begins to like the human, taking him into his confidence about his family's traumatic past after the vampire notices the young man knows something about them in a respectful manner.

Unfortunately, Chef Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz) realizes Jonathan is human and captures him to cook him, forcing Dracula to directly intervene by magically paralyzing the chef. Eventually, the birthday party happens and it is a raucous success until Dracula overreacts to Mavis and Jonathan's innocent kiss. Things get worse when Chef Quasimodo interrupts the party and reveals Jonathan's true nature. Even as the clientele are revolted, Dracula, in his ranting, lets it slip that he tricked Mavis at the fake village and Mavis is outraged at being manipulated by her own father but still accepts and expresses her desire to be with Jonathan even though he is human. For his part, Jonathan feels obliged to reject Mavis for her father's sake and leaves the hotel. Afterward, Dracula realizes that in his efforts to protect Mavis, he has broken her heart and now she tearfully wants to stay at the hotel forever.

Wishing to undo his mistake, Dracula persuades his friends to help him find Jonathan and even risks his destruction by venturing out in the daylight to do so. Learning that Jonathan is about to board a flight out of Transylvania Airport shortly, they race on and enter a town en route. At that town, Dracula and company are stunned to see the humans celebrating a monster holiday with many humans costumed as the monsters in tribute. To clear a path, Frankenstein tries to scare them, but finds the humans are cheerfully welcoming them instead and even provide a shaded route through the town for Dracula to proceed at maximum speed.

However, Dracula finds that he is too late with Jonathan's plane taking off. With no alternative, Dracula desperatly flies after it in broad daylight despite being hurt by the sun. With much effort, Dracula manages to reach the plane and resorts to mind-controlling one of the pilots (Brian Stack) to apologize and tell Jonathan that he wants him to return to be with his daughter. Jonathan accepts Dracula's apology and Dracula manipulates the plane back to the airport.

Later, Dracula returns Jonathan to Mavis, who tells her that she's his 'zing' and the reason why he had to reject her. Dracula gives his blessing to their relationship, Jonathan and Mavis kiss and the hotel has another party to celebrate his daughter's liberating coming of age before Jonathan and Mavis set off on their travels.

The film ends with Dracula and his friends being shown in Traditional animation during the credits.

Thanks : wikipedia

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0 Obama congratulate NASA for Mars hallway

President Barack Obama says NASA's successful mission to put a robotic rover on Mars is an "unprecedented feat of technology."

In a statement issued Monday shortly after the rover Curiosity landed, Obama said "Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history."

He says the feat, which gives the space agency a much-needed boost, proves that even the longest odds are no match for American ingenuity and determination.

The president says the mission, which cost taxpayers $2.5 billion, shows that American preeminence "depends on continuing to invest wisely in the innovation, technology, and basic research that has always made our economy the envy of the world."

Obama also congratulated the NASA workers "who made this remarkable accomplishment a reality."

Thanks: http://www.wandtv.com/story/19201688/obama-praises-nasa-for-mars-landing

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0 Ice Age: Continental Drift Review

Ice Age: Continental Drift (also known as Ice Age 4: Continental Drift or simply as Ice Age 4) is a 2012 American 3-D computer-animated adventure/comedy film directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier, starring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Keke Palmer, Chris Wedge, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lopez, Wanda Sykes, Drake and Nicki Minaj.

It is the fourth installment of the Ice Age series, being produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox, and the first sequel not to be directed by Carlos Saldanha.It was the second Ice Age installment that utilises Digital 3D. It was released in the US on July 13, 2012, three to six years after its predecessors The Meltdown and Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and ten years after the release of the original Ice Age. This was the first Ice Age film to be shot in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

Despite receiving a mixed reaction from critics, the film became a box office hit, currently the 11th highest-grossing animated feature in history, with a worldwide gross of $653 million.

Story

As in the previous films, the protagonists are the mammoth Manny, the sloth Sid, the saber-toothed cat Diego, and, in a parallel storyline, the saber-toothed squirrel Scrat. Scrat's hunt for acorns triggers the break-up of the Pangaea landmass into the continents as we know them today. In the meantime, Manny and his wife Ellie deal with their teenage daughter Peaches who has a crush on Ethan. Peaches' best friend, a molehog named Louis, appears to have a crush on her. Sid's family(who had abandoned him), appear to have been looking for him, but it is revealed that they only want to leave Sid's annoying Granny with him and leave him again, leaving Sid to wonder whether his family loves him or not. When Manny catches Peaches hanging with Ethan after he told her not to, Manny and Peaches argue, then fall out. Soon after, the breakup of the continent separates Manny from his family. Manny gets stuck on a floating ice raft with Sid, Diego and Granny. A large moving landmass drives Ellie, Peaches, Crash and Eddie, Louis, Ethan, and a herd of other animals towards a land bridge, where Manny had told them to go.

Meanwhile, Scrat, also lost at sea, comes across an island and runs when he sees a skeleton. He then finds an acorn-shaped map, which leads to a mysterious acorn-filled island. Scrat decides to follow the map and find the island. As he begins his journey, he is captured by a gang of animal pirates on a large ship-shaped iceberg, who are sailing the oceans.

Manny and his friends are also captured by the pirate gang, led by a Gigantopithecus named Gutt. Gutt and the pirate gang attempt to shanghai Manny, telling him to forget his family and former life and join the pirates, but he refuses. Gutt takes this as an insult, and attempts to make the herd walk the plank, but they (along with Scrat, who continues his journey) manage to escape, in the process destroying the pirate ship. They rescue the female pirate saber-toothed cat Shira, who had been left behind by the pirates.

The group reaches an island and encounters a group of hyraxes, as well as the pirates, who are building a new ice ship elsewhere on the same island. The herd plan to steal the ship and use it to get home. The next morning, as the herd is preparing their plan, Shira escapes and rejoins the pirates, but gets choked and threatened to be killed by Gutt, after Gutt realizes that she had not attacked them but she had tricked Gutt into saving Manny and the herd. The herd, along with the hyraxes, overtake the new ice ship and, with some help from Shira, sail away. Gutt, in anger, quickly turns a new iceberg into a ship, propelled by narwhals, and chases Manny's gang, determined to get revenge.

Meanwhile, Peaches has been still hanging with Ethan and a group of teenage mammoths, but after realizing that they don't care about the danger and thinking that being a best friend with a molehog is ridiculous, she leaves them and returns to Louis. But by then, Louis has become convinced that Peaches doesn't consider him a friend after she told Ethan and his friends that they weren't friends. When Ellie, Peaches, Louis, Crash and Eddie reach the land bridge, they find it to be destroyed. Meanwhile, Manny, Sid, Granny and Diego encounter sirens, depicted as sharp-toothed creatures who take the shape of loved ones and attempt to lure the sailors. Fortunately, Manny realizes this and manages to steer the ship away from the sirens. Later, Scrat meets a siren, which uses the shape of his former girlfriend from the third film, Scratte, to attempt to lure him. Scrat blows a raspberry and ignores it, however the siren takes the shape of an acorn, causing Scrat to get hype and hug it. The siren changes back and attacks Scrat, but he is able to get away.

The next morning, Manny, Sid, Diego and Granny finally reach home, but, much to their horror, find out that Gutt and his pirate gang had beaten them to it and captured Ellie and Peaches. Manny attempts to turn himself in to Gutt in exchange for releasing his family, but Gutt doesn't keep his side of the bargain and prepares to kill the family. Louis, Crash and Eddie, come to their rescue, starting a battle, during which Peaches saves Manny, Diego distracts Gutt , and Sid and Granny are saved by Granny's presumed imaginary pet Precious, a gigantic Livyatan melvillei, defeating the pirates by spraying them after Sid blocks her blowhole. Shira tries to save Ellie but she is hurt by Gutt, as the heroes are about to escape,Manny realizes he left Ellie in the sinking ship with Gutt goes on to kill her. Whoever Peaches uses her abilities as half possum to save Ellie. But when Manny saves them from the sinking ship, Gutt attacks, making them engage in a final fight atop a ice raft. Manny manages to defeat him with his heavy body and using a log as a bat to smack Gutt far away. However he falls from the ice raft, but he is saved by Sid, Granny, and Precious. Manny then arrives in time to pick up the other animals including Ethan's gang, who are caught between the moving landmass and the ocean at the location where the land bridge once existed. Meanwhile, Gutt is killed when he ends up being tricked and devoured by a siren, taking on the shape of a female of his species. After sailing over the ocean, the herd and all the animals find another continent (where the hyraxes have gone, too) which they accept as their new home. Manny and Peaches reconcile, Manny finally admits that Sid is not the screw-up after all, Sid fixes Granny's problem of having no teeth, Diego and Shira become a couple, and Louis is finally allowed to be with Peaches whenever she hangs out with Ethan's gang.

The film ends with Scrat finally reaching the island on the map, Scratlantis (a Scrat version of Atlantis); a floating city filled with other sabre-toothed squirrels and nuts. However, Scrat, due to his nut obsession, grabs many nuts in a frenzy and eventually attempts to grab a giant one blocking a hole. He grabs it, despite the sabre-toothed squirrel leader's warnings, causing the city to sink to the bottom of the ocean, leaving Scrat in the middle of a desert in North America. Scrat's eyes burn, and he screams in pain and frustration. During the credits Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie, Crash and Eddie, Peaches, Louis, and the whole gang dance to "We Are Family".

Thanks: Wikipedia

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0 Romney assure tax free for Olympians

In a country riven by taxation discord, Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney has hit on a populist measure that is a sure-fire winner: tax relief for US Olympians on the medals they win.

Some Republicans, including possible Romney running-mate Senator Marco Rubio, had already spoken out against the little-noticed element in the tax code that taxes athletes for bringing home gold, silver or bronze.

Yesterday a senior Romney adviser said the presumptive Republican nominee challenging President Barack Obama for the White House in November was also against the policy.

Romney headed the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, and "he believes that there should be no taxation of the type that you're describing," advisor Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters.

Romney is a multimillionaire former businessman and investor, and advocates significant tax cuts for individuals and corporations and simplification of the tax code.

The comments come a day after Rubio introduced the Olympic Tax Elimination Act in the Senate. Republicans and Democrats reportedly introduced similar legislation in the House.

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," said Rubio.

"Athletes representing our nation overseas in the Olympics shouldn't have to worry about an extra tax bill waiting for them back home."

The legislation follows a report by the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), which warned that athletes could be required to pay up to US$9,000 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service for each gold medal.

That's not just for the medal itself; the US Olympic Organising Committee awards US$25,000 to gold medal winners, US$15,000 for silver and US$10,000 for bronze.

Fact-checker group PolitiFact rated the ATR report as "mostly false," arguing that most athletes are not huge earners like swimmer Michael Phelps and would not be subject to high tax rates, and that they could also deduct their training expenses, which often amount to several thousand dollars per year, from their income.

US lawmakers are currently locked in a fierce tax debate.

Republicans, including Romney, want tax cuts from the era of former president George W Bush extended for another year for everyone, while Obama and Democrats want the tax breaks extended only for families making under US$250,000, meaning wealthier Americans would see their taxes rise in 2013.

Thanks:  http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Romney-promises-tax-relief-for-Olympians_12146136

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