Israel airstrikes loom over U.S. diplomacy on Syria

MOSCOW (AP) ? Secretary of State John Kerry is making his case to Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to take a tougher stance on Syria at a time when Israel's weekend air strikes against the beleaguered Mideast nation have added an unpredictable factor to the talks.

Kerry arrived Tuesday in Moscow for talks with the most powerful ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Officials said Kerry hopes to change Moscow's thinking on Syria with two new angles: American threats to arm the Syrian rebels and evidence of chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime.

Over the weekend, Israeli warplanes targeted what Israel claimed were caches of Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group. Such weapons would allow Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv and as far as southern Israel from inside Lebanese territory.

Israel's willingness to hit Syrian targets it sees as threats to its own existence has complicated the Obama administration's internal debate over what to do about Syria.

Israel's actions put Damascus and Moscow on notice that the U.S. and its allies may not wait for an international green light to become more actively engaged in the Syrian conflict. The administration said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the Syrian rebels or taking other aggressive steps to turn the tide of the two-year-old civil war toward the rebels.

At the same time, Israeli involvement in the war carries risks. Instead of prodding Russia into calling for Assad's ouster, it could bring greater Arab sympathy for Assad and prompt deeper involvement from Iran and Hezbollah, actors committed as much to preserving Assad as to fighting the Jewish state.

Although Israel hasn't officially acknowledged it carried out the airstrikes, Syrian officials on Monday were blaming Israel, calling them a "declaration of war" that would cause the Jewish state to "suffer."

Russia, alongside China, has blocked U.S.-led efforts three times at the United Nations to pressure Assad into stepping down.

U.S. officials are hoping Syria's behavior could shift Russia's stance.

"We have consistently, in our conversations with the Russians and others, pointed clearly to Assad's behavior as proof that further support for the regime is not in the interest of the Syrian people or in the interest of the countries that have in the past supported Assad," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

U.S. officials said the administration doesn't believe the weekend activity will force President Barack Obama's hand, noting that the main U.S. concern is the use of chemical weapons by Assad, while Israel's top concern is conventional weapons falling into the hands of its enemies.

The chemical weapons argument is now under surprising attack, with former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte saying over the weekend she and fellow members of a four-member U.N. human rights panel have indications the nerve agent sarin was used by Syrian rebel forces, not by government forces.

That theory was rejected by U.S. officials. The State Department said the administration continues to believe that Syria's large chemical weapons stockpiles remain securely in the regime's control.

The Obama administration opened the door to new military options in Syria after declaring last week it strongly believed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in two attacks in March. Two days after that announcement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said arming the Syrian rebels was a policy consideration.

Until now, U.S. efforts to bolster the rebels' fighting skills and gather intelligence on the groups operating inside Syria have been limited to small training camps in Jordan, according to two U.S. officials who weren't authorized to speak about secret activities and demanded anonymity.

There are several options for escalation, ranging from arming the rebels to targeted airstrikes and no-fly zones. However, arming the rebels is the most likely escalation, officials said.

While the Israeli actions have made Kerry's Russia efforts more unpredictable, some in Congress tried to be optimistic.

Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he hopes Kerry can persuade Russia to use its influence to convince the besieged Syrian leader that he should step down.

"Hopefully the cooperation on the (Boston) Marathon bombing will open the door there," Ruppersberger said.

After visiting Moscow for the first time since he became secretary of state, Kerry will travel to Rome for talks with members of the new Italian government, as well as meetings with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh to discuss Middle East peace prospects.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-airstrikes-loom-over-us-diplomacy-syria-205537658.html

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Obama: There are no 'easy answers' on Syria

President Barack Obama at a news conference at White House on May 7. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)President Barack Obama defiantly defended his handling of Syria?s civil war on Tuesday, warning that Iraq showed the danger of acting on ?perceived? evidence of weapons of mass destruction. And for those who doubt his determination to see Syrian leader Bashar Assad ousted from power, Obama bluntly pointed to the fate of Osama bin Laden and slain Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

"I don?t make decisions based on 'perceived,' and I can?t organize international coalitions around 'perceived,'" Obama said during a joint press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. "We tried that in the past, by the way, and it didn?t work out well," he added, in a reference to Iraq.

Obama's comments came amid a chorus of questions and criticisms in response to the apparent use of chemical weapons by Assad's regime. The president last August labeled that kind of action a "red line" that could lead him to escalate America's role in the conflict, which the United Nations estimates has claimed the lives of at least 70,000 people. Republicans in Congress have pushed him to consider air strikes or the creation of a U.S.-enforced "no-fly zone" off limits to Syrian air power, and warned that the White House is sending a message of weakness to Assad.

"I would just point out that there have been several instances during the course of my presidency where I said I was going to do something, and it ended up getting done," Obama countered. "And there were times when there were folks on the sidelines wondering, 'Why hasn?t it happened yet?' and 'What?s going on?' and 'Why didn?t it go on tomorrow?'"

But in the end, Obama said, "whether it?s bin Laden or Gadhafi, if we say we?re taking a position, I would think at this point the international community has a pretty good sense that we typically follow through on our commitments." Elite U.S. commandos killed bin Laden in a May 2011 raid. And (after prodding from Congress) Obama made Gadhafi's removal a key part of the NATO-led campaign in Libya. Gadhafi was killed, apparently by Libyan rebels. Obama has provided rebels fighting to oust Assad with humanitarian aid. There have been news reports that American agents in Syria have been helping to train opposition forces and vet them to receive weapons from other countries?a sign of caution from Washington at a time when some of the best fighters against the regime have ties to al-Qaida. But administration officials say Obama also takes a pragmatic view of what America's core interests are and a skeptical view of calls to escalate America's role.

"We have both a moral obligation and a national security interest in a) ending the slaughter in Syria, but b) also ensuring that we?ve got a stable Syria that is representative of all the Syrian people, and is not creating chaos for its neighbors," Obama said Tuesday.

"Understandably, there?s a desire for easy answers. That?s not the situation there," he said. "And my job is to constantly measure our very real and legitimate humanitarian and national security interests in Syria, but measuring those against my bottom line, which is what?s in the best interests of America?s security and making sure that I?m making decisions not based on a hope and a prayer but on hard-headed analysis in terms of what will actually make us safer and stabilize the region."

Obama declared that "there'd be severe costs in doing nothing. That's why we're not doing nothing."

His remarks came as the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, told CBS News on Tuesday that the United States will "shortly" begin arming Syrian rebels, looking to boost moderate factions over al-Qaida-affiliated extremists whose rise would be a national security "nightmare."

"I do think we?ll be arming the opposition shortly," Corker of Tennessee said in an interview. "We?re doing a lot more there on the ground than really is known, but we do have to change the equation."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-bin-laden-gadhafi-show-m-serious-syria-190859250.html

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Optimal workout partner encourages less to motivate more

May 7, 2013 ? The best workout partner may be one who understands that silence is golden, according to one Kansas State University researcher in the College of Human Ecology.

Brandon Irwin, assistant professor of kinesiology, recently found that individuals tend to work out longer when their partner was perceived to be more skilled and was one who kept verbal encouragement to a minimum.

Irwin worked with researchers at Michigan State University on the study "You Can Do It: the Efficacy of Encouragement in Motivating the Weak Link to Exercise Longer During an Online Exercise Video Game," which will be published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. He said the team's goal was to determine how to increase motivation during physical activity.

"People like to exercise with other people," Irwin said. "In exercise groups, people tend to encourage each other, saying things like, 'Come on, you can do it.' We wanted to find out what effect this had on motivation."

In a separate study, Irwin discovered the optimal exercise partner is 40 percent better than the other, motivating the less skilled partner to exercise for a longer period of time and at an increased rate. In this study, 115 participants were told to do planks, an abdominal exercise, for as long as they could.

Next, the researchers told a group of participants they would be exercising with a partner who was slightly better, although the partner was a looped video recording. A third group was told they would be exercising with a partner -- also a recording -- but this time, the partner verbally encouraged them.

"Initially, it made sense to us that encouragement would be motivating," Irwin said. "However, we found almost the opposite to be true. When exercising with someone who is slightly better and who is not verbally encouraging, participants exercised longer than if conditions were the same but that person was verbally encouraging them. We didn't expect that."

Irwin said the researchers' best guess for why this happened is that those who received encouragement from a partner whom they perceived as more skilled may have interpreted the comments as condescending.

"If two individuals are exercising together and one is constantly saying 'you can do this' to the other, it may be taken as patronizing," Irwin said. "Those who received encouragement may have felt condescended, or even that their virtual partner was encouraging themselves, since no names were used."

Participants in the study were not aware that their partner was a recording and would never stop the exercise. The researchers told all participants that as soon as they stopped, their partner had to stop.

"Being the 'weak link' is a big motivator in partner or group exercise," Irwin said. "You don't want to let your partner down. We're honing in on that aspect of group exercise."

Irwin said this research could be used in designing electronic media, including both video games and social media. In a video game, the research findings could help develop the best virtual character in an exercise-based video game, like the Nintendo Wii Fit.

"Our research suggests that the best virtual workout partner is someone who is a little better than you and doesn't encourage you under certain conditions," he said.

Irwin added that these principles could also be applied to real workout partners on a proposed social media fitness website. Partners could be matched through an algorithm that would be used to dictate how much communication they should have.

"When you're communicating through an electronic medium, the designer puts restrictions on what and how you communicate with each other," Irwin said. "If you're partnered with your ultimate workout buddy, your communication could be facilitated or inhibited, depending on your preferences."

Irwin was the principle investigator of this study, which was supported by a $149,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Michigan State University.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/7P8hAv6LLT8/130507103028.htm

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For Obama, Costa Rica offered rare 'safe bet' trip

Costa Rica's strong tradition of democracy and longtime friendship with the United States ensured President Obama would enjoy a smooth - if uneventful - trip this weekend.?

By Tim Rogers,?Correspondent / May 5, 2013

President Barack Obama and Costa Rica's President Laura Chinchilla shake hands at the end of their joint press conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, Friday. Obama's three-day visit to Mexico and Costa Rica is his first to Latin America since winning a second presidential term.

Moises Castillo/AP

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Latin America?s least popular president finally has something to cheer about. Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, whose approval ratings barely register in double digits, could receive an ?Obama bounce? in the polls after the US president traveled to the capital city of San Jos? and heralded her country as an exemplary leader for Central America.

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In just his second visit to Central America and his first trip to Costa Rica, President Barack Obama this weekend called for new partnerships and increased integration with the region ??especially in the areas of trade, innovation, and energy. Mr. Obama, who arrived in San Jos? Friday afternoon to a rock star?s welcome of people lining the streets to cheer his motorcade, lauded Costa Rica for its historic commitments to democracy, peace, human rights, education and socio-economic development.

Costa Rican government officials and local pundits are proudly interpreting Obama?s visit as first-world recognition of their country?s new standing as an international player. Costa Rican Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo said Obama?s visit puts Costa Rica in a ?better position to become a modernized country on the path to progress.?

Nuria Mar?n, a political analyst for Teletica Channel 7 News, echoed those sentiments, calling Obama?s visit an acknowledgement of Costa Rica?s ?regional protagonism? and the country?s ?return to the geopolitical map.? Just by spending 24 hours in the capital city of San Jos?, Obama has helped to ?strengthen Costa Rica?s brand name for attracting more US tourism and investment,? Mar?n predicts.

Other analysts, however, are still scratching their heads over what the summit was all about. Some are even questioning whether Obama?s stop in Costa Rica was just part of an extended layover on a circuitous return flight to Washington after a tough two-day working trip in Mexico

?This has been one of the most mysterious presidential visits I have witnessed in the last two decades,? says Costa Rican political analyst and 2014 presidential hopeful Luis Guillermo Sol?s. ?Nothing seemed to make sense about the objectives of Obama?s visit.?

Costa Rica as vanilla ice cream

During his stay in San Jos?, Obama met privately and publicly with President Chinchilla, held a private dinner with his counterparts from Central America and the Dominican Republic, and participated in an investment forum with nearly 200 MBA students and Central American business leaders. The agenda items ranged erratically from trade, drugs, and immigration, to clean energy, gender equality, education, infrastructure, and gay marriage. The summit ended without a joint declaration and with no agreements, resolutions, or even a clear sense of what comes next.

Even the most innovative proposal that was discussed during the meeting (the possibility of using the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement [CAFTA] as a platform for the US to sell liquid natural gas to Central America to reduce the region?s soaring energy costs) was delivered with an asterisk when Obama said he still has to make an executive decision whether or not the United States even wants to export liquid natural gas.

Some analysts are calling Obama?s trip to Costa Rica an empty-handed courtesy call after being criticized for neglecting the region during his first term in office. And when it came to deciding which Central American country to visit, Costa Rica was viewed as a safest choice to get in and out without incident, says Nicaraguan political analyst Arturo Cruz.

?It?s difficult to go wrong with Costa Rica ??It?s a democracy with a vibrant economy and a friendly government that will always be friendly to the US,? Cruz says. ?Costa Rica is like vanilla ice cream; it?s a safe bet. How can you go wrong with vanilla ice cream??

Costa Rica also holds the pro tempore presidency of the Central American Integration System (SICA), which gave Obama the excuse of not playing favorites.

But given Central America?s current cast of presidents???Guatemala?s Otto Perez is a leading critic of the US drug war, El Salvador?s Mauricio Funes has failed to assume a regional leadership role that the US had hoped he would step into, Honduras? Porfirio Lobo is viewed as a political byproduct of the 2009 coup, Nicaragua?s Daniel Ortega is democratically challenged and prone to ?anti-yanqui? political ranting, and Panama?s Ricardo Martinelli is considered a loose cannon autocrat who is well-suited for his nickname, ?El Loco????Chinchilla was an easy pick, despite her unpopularity and socially conservative views.

Central America?s troubled integration

Though the presidents of the region managed to gather at the same dinner table for a meal with Obama, Central America?s strained integration process started to show through the smiles soon after desert was served. Few details were made public about the presidents? private meeting on Friday night, but by Saturday morning the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras had already left the country before Obama?s meeting with Central American business leaders.

Central America?s political integration, which has been a nonstarter since the early 19^th Century, has become even more strained in recent years as the various political leaders of the isthmus lead their countries in diverging directions. As Nicaragua seeks closer ties with countries such as Russia, Iran, and the leftist Latin American nations belonging to the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA), Costa Rica is celebrating what former president and Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias this week called his country?s ?extraordinary new chapter in the long history of friendship? with the United States.

Ironically, Nicaragua in some ways is on an equally good footing as Costa Rica to talk with Obama about the issues of renewable energy technologies, growing trade and investment under CAFTA, and citizen security???three areas in which Nicaragua is excelling. But politics being what they are, President Ortega, the former socialist firebrand whose revolutionary government battled US-funded counterrevolutionaries in the 1980s, remained quiet during the summit while Costa Rica grabbed the spotlight. Ortega departed Costa Rica early Saturday morning for another summit in Venezuela, where attitudes toward the Obama administration are markedly different than they are in Costa Rica.

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/lXupwLIpgKs/For-Obama-Costa-Rica-offered-rare-safe-bet-trip

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PFT: Abraham not retiring, despite tweets

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As former West Virginia/current Jets quarterback Geno Smith embarks on his NFL career, he?s getting advice from a couple of former West Virginia players who went to the NFL before him.

Former NFL defensive tackle John Thornton and former NFL cornerback Charles Fisher, both of whom played college football in Morgantown, have been advising Smith as he transitions to the NFL.? Thornton, whom we?ve known for several years, confirmed in a telephone interview that he and Fisher are indeed working with Smith.

Currently, that entails organizing the upcoming process of interviewing agents, which will occur on Tuesday and Wednesday.? In addition to Rick Smith of Priority Sports, David Dunn and Joby Branion of Athletes First, and Joel Segal, Eugene Parker also is expected to make a presentation.? The fledgling CAA/Roc Nation joint venture could be part of the process, but we?ve gotten mixed information on that point.? (It?s possible that Roc Nation will be involved, without CAA.)

Thornton also addressed persistent rumors that he and Fisher will be steering Smith to Priority Sports.

?I know people think we?re sending him to Priority, but that?s not the case,? Thornton said.? He explained that the decision of another one of his clients, Chiefs receiver Jon Baldwin, to hire Priority Sports has fueled speculation that Smith will, too.? Thornton pointed out that other players he is advising, including former Marshall receiver Aaron Dobson, a second-round pick of the Patriots, did not hire Priority Sports.

Thornton said he?s in the process of becoming certified by the NFLPA, so that he can become a full-service agent for the players he assists.? And he?s sensitive to the perceptions and the realities of the business.

?I?m trying to protect these kids,? Thornton said.? ?At the end of the day, everybody says they?re trying to help these guys and they?re not.?

With plenty of negative information piling up regarding Geno Smith and no one (including the Jets) working the media to push the other side of it, the sooner Smith hires an agent who can not only stop but also reverse the feeding frenzy, the better.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/05/report-john-abraham-isnt-retiring-despite-tweets-to-that-effect/related/

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Partnership to bring exclusive AOL portal to Verizon smart phone customers

AOL and Verizon bringing a new Internet portal to Verizon customers' phones and tablets this summer

America OnLine has announced that a new partnership with Verizon Wireless will allow them to bring the complete AOL.com portal to Android, Windows, and BlackBerry smart phones and tablets. They say they will be the "exclusive provider of the VZW Home mobile web portal." We're not exactly sure what that means, but they go on to say:

Beginning this summer, existing and new Verizon Wireless customers will have the AOL portal bookmarked on their smart phones and tablets’ web browsers. The multi-device experience will feature the recently refreshed AOL homepage -- with breaking news, weather and maps -- as well as live streaming events and popular videos. Personalization features will allow users to customize news sources, categories and other tools to their needs.

So it appears that a bookmark will be added to the device's default browser, leading users to an AOL page that provides curated news and events for Verizon subscribers. We're pretty sure you'll just be able to delete the bookmark should you feel the need, so we can't rail on them too hard. Look for your new portal to the Internet this summer.

At least its not Bing.

Source: Business Wire

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/oMhVcHk8J08/story01.htm

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Hearing the Russian meteor, in America

May 3, 2013 ? How powerful was February's meteor that crashed into Russia? Strong enough that its explosive entry into our atmosphere was detected almost 6,000 miles away in Lilburn, Ga., by infrasound sensors -- a full 10 hours after the meteor's explosion. A Georgia Tech researcher has modified the signals and made them audible, allowing audiences to "hear" what the meteor's waves sounded like as they moved around the globe on February 15.

Lilburn is home to one of nearly 400 USArray seismic/infrasound stations in use in the eastern United States. They are part of a large-scale project named "Earthscope," an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation that studies Earth's interior beneath North America. The stations are mainly deployed to record seismic waves generated from earthquakes, but their sound sensors can record ultra long-period sound waves, also known as infrasound waves.

The human ear cannot hear these infrasound signals. However, by playing the data faster than true speed, Georgia Tech faculty member Zhigang Peng increased the sound waves' frequency to audible levels. The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology's Data Managment Center provided the data.

"The sound started at about 10 hours after the explosion and lasted for another 10 hours in Georgia," said Peng, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He's confident that the sound is associated with the meteor impact because a slow propagation of the sound waves can be seen across the entire collection of USArray stations, as well as other stations in Alaska and polar regions.

"They are like tsunami waves induced by large earthquakes," Peng added. "Their traveling speeds are similar, but the infrasound propagates in the atmosphere rather than in deep oceans."

Scientists believe the meteor was about 55 feet in diameter, weighed more than 7,000 tons and raced through the sky at 40,000 miles an hour. Its energy was estimated at 30 nuclear bombs. More than 1,500 people were hurt.

Using the same sonification process, Peng also converted seismic waves from North Korea's nuclear test on February 12 and an earthquake in Nevada the next day. Each registered as a 5.1 magnitude event but created different sounds. The measurements were collected by seismic instruments located about 100 to 200 miles from each event. For further comparison, Peng has also created a seismic recording of the meteor impact at a similar distance.

"The initial sound of the nuclear explosion is much stronger, likely due to the efficient generation of compressional wave (P wave) for an explosive source," said Peng. "In comparison, the earthquake generated stronger shear waves that arrived later than its P wave."

Peng says the seismic signal from the meteor is relatively small, even after being amplified by 10 times. According to Peng, this is mainly because most of the energy from the meteor explosion propagated as the infrasound displayed in the initial sound clip. Only a very small portion was turned into seimsic waves propagating inside Earth.

This isn't the first time Peng has converted seismic data into audible files. He also sonified 2011's historic Tohoku-Oki, Japan, earthquake as it moved through Earth and around the globe.

The seismic and sound data generated by the meteor impact and other sources can be used to demonstrate their global impact. Scientists are also using them to better understand their source characterizations and how they propagate above and inside Earth.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ey5zc6TOo

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/7mm1Fm5d-a8/130503105033.htm

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Aw, Nuts

Racehorse owners often give their thoroughbreds funny or odd names. In this year?s Kentucky Derby, which will be held Saturday, the competitors include Itsmyluckyday, Charming Kitten, and Palace Malice. But owners can?t name their horses just anything. In 2007, Sports Nut explained the rules against obscene names.

Earlier this year, a man named Andy Hillis decided to christen his racehorse Nutzapper. A Tonight Show guest had used the term when referring, jokingly, to a male contraceptive; since his horse had been gelded, Hillis thought he had a good fit. But naming a Thoroughbred isn't as simple as coming up with a good double-entendre. The Jockey Club, the 103-year-old organization that holds the reins to the Sport of Kings in North America, has to sign off on every moniker. Hillis explained to the registry poobahs that as a young boy in Canada, he loved to zap walnuts in boiling oil and sprinkle them on salads. Satisfied that the name had a tasty, not tasteless, origin, the Jockey Club approved Nutzapper. Hillis, unable to contain his glee, boasted about the name to a Daily Racing Form reporter. "I've never even been to Canada," he said. "I just made the whole thing up on the spot."

Timing is everything when it comes to a good joke, and Hillis picked a bad moment to have a laugh at the expense of racing's powerful ruling body. Three weeks earlier, the Jockey Club had emerged victorious in a long, drawn-out federal court case over freedom of speech rights and racehorse names. After Hillis crowed to the Daily Racing Form, the name was barred within 48 hours. The odds are now stacked mightily against a horse named Nutzapper ever running in the Kentucky Derby.

What is the Jockey Club, and who put it in charge of naming horses? First off, it is neither a club nor comprised of jockeys. In addition to overseeing a myriad of statistical resources and underwriting an impressive amount of equine research, its chief function is as the keeper of the American Stud Book. If you want to race or breed a Thoroughbred, the Jockey Club has the final say, including what you are allowed to call your horse.

Roughly 60,000 Thoroughbred name requests are submitted every year, and registrar Rick Bailey must sign off on each one. Roughly one-third of the requests are rejected, primarily because they match existing names. In an effort to free up more names, the Jockey Club now "recycles" them after 10 years, so it is possible for horses from different eras to share the same name. There is a mind-blowing litany of other rules and regulations, but in general, no horse can have a name longer than 18 characters, a name that breaches a copyright or has obvious commercial significance, or the name of a "notorious" person. Emphatically forbidden are "names that are suggestive or have a vulgar or obscene meaning; names considered in poor taste; or names that may be offensive to religious, political or ethnic groups."

Had Hillis so chosen, he might have challenged the anti-Nutzapper ruling by pointing out numerous examples of lewd names that have slipped through. Despite vigilant efforts?prospective names are screened by a team of censors, matched up against urban slang dictionaries, and run through phonetics software to ensure they don't sound different than they look?the sport's officials sometimes get caught off guard.

Aside from the ill-fated Nutzapper, the Jockey Club's database reveals 131 horses whose names begin with the prefix Nut. Of course, you'd have to be Beavis or Butt-Head to find the vast majority of them titillating. But shouldn't somebody have questioned the precedent-setting Nut Buster way back in 1942? Similarly, Pussy Galore probably should have raised a few eyebrows in 1965. The filly never won a race, but one assumes she was a big hit with the stallions.

You want explicit commands? How about Blow Me (1945), Get It On (both 1971 and 1986), On Your Knees (1977 and 2005), Spank It (1985), or 1963's Go Down, whose sire, of course, was Service. Like 'em young? Embarrassingly enough, Jail Bait (1947 and 1983), Barely Legal (1982 and 1989), and Date More Minors (1998) all made it into the staid registry.

If a clever play on words is your thing, Cunning Stunt (1969) is a decent one. Lagnaf (1978) is a thinly veiled acronym for "let's all get naked and ? ." The names Hardawn (1937) and Wrecked Em (1983) have to be said out loud to elicit the desired potty-mouth effect.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=8476133608ff3884e6bac8534167a983

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Possibly the Best Music Discovery System Yet

In the digital age of ?nichification? it?s often easier to find lots of things you already like, while inadvertently walling yourself off from experiencing new things that you don?t know about yet. When it comes to music, recommendation systems like Pandora?s can help you discover music you may not have heard before, but that music is going to be related to the genre you?re already listening to.

Well, music data genius Glenn McDonald has a website to help you encounter music that you have definitely never heard of before. It?s called Every Noise at Once, and it just may be the easiest way to quickly familiarize yourself with everything in that wide world of music.

This site is a beautifully laid-out map of more music genres than you knew existed, arranged in clusters based seemingly loosely on their similarities. Here?s how McDonald describes the map:

This is an algorithmically-generated non-analytical map of the musical genre-space. Genres and artists are positioned by code and data, adjusted for legibility, but the underlying vectors are less interesting than the juxtapositions and clusters that they produce, so the axes have been deliberately left unlabeled and uncalibrated. You are invited to imagine your own qualities and magnitudes that the geometry might be expressing.

The best part is, click on a genre, and you?ll get a 30-seconds or longer preview of a representative song. But wait, there's even more: Click the >> sign next to the genre and you?ll navigate to another music map, just for that one genre, with even more previews based on the top artists in that style.

Now, because music isn't a science, surely there are a lot of issues that can be nitpicked with some genre names, spacing and emphasis, and the preview songs chosen for each genre, but first, you've got to realize how awesome this thing is as a whole. If you're having trouble with that, sit back, click the ?scan? button at the top of the homepage, and let it automatically flick through ?sludge metal,? ?warm drone,? ?chiptune,? ?boogaloo,? and ?chinese traditional,? as if you were listening to the most comprehensive radio station ever. [Every Noise At Once via Boing Boing]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/possibly-the-best-music-discovery-system-yet-489468794

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2013 Zero FX: The Hooligan-Approved Electric Motorcycle

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Range, range, range-- that's all EV buyers think about. And if you've ever been stranded because a vehicle ran out of juice, be it electric, fossil, or otherwise, you probably understand the engineering obsession with low rolling resistance tires, optimized aerodynamics, and?ultimate battery capacity.

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Zero Motorcycles has expanded the practical capabilities of their bikes for 2013, and the Scotts Valley, California-based company's flagship S model now claims 137 miles of city range, making it the longest legged EV motorcycle on the market.?

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During a recent test of the $15,995 DS ZF11.4 model, I flogged the thing on the highway, intermittently peaking at near triple-digit speeds, and extracted about 33 miles from a half charge, which is consistent with (if not, better than) their claims of 76 miles of range at a constant 55 mph. But the real treat came when I switched bikes and climbed aboard Zero's $11,990 FX model (seen above), a nasty little armaggedon-ready steed with aggro bodywork and a claimed combined range of only 43 miles.

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Why the modest mileage? The FX is the black sheep of the Zero lineup, packing a 70 ft-lb, 44 hp wallop in a package that weighs a feathery 275 pounds. Though my test ride was brief, it was far from forgettable: thanks to its rip-snorting power-to-weight ratio, the FX spent most of its time on one wheel, lunging ahead with the eager thrust of a short-geared flat track racer. Put simply, the FX is everything you'd never expect from an EV-- and for that reason alone, I'm relieved such a frivolous, genre busting bike exists.

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You may be craving more information about the perfectly sensible, range-focused DS model-- and you certainly may find it elsewhere on PM.com. But trust me when I say this: the FX is the one you'll want to cozy up with on a nice, bendy (and preferably short) road.

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Related: 2012 Zero S ZF9 Review

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/auto-blog/2013-zero-motorcycles-fx-the-electric-motorcycle-for-hooligans?src=rss

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What determines energy abundance? Flow.

Energy abundance depends entirely on the rate of the flow of oil, gas and other resources, Cobb writes. It is not, as many suggest, dependent on?supposed, but often unverified, fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

By Kurt Cobb,?Guest blogger / May 2, 2013

A worker is seen at an oil exploration site in Bulisa district, northwest of Kampala, Uganda.

Tullow Oil Uganda/Reuters/Handout

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Okay, I'm going to give you the shortest course ever in energy abundance: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow. Let me say it again: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow.

Skip to next paragraph Resource Insights

Kurt Cobb?is the author of the peak-oil-themed thriller, 'Prelude,' and a columnist for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen.?He is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas?USA, and he serves on the board of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. For more of his Resource Insights posts, click?here.

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Now, here is what it does NOT depend on: supposed,?but often unverified, fossil fuel reserves in the ground; hypothetical, sketchy, guesstimated, undeveloped, undiscovered resources imagined to be in the ground by governments or by energy companies and often deceptively referred to as "reserves"*; claims about future technological breakthroughs; mere public relations puffery about abundance in the face of?record high average oil prices.

Why is the rate of flow the key metric? Because in order to function the global economy depends entirely on continuous, high-quality energy inputs. We cannot shut down the world's electric generating plants for six months or even three months without crashing world society into a state of irretrievable chaos and decline. We cannot shut down the world's shipping fleet for even a few weeks without doing irreparable harm. Modern global society has become like a shark. It either keeps barreling forward or it dies.

Fossil fuels that are actually proven to be in the ground are by definition not currently being used, whatever we may consider their potential. Fossil fuels that are hypothetical and undiscovered by definition cannot be used. Technology is NOT energy. Technology runs ON energy. Energy first, then applied technology. The ancient Romans designed and built small steam engines and used them to animate children's toys. But, the Romans lacked the dense energy sources needed to make steam engines practical as a mode of transportation or of power for manufacturing.?